Pilot women will be the No. 5 seed with a first round bye; men open vs. No. 7 Santa Clara Thursday night

SAN MATEO, Calif. – The West Coast Conference has announced the brackets and game times for the 2021 University Credit Union WCC Basketball Tournament at the Orleans Arena in Las Vegas. The tournament will begin with a women's first round match-up at 12:30 p.m. PT on Thursday, March 4 and continue through the men's championship game on Tuesday, March 9. All 17 games will be televised live nationwide, and all will be streamed on-line.

The University of Portland women have earned the No. 5 seed and will open the tournament on Friday, March 5 at 11 a.m. against the winner of No. 8 Pepperdine vs. No. 9 Loyola Marymount. Friday's game will air regionally on ROOT Sports Northwest.

The Pilot women (12-11, 9-8 WCC) are coming off a pair of home wins against Loyola Marymount and Pepperdine to carry momentum into the postseason. Portland is the defending WCC Tournament champions after a thrilling run to the title last season, the program's first since 1994. Unfortunately, the NCAA Tournament was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic and Portland was unable to participate in its first big dance since 1997.

The Portland men (6-14, 0-11) are excited to be participating in the event after having their final two regular season games cancelled due to a COVID testing issue. The No. 10 Pilots will open the tournament on Thursday against No. 7 Santa Clara at 9 p.m. on Stadium TV.

See below for more details on tournament seeding, schedules and broadcast information, or visit the Tournament Central page for more information.

SEEDING THE 2021 UCU WCC TOURNAMENT
Due to the unbalanced nature of the conference schedule due to COVID interruptions, the WCC teamed with Ken Pomeroy to develop a model that uses a proprietary algorithm that best reflects conference games completed and yields an adjusted conference winning percentage for each men's and women's basketball team. The adjusted conference winning percentage accounts for the strength of the opponent and the location (home/away) of the game played. The offensive and defensive efficiency metric is not utilized in the algorithm to determine a team's adjusted conference winning percentage. COMPLETE RELEASE
 
FINAL WOMEN'S SEEDINGS

Rank	Team	AWP	W	L	SOS	SOS Rank
1	Gonzaga	.917	16	1	.447	9
2	BYU	.808	13	3	.457	8
3	San Francisco	.587	10	7	.486	6
4	San Diego	.563	9	5	.416	10
5	Santa Clara	.545	9	8	.509	4
6	Portland	.510	9	8	.479	7
7	Pacific	.503	9	9	.499	5
8	Saint Mary's	.225	4	14	.530	2
9	LMU	.224	4	14	.526	3
10	Pepperdine	.112	2	16	.535	1

San Diego, the 2020 WCC Tournament runner-up, earned the four seed but will not compete due to a COVID pause announced by the program on Thursday. With the Toreros out of the field, all of the following teams move up one position: Santa Clara moves into the four seed followed by defending WCC Tournament Champion Portland in the five spot, followed by Pacific (six), Saint Mary's (seven), LMU (eight) and Pepperdine (nine).


FINAL MEN'S SEEDINGS

Rank	Team	AWP	W	L	SOS	SOS Rank
1	Gonzaga	.962	15	0	.462	10
2	BYU	.810	10	3	.501	8
3	Pepperdine	.590	7	6	.523	6
4	Saint Mary's	.580	4	6	.652	1
5	LMU	.557	7	5	.469	9
6	Pacific	.504	6	7	.529	5
7	Santa Clara	.453	4	5	.509	7
8	San Francisco	.306	4	9	.531	4
9	San Diego	.228	2	7	.532	3
10	Portland	.008	0	11	.549	2

   
TOURNAMENT COVERAGE
For the eighth straight year, every game from the 2021 University Credit Union West Coast Conference Tournament will be nationally televised. Seven women's games can be seen live in well over 60 million homes nationwide via cable and satellite on BYUtv. Those games will also be streamed live on the WCC Network, the West Coast Conference's digital platform.
 
