The Gonzaga Bulldogs won the West Coast Conference Tournament championship with a dominant 71-59 win over the No. 15 BYU Cougars.
BYU's Shaylee Gonzales, left, and Gonzaga's Abby O'Connor scramble for the ball during the first half of an NCAA women's championship college basketball game at the West Coast Conference tournament Tuesday, March 8, 2022, in Las Vegas. • BYU women’s basketball coach Jeff Judkins fought back tears as he spoke about how much he loved the fight from his Cougars team.
BYU lost the West Coast Conference Tournament championship game to Gonzaga on Tuesday afternoon by a score of 71-59. It was just the team’s third loss of the season, that still has more opportunity ahead. Selection Sunday is less than a week away, and the team has been projected as a No. 5 seed in the NCAA Tournament for several weeks.“It’s emotion because the players wanted it,” Judkins said as tears welled up in his eyes again.
The Cougars lost to Gonzaga in last season’s WCC Tournament title game on a last-second shot, and the team was hoping for a chance to avenge that loss this year.Now the Cougars await where the NCAA’s selection committee for Division I women’s college basketball will place them. Losing the tournament championship game took the fate out of BYU’s hands.
Judkins said he feels his team deserves to be a fifth or sixth seed. Charlie Creme, a women’s basketball bracketologist for ESPN, tweeted that the Cougars should be a “no-doubter” for an at-large bid.Really good crowd and super intense game at the WCC final at the Orleans in Las Vegas. Looks like