After a tough home loss to St. Mary's on Saturday, Gonzaga is now in danger of missing the NCAA Tournament for the first time in Mark Few's 17 years as head coach. Now the Bulldogs need wins in their final two games of the regular season, on the road against San Diego and BYU, and a decent run in the West Coast Conference Tournament in order to qualify for the dance this year.
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HOW THE GONZAGA BULLDOGS CAN COVER THE SPREAD
St. Mary's stifling defense shut the Zags down last Saturday, but that has happened to most of the teams the Gaels have played this season. Gonzaga will almost certainly shoot better than the 35.5 percent it shot from the floor versus the Cougars.
Kyle Wiltjer is Gonzaga's leading scorer and is currently averaging 20.8 points a night. Wiltjer was held in check by the Gaels, hitting just 5-of-16 shots from the floor, but performed well when Gonzaga took on BYU earlier in the season. At that time, Wiltjer hit 11 of his 23 shots for 35 points and also picked up 10 rebounds to record his fourth double-double on the season.
The Bulldogs lost by one in that game, mainly because the rest of the team went 10-for-34 from the field, and if Wiltjer puts up those numbers again it's hard to imagine they lose again.
If Wiltjer struggles, the Bulldogs have another great player in Domantas Sabonis. Sabonis is a double-double machine, registering five straight double-doubles before the game against the Gaels last week. He'll look to atone for his performance against BYU earlier in the season. Sabonis had the worst game of his career then, putting up just five points and six rebounds.
HOW THE BYU COUGARS CAN COVER THE SPREAD
BYU is one of the higher scoring teams in the West Coast Conference and the Cougars shoot threes just as often as anyone. The Cougars are averaging 8.8 made three point attempts per game and have two players hitting over 2.5 threes a game.
Chase Fischer is the team's leading scorer at 18 points per game and hits three long range attempts a game on average. Nick Emery is BYU's second leading point scorer, averaging 16 PPG and knocking down 2.6 three pointers a game on average. As a team, BYU ranks No. 33 in the nation in three point percentage, sinking 38.3 percent of its threes.
Kyle Collinsworth was the leading scorer for BYU when these two met previously. He went 9-for-18 from the floor for 20 points, but it was Emery who made the three that won the game. It was the only field goal attempt Emery made all night but it ended up being the most important.
ANALYSIS AND ODDS PREDICTION
The Zags haven't been a great ATS team at all this NCAAB season, managing just a 10-15-1 mark ATS. Gonzaga is 3-6 ATS on the road thus far and five of those nine games have gone under the total.
BYU has been the opposite of Gonzaga, holding a stellar 15-10-1 record against the spread. The Cougars have been even more impressive at home with a 7-3-1 ATS mark and six of those games combining to go under the total.
Both BYU and Gonzaga need as many wins as they can muster for their tournament resumes, but Gonzaga should be able to pull this one out. Wiltjer and Sabonis are as dangerous a tandem as there is in the WCC and barring BYU draining a barrage of threes, that should be enough to get the job done in hostile territory for the Bulldogs.
Gonzaga 78, BYU 72
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