Down to cases: The WCC

Santa Clara won in Spokane last night, giving the Broncos a one-game lead over Gonzaga in the WCC regular season title race.

Gonzaga has a home game against Portland and road games @San Francisco and @San Diego to finish the season. Santa Clara gets San Diego at home before finishing @Pepperdine and @Loyola Marymount.

Santa Clara lost to Loyola Marymount at home in January, a result that appears to be Gonzaga's last, best hope to get a share of the conference title.

Having no idea how the tie-breaker for seeding in WCC Conference Tournament would work in the case of co-champions who split their regular season meetings (with Santa Clara a single point per 100 possessions to the good over the two games), let's speculate on which team would be favored to gain the WCC's automatic bid.

Team	Record	OffEff	DefEff	Diff
Gonzaga	6-9	107	110	-3
vs. WCC	8-3	112	96	+16

Wins: vs. UNC (+10), vs. Texas (+11), @Santa Clara (+13), @Portland (+21), @Stanford (+4), @Pepperdine (+37)

Losses: vs. Butler (-17), @Washington State (-14), vs. Georgia (-13), vs. Duke (-19), vs. Nevada (-12), @Virginia (-32), @St. Mary's (-7), @Loyola-Marymount (-8), Santa Clara (-14)

Gonzaga wouldn't figure to have much of a chance hosting Memphis this Saturday with Josh Heytvelt. In the two games without him, they've barely topped a point per possession offensively. If Heytvelt is out for the rest of the year, I seriously doubt the selection committee takes Gonzaga's at-large bid seriously.

Team	Record	OffEff	DefEff	Diff
Santa Clara	8-7	97	97	0
vs. WCC	9-2	108	94	+14

Wins: vs. Alabama State (+43), @Pacific (+27), @Stanford (+24), @San Diego (+17), @San Francisco (+6), @St. Mary's (+9), @Portland (+39), @Gonzaga (+14)

Losses: @Cal (-36), Nevada (-16), @Missouri State (-37), @Kentucky (-18), Air Force (-58), Gonzaga (-13), Loyola-Marymount (-4)

Santa Clara has almost caught Gonzaga in the WCC average efficiency margin standings, and, though they have an even worse resume for an at-large bid than does Gonzaga, I think they would have to be favored over a Heytvelt-less Zags squad in the WCC Tournament.

If they can't avenge their home loss to Loyola Marymount, though, I'd probably waffle on my speculative outcome.