Two weeks ago, the Portland Pilots went into Gonzaga and lost to the West Coast Conference leaders by 50 points in Spokane, 90-40.
With a chance for revenge in the conference championship game, Portland completely flipped the script, upsetting the Bulldogs 67-66 and earning the WCC’s automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament for the second straight season. The Pilots were 20.5-point underdogs (per Bet MGM) but put together their best performance of the season to win their ticket to the Big Dance.
Gonzaga entered the final on a 24-game win streak, in search of a victorious capper to their undefeated conference season. Only one team had even played the Bulldogs within 15 points during WCC play, and they had already dispatched Pacific during the conference semifinals. What should have been a coronation turned into a nightmare, as the best 3-point shooting team in the country (40.4 percent for the season) made only 5-of-20 looks from distance while Portland hit a series of big shots to take control in the fourth quarter.
Kennedy Dickie put the Pilots up five with 5:34 to play on a wing 3-pointer that bounced off the glass, complete with a Jordan shrug after the ball went in. Then, Emme Shearer hit the eventual game winner from the opposite wing with 1:39 to play. On Gonzaga’s final…
