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St. Mary’s Puts WCC Hate To Bed By Landing Transitive Win Over The Phoenix Suns

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The St Mary’s basketball team is already building its NCAA Tournament resume, and the season hasn’t even begun. Despite still playing offseason competition, the Gaels are already notching head-turning wins. And they’re changing the stigma of the WCC in the process.

The West Coast Conference is often referred to as a weak league when it comes to college basketball. Most of that is to create a narrative that beats national title contender Gonzaga down year after year.

Any time the Zags fail to make it to the Final Four, fans fault a weak regular season schedule for not preparing the Bulldogs for March Madness. But it’s far from the truth.

The conference also includes teams like BYU, San Francisco, San Diego, Pepperdine, and St Mary’s. Each have found themselves in the Big Dance at one time or another, and the WCC often possesses Top 25 programs outside of Gonzaga.

A recent win by one of those league members is starting to open some eyes on that fact.

St Mary’s now owns a transitive win over the Phoenix Suns

A transitive win can be defined as follows: Beating a team that beat a team that beat another team.

The Gaels recently took down the Perth Wildcats, an Australian team who beat the Adelaide 36ers twice in September. That’s the same Adelaide squad that just beat the Phoenix Suns, which caused quite the reaction among NBA fans.

By that transitive definition, St Mary’s now effectively owns a win over the Suns. College basketball fans are now relishing in that hypothetical victory, making folks rethink their opinion of the WCC.

This fan hilariously joked, “Where do the Suns finish in the WCC this year?”

Another posted, “Don’t let the WCC haters see this.”

A number of fans commented on Gonzaga, in particular. Who says the Bulldogs don’t play anyone in the regular season?

We’ll see how this affects St Mary’s tournament chances next season.

All jokes aside, it’s a pretty impressive win for the Gaels this preseason. Maybe they’ll have a shot at knocking off the Zags in 2022.