Portland knocks off Saint Mary's 69-52 in WCC tourney

Mar 8, 2015, 03:12 am

LAS VEGAS -- Kevin Bailey scored 16 points, Jason Todd added 14 and sixth-seeded Portland surprised third-seeded Saint Mary's 69-52 in a West Coast Conference tournament quarterfinal Saturday.

Monday, the Pilots (17-14) advance to the semifinals and will play second-seeded BYU (24-8), which knocked off Santa Clara on Saturday.

Portland came into the tournament on a four-game losing streak. The Gaels (21-9) had beaten Portland nine consecutive times and had won all four meetings between the teams in previous WCC tournament games. Randy Bennett had coached the Gaels to the WCC semifinals in each of his previous 13 seasons at Saint Mary's.

Portland never trailed and, leading by six, outscored the Gaels 18-7 over the final 6:36, including eight points from Bailey and seven from Todd.

Thomas van der Mars and D'Marques Tyson each scored 10 points for Portland, which hit half of its 46 shots.

Brad Waldow scored 25 points and had eight rebounds for the Gaels, who shot just 30.2 percent.