These broadcasts can also be seen on FOX Sports Prime Ticket, FOX Sports San Diego, NBC Sports Bay Area and ROOT Sports Northwest.
 
Stadium will air two men's first round games on Thursday and two men's second round games on Friday, with game times set for 6 p.m. PT and 9 p.m. PT each evening.
 
The two men's Saturday night third round games will be televised on ESPNU and ESPN2, respectively, beginning at 6 p.m. On Monday, one men's semifinal will air at 6 p.m. on ESPN, with the other semifinal to follow on ESPN2.
 
On Tuesday, the women's championship game will be shown nationwide at 1 p.m. on ESPNU. At 6 p.m., the West Coast Conference men's championship game will air live on ESPN. All six ESPN Networks telecasts can also be seen live on the ESPN app.
 
The men's and women's winners of the 2021 University Credit Union West Coast Conference Basketball Tournament will each receive an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament.

2021 UCU WCC Tournament Schedule
Thursday, March 4
FIRST ROUND 
Women's Game 1: No. 8 LMU vs No. 9 Pepperdine, 12:30 p.m. (NBCSports Bay Area, Root Sports Northwest, FOX Sports Prime Ticket, FOX Sports San Diego, BYUtv, WCC Network)
Men's Game 1: No. 8 San Francisco vs No. 9 San Diego, 6 p.m. (Stadium)
Men's Game 2: No. 7 Santa Clara vs No. 10 Portland, 9 p.m. (Stadium)
 
Friday, March 5
SECOND ROUND 
Women's Game 2: No. 5 Portland vs Game 1 Winner, 11 a.m. (NBCSports Bay Area, FOX Sports Prime Ticket, FOX Sports San Diego, Root Sports Northwest, BYUtv, WCC Network)
Women's Game 3: No. 6 Pacific vs No. 7 Saint Mary's, 2 p.m. (NBCSports Bay Area, FOX Sports Prime Ticket, FOX Sports San Diego, Root Sports Northwest, , BYUtv, WCC Network)
Men's Game 3: No. 5 LMU vs Game 1 Winner, 6 p.m. (Stadium)
Men's Game 4: No. 6 Pacific vs Game 2 Winner, 9 p.m. (Stadium)
 
Saturday, March 6
THIRD ROUND 
Women's Game 4: No. 4 Santa Clara vs Game 2 Winner, 11 a.m. (NBCSports Bay Area, FOX Sports Prime Ticket, FOX Sports San Diego, Root Sports Northwest, BYUtv, WCC Network)
Women's Game 5: No. 3 San Francisco vs Game 3 Winner, 2 p.m. (NBCSports Bay Area, FOX Sports Prime Ticket, FOX Sports San Diego, Root Sports Northwest, BYUtv, WCC Network)
Men's Game 5: No. 4 Saint Mary's vs Game 3 Winner, 6 p.m. (ESPNU, ESPN app)
Men's Game 6: No. 3 Pepperdine vs Game 4 Winner, 9 p.m. (ESPN2, ESPN app)
 
Monday, March 8
SEMIFINALS 
Women's Semifinal: No. 1 Gonzaga vs Game 4 Winner, 11 a.m. (NBCSports Bay Area, FOX Sports Prime Ticket, FOX Sports San Diego, Root Sports Northwest, BYUtv, WCC Network)
Women's Semifinal: No. 2 BYU vs Game 5 Winner, 2 p.m. (NBCSports Bay Area, FOX Sports Prime Ticket, FOX Sports San Diego, Root Sports Northwest, BYUtv, WCC Network)
Men's Semifinal: No. 1 Gonzaga vs Game 5 Winner, 6 p.m. (ESPN, ESPN app)
Men's Semifinal: No. 2 Brigham Young vs Game 6 Winner, 9 p.m. (ESPN2, ESPN app)
 
Tuesday, March 9
CHAMPIONSHIPS
Women's Championship Game, 1:00 p.m. (ESPNU, ESPN app)
Men's Championship Game, 6:00 p.m. (ESPN, ESPN app)