You’ll have to stay up late to watch Thursday’s best College Basketball game, a West Coast Conference matchup pitting first place St. Mary’s against second place Gonzaga. Although the Gaels hold a lead in the conference standings, they did lose to the ‘Zags at home, 89-82 as 4.5 point favorites, back on January 14th. This time, they’ll be 5.5-point underdogs as the scene shifts to Spokane.

Although these two schools stand out as the two preeminent powers in the WCC, the head-to-head series has been very one-sided. Gonzaga has beaten its main rival 28 of 32 times, including all 13 at home. In addition to winning the earlier meeting this season, the Bulldogs swept last year’s season series, including an 83-52 win in the finals of the Conference Tournament. That was just the fourth time since 2005 where a meeting between the teams has been decided by double-digits.

This season, St. Mary’s has been very profitable out on the road, however, going 7-1 against the spread. Despite being favored by double digits in each of the last five games, the Gaels have been able to maintain a 16-6 overall spread record. They come off back to back blowout wins at home against Santa Clara and San Fracisco, although they did go just 0-1-1 ATS in those games.

The Gaels come in with the better record at 21-3 straight up and have won 20 or more games now in three consecutive seasons. They’ve won six in a row overall and are led by Omar Samhan (21 PPG and 11 RPG). Mickey McConnell (14 PPG) and Matthew Dellavedova (12 PPG).

A win here would give Gonzaga 20 wins for the 13th consecutive season. Head Coach Mark Few, who has never won fewer than 23 games any season during his tenure, joins Roy Williams of UNC as the only two active head coaches with career win percentages above .800.

The Bulldogs are a lock for next month’s NCAA Tournament and already have non-conference wins over the likes of Wisconsin, Cincinnati, Washington State, Oklahoma, Illinois and most recently Memphis last Saturday, a 66-58 win as 5.5-point road underdogs.

The only team to defeat the ‘Zags at home this season was Wake Forest, a 77-75 winner all the way back on December 5th. This was considered to be a rebuilding year in Spokane, but instead it has been business as usual. Five of their remaining seven regular seasons games will be played at home.