Oct. 29—New league, same lofty expectations for a Gonzaga program that captured 27 regular-season championships and 23 conference tournament crowns during a 37-year residence in the West Coast Conference.
The Zags are expected to pick up right where they left off, selected as the unanimous favorite to win a Pac-12 Conference championship next spring by a panel of media members covering the league.
Gonzaga claimed each of the 17 first-place votes in the preseason poll released Thursday morning, just five days before Mark Few's team opens the 2026-27 campaign with a juicy nonconference matchup against Matt Painter and Purdue.
Coming off its fourth straight NCAA Tournament appearance, Utah State was not surprisingly picked to finish second in the new conference, followed by No.3 San Diego State, No. 4 Colorado State, No. 5 Oregon State, No. 6 Boise State, No. 7 Texas State, No. 8 Washington State and No. 9 Fresno State.
It continues a long run of preseason No. 1 nods for Gonzaga, which was picked to win the WCC every season since 2001, with the exception of the 2023-24 and 2017-18 seasons.
The 15th-ranked Zags were the only Pac-12 team to appear in the preseason Associated Press Top 25, but Utah State appeared on one AP ballot at No. 24, enough to earn two points in the poll.
Unlike other conferences, the Pac-12 did not release preseason all-conference teams, or announce a preseason player of the year, instead naming two players from each of the nine teams to the "2026-27 Men's Basketball Impact List," as selected by the league's coaches.
Senior forward Braden Huff and sophomore wing Davis Fogle were Gonzaga's selections — not unexpectedly, with both named to 20-player preseason watch lists for national positional awards this week. Fogle was named to the Julius Erving Award (small forward) watch list on Wednesday, one day before Huff was included on the watch list for the Karl Malone Award (power forward).
Huff had a 19-point, 11-rebound double-double in Gonzaga's exhibition loss at Arkansas on Saturday and scored 11 points in 16 minutes during the team's 91-59 victory over Lewis-Clark State. Fogle is just weeks removed from scoring 30 points in 20 minutes at Kraziness in the Kennel and had eight points against LCSC after missing the Arkansas exhibition with a left leg injury.
Washington State placed UNLV transfer Ladji Dembele and East Texas A&M transfer Ronnie Harrison on the Impact List. Harrison reached double figures in each of WSU's two preseason exhibition games, scoring 23 points on 8 of 9 shooting in the Cougars' 84-80 victory over cross-state rival Washington on Sunday.
Others named to the Impact List were Boise State's Dovydas Butka and Damari Wheeler-Thomas, Colorado State's Kyle Jorgensen and Jase Butler, Fresno State's Bradey Henige and Ross Candelino, Oregon State's Josiah Lake II and Daniel Freitag, San Diego State's Elzie Harrington and Tae Simmons, Texas State's Paul Djobet and DJ Hall, and Utah State's Mason Falslev and Dallin Hall.
