The Zappos.com West Coast Conference Basketball Championships get underway on Wednesday at the Orleans Arena in Las Vegas. The tournament opens with the bottom two teams of the conference playing what is essentially a play-in game for the college basketball tournament.
The No. 8 seed Portland Pilots (6-23, 3-13) will battle the No. 9 seed Santa Clara Broncos (8-21, 0-16) on Wednesday night at 6 p.m. PST in a game that will be televised on WCCSports.com. The remaining games of the tournament will be televised by either BYUtv or the ESPN family of networks, including ESPNU, ESPN2, and ESPN.
Portland enters the game on a six-game losing streak but that makes them the relatively hot team among the two, as Santa Clara has lost 17 consecutive games, including all 16 games in conference. Two of Portland's three conference wins came against Santa Clara this season, an 84-74 win at home on January 5 and an 84-78 road victory on February 2.
The winner of this game will face the No. 5 seed San Francisco Dons on Thursday night in a 6 p.m. PST game televised by BYUtv. The second game Thursday night will pit the No. 6 seed San Diego Toreros against the No. 7 seed Pepperdine Waves.