SMC Men's Basketball team celebrates winning 2026 WCC Championship

WCC Champs: Senior Harry Wessels hoists the trophy, and the whole team celebrates the win. / Photo by Tony Avelar / Associated Press

Gaels Ranked 21st in Both AP and USA Today Coaches Poll. And Mikey Lewis Is Crowned Final West Coast Conference Player of the Week for the 2025–26 Season

Saint Mary’s secured a top-10 win and the WCC Title on Saturday. Mikey Lewis was the man of the hour, with 31 points and four assists.

by Ryan Barnett, Assistant Athletic Director for Communication | March 2, 2026

For Saint Mary’s Men’s Basketball, the good news keeps on coming. Saturday night, the Gaels won a share of the West Coast Conference Championship. Monday morning, Saint Mary’s was ranked No. 21 in the nation. And Gaels player Mikey Lewis was crowned the WCC Player of the Week.

After receiving votes in at least one poll in each of the first 17 weeks of the season, the Gaels have cracked both the AP and USA Today Coaches Polls: They’re ranked at No. 21 in both.

This comes on the back of the Gaels’ first top-10 win since 2022: a come-from-behind victory over Gonzaga on Saturday. Saint Mary’s defeated the then ninth-ranked Bulldogs 70–59 at a raucous and sold out University Credit Union Pavilion. The win secured a program-record fourth straight West Coast Conference Regular Season Title for the Gaels.

In another metric, admittedly a little harder to verify: The roar of the Saint Mary’s crowd was, to some with years of experience, the loudest it has ever been.

Mikey Lewis: A Man on a Mission

Basketball player Mikey Lewis shoots against Gonzaga in February 2026 — WCC Player of the Week: **Mikey Lewis** scored 21 in the win over Santa Clara and 31 in the Gaels’ victory over Gonzaga. / *Photo by Tod Fierner for SMC Athletics*

After leading the Gaels to a pair of victories last week to secure their fourth straight WCC Regular Season Title, Mikey Lewis has been named the WCC Player of the Week in the final week of the regular season. This is the second time that Lewis has won this distinction in his career. He joins fellow Gael Paulius Murauskas as a WCC Player of the Week this season.

Lewis was a man on a mission this week, and that mission was to get the Gaels their fourth straight WCC Title share. The sophomore guard did that with what was arguably the best two-game stretch of his young career.

The week started with Lewis scoring 21, while recording a career-high seven assists, four steals, and only giving up one turnover, in the Gaels’ victory over Santa Clara on Wednesday. Then, against Gonzaga, Lewis seemed determined that he would almost single handedly beat the Zags. He scored a career-high 31, making seven threes (the first Gael since Alex Ducas to do so), while ripping down five boards and dishing out four dimes—again, only giving up one turnover.

Lewis has now scored in double-figures in eight straight, a new career-high. He and Paulius Murauskas are the only two Gaels to score 30+ in a game this season. Lewis and the Gaels will now embark on a chance to earn both the WCC Regular Season and Tournament Titles in the same season, something they have done just three other times in program history: 1997, 2012, and 2024.

Rankings and Metrics

Men's Basketball player Harry Wessels holds up four fingers to celebrate four championships in a row in February 2026 — Four in a row: The Gaels are back to back to back to back WCC Champs, as **Harry Wessels** shows. / *Photo by Tod Fierner for SMC Athletics*

The Gaels were last ranked in the 2024–25 final AP and Coaches Polls, finishing out the year at 24th in the AP and 22nd in the Coaches. They began this season receiving votes in both polls, and received a vote in at least one of the polls every week this season.

The Gaels now also find themselves ranked 21st in NET Rankings, the primary sorting tool in DI basketball. They earn a spot at No. 22 in KenPom rankings, which factor in offensive and defensive performance; No. 22 in BartTorvik rankings, another ranking based on computer modeling; and No. 23 in Wins Above Bubble, which essentially measures wins a team has against its schedule relative to how a team without an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament would fare.

The bottom line, whether you’re crunching the numbers or polling journalists and coaches: The clear consensus is that the Gaels are one of the top teams in the country as they head for the WCC Tournament next week, with the NCAA Tournament soon on its heels.

Up Next: West Coast Conference Tournament in Las Vegas

Bracket of 2026 WCC Tournament — *Illustration courtesy WCC Sports*

With the win over Gonzaga, the Gaels (27–4) earn a No. 2 seed in the Credit Union 1 West Coast Conference Basketball Championship. Saint Mary’s will first play on Monday, March 8, in the semifinals. Tipoff for that contest will be at 8:30 p.m. Get tickets and cheer on the Gaels in Orleans Arena—and watch on ESPN2.

Then on March 15 comes Selection Sunday, when teams find out how they are seeded in the NCAA Tournament, along with who they’ll face and where. Thrilling times ahead for Gaels basketball!