Brackets announced for 2017 WCC Basketball Championships

SAN BRUNO, Calif. – The West Coast Conference has announced the brackets and game times for the 2017 WCC Basketball Championships at the Orleans Arena in Las Vegas. The tournament will begin with a women's opening round match-up at 12:00 p.m. PST on Thursday, March 2 and continue through the men's championship game on Tuesday, March 7. All 18 games will be televised live nationwide, and all 18 will be streamed on-line.

Thursday, March 2 features a full day of women's basketball action. Seeds 7-10 will play in the tournament's two opening round games followed by the first two of four women's quarterfinals.

Friday, March 3 opens with two women's quarterfinals followed by two men’s opening round games between seeds 7-10. Saturday, March 4 is devoted to the four men's basketball quarterfinals.

There will be no games on Sunday, March 5, and the tournament resumes with women's and men's semifinals on Monday, March 6. The two champions will be crowned on Tuesday, March 7.

Gonzaga finished as the WCC men’s basketball regular season champion with a 17-1 record, followed by Saint Mary’s one game behind with a 16-2 record. BYU claims the three-seed for the third consecutive season after posting a 12-6 mark.

Santa Clara is the fourth-seed and will open tournament play against fifth-seed San Francisco in Saturday's quarterfinal round for the second straight year. Both teams finished with identical 10-8 records, but the Broncos hold a tiebreaker by virtue of a win against BYU.

Loyola Marymount claimed the sixth seed and will take on BYU in the quarterfinal. Friday opening round games will feature seven-seed San Diego facing 10th-seeded Portland and eight-seed Pepperdine facing nine-seed Pacific.

On the women's side, Gonzaga claimed the regular season championship with a 14-4 conference record. BYU and Saint Mary’s posted identical 13-5 records, but the Cougars take the two-seed by virtue of a tiebreaking win against Gonzaga.

San Francisco is the fourth-seed at 11-7 with Loyola Marymount and Santa Clara tied with identical 9-9 records for fifth and sixth. The Lions hold a tiebreaker over the Broncos with a win against Saint Mary’s. Santa Clara will face Saint Mary’s and Loyola Marymount will face San Francisco in Thursday’s quarterfinals.

San Diego (seven), Pepperdine (eight), Pacific (nine) and Portland (10) round out the women's bracket, and will start tournament play on Thursday afternoon in the opening round.

For the fourth straight year, every game from the 2017 West Coast Conference Championships will be nationally televised. Twelve games can be seen live in well over 60 million homes nationwide via cable and satellite on BYUtv. Those games - including eight women's games and the first four men's games - will also be streamed live on TheW.tv, the West Coast Conference's digital platform.

For the third straight year, Spectrum SportsNet, the home of the Los Angeles Lakers, will televise the first two men's quarterfinals on Saturday. These broadcasts can also be seen on Comcast SportsNet Bay Area and ROOT Sports Northwest. The two men's evening quarterfinals will be televised on ESPN2 beginning at 7 p.m.

On Monday, one men's semifinal will air at 6 p.m. on ESPN, with the other semifinal immediately to follow on ESPN2. The order of Monday's semifinals is to be determined following Saturday's games.

On Tuesday, the women's championship game will be shown nationwide at 1 p.m. on ESPNU. At 6 p.m., the West Coast Conference men's championship game will air live on ESPN. All six ESPN Networks telecasts can also be seen live on WatchESPN.

New this year, eight West Coast Conference Tournament games will also be streamed live on Twitter, marking the first postseason basketball games to stream to that social platform.

The men's and women's winners of the 2017 West Coast Conference Basketball Championships will each receive an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament.

Friday, March 3

No. 8 Pepperdine vs. No. 9 Pacific, 6:00 p.m. (BYUtv, TheW.tv, Twitter)
No. 7 San Diego vs. No. 10 Portland, 8:0 p.m. (BYUtv, TheW.tv, Twitter)

Saturday, March 4 

No. 3 BYU vs. No 6 Loyola Marymount, 1:00 p.m. (Spectrum SportsNet, CSN Bay Area, ROOT Rocky Mountain, BYUtv, TheW.tv, Twitter)
No. 4 Santa Clara vs. No. 5 San Francisco, 3:00 p.m. (Spectrum SportsNet, CSN Bay Area, ROOT Rocky Mountain, BYUtv, TheW.tv, Twitter)
No. 1 Gonzaga vs. No. 8/9, 7:00 p.m. (ESPN2, WatchESPN)
No. 2 Saint Mary’s vs. 7/10, 9:00 p.m. (ESPN2, WatchESPN)

 Monday, March 6

TBA - Men's Semifinal No. 1, 6:00 p.m. (ESPN, WatchESPN)
TBA - Men's Semifinal No. 2, 8:30 p.m. (ESPN2, WatchESPN)

Tuesday, March 7 

Men's Championship Game, 6:00 p.m. (ESPN, WatchESPN)