The Zappos.com West Coast Conference Basketball Tournament gets going Wednesday evening at the Orleans Arena in Las Vegas. The tournament opens with the bottom two seeds taking part in a virtual play-in game. The entire tournament is available through live streaming, with ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPNU picking up the quarterfinals, semifinals and finals (in reverse order).
The No. 8 seed Portland Pilots (6-23, 3-13) will meet the No. 9 seed Santa Clara Broncos (8-21, 0-16) on Wednesday night at 6 p.m. PST in a game that will be televised on WCCSports.com. The remaining games of the tournament will be televised by either BYUtv or the ESPN family of networks, including ESPNU, ESPN2, and ESPN.
The Pilots have lost six straight heading into the tournament, but will still be modest favorites over the epically struggling Santa Clara Broncos. Santa Clara went 0-16 in conference play and is in the midst of a 17-game losing streak ever since the bizarre ending in their loss to Wagner in the Cable Car Classic. Portland won their first meeting at home 84-74 and their second meeting on the road 84-78.
The winner of this game will face the No. 5 seed San Francisco Dons on Thursday night in a 6 p.m. PST game televised by BYUtv. The second game Thursday night will pit the No. 6 seed San Diego Toreros against the No. 7 seed Pepperdine Waves.