The Saint Mary's Gaels will come up at least one game short in their bid for a perfect WCC season. Saint Mary's flew up to Spokane with an 11-0 conference record, but they will return to Moraga 11-1 following a tough 73-59 defeat the hands of the Gonzaga Bulldogs. Gonzaga now sits a game back of SMC in the WCC standings.
Although Gonzaga pulled away late, this was a battle for the first three quarters of the game. The teams exchanged leads in the first half before Gonzaga took a lead into halftime. SMC took a two point lead at the 17:37 mark of the second half, but that would prove to be their last lead of the game. It was a sluggish game throughout as neither team could get anything going for a six minute stretch. The teams scored a combined six points from the 15:15 mark to the 9:55 mark as it was a fairly ugly affair.
Saint Mary's struggled mightily shooting the ball, hitting 37.5% of shots from the field and only 23.8% from three. They were beaten on the boards 35-27 and their bench provided little help with only ten points. All in all, it was a struggle for the Gaels.
Saint Mary's heads home for a pair of games, starting with Santa Clara on Saturday. The Broncos have yet to win a conference game, so SMC will look to use it as a rebound game. They follow that up with an unexpected showdown with Loyola Marymount next Thursday. LMU is undefeated on the road, but has yet to travel to Saint Mary's or Gonzaga. They went into Provo and beat BYU, and will look to spring another such upset against the Gaels.