Tiebreaker UPDATE 2/15/2020

BYU is still looking very good for the 2nd seed/triple bye in the WCC tournament, with our first game in the semis on Monday, March 9.

Scenario 1: Win out including beating Gonzaga: BYU retains sole possession of 2nd place and the 2nd seed in the tournament

Scenario 2: Win out other than an expected loss to the Zags. Final league record would be 12-4. St. Mary's can only match that by winning out themselves INCLUDING a win at Gonzaga, so if St. Mary's drops that game (or any other), we are in. If BYU loses twice, there could be a tiebreaker with St. Mary's and/or Pacific with 5 losses each.

Scenario 3: Tiebreaker # 1 = head-to-head. In the event we tie St. Mary's in the league standings (most likely would occur if we lose to a non-Gonzaga opponent or if St. Mary's wins out and beats Gonzaga), we have a 1 and 1 record vs the Gaels and would have to go to the next tiebreaker. We beat Pacific in our only meeting this year so a 2nd seed tiebreaker between BYU and Pacific would end here in BYU's favor. We split with USF but a 2nd place tie with only them is extremely unlikely at this point, requiring us to lose 2 more games than they do (they still play Gonzaga this week) with St Mary's losing 3 or more and Pacific losing 2 or more.

Scenario 4: Tiebreaker #2 = record vs league opponents starting at the top of the standings. If St. Mary's beats Gonzaga and ends up tied with BYU in the win-loss standings, they would own the tiebreaker by virtue of a better head-to-head record vs. the top team in the league. BYU would continue to own most other tiebreaker scenarios involving league opponents, most prominently due to beating Pacific (St. Mary's split with them) who is currently the 4th place team.

BYU sweeping Santa Clara (another early league loss for St. Mary's) would also be helpful but this tiebreaker is unlikely to make it that far down the standings. St. Mary's only glimmer of hope here is if San Francisco wins out and slides into 4th place in the final WCC standings due to other teams losing, since St. Mary's swept USF while BYU split with them. This is only possible if USF wins at Gonzaga so pretty low likelihood.

Bottom line: 2nd seed is likely BYU's unless we lose 2+ games down the stretch. St. Mary's can still steal it by beating Gonzaga.