GAME NOTES: Seeing their first action of the 2015 West Coast Conference Tournament, the BYU Cougars take the floor at Orleans Arena in Las Vegas to do battle with the Santa Clara Broncos in Saturday's quarterfinal round.

Santa Clara routed Loyola Marymount in Friday's opening round, 85-54, to post their third win the last four games. The Broncos are still three games under .500 on the season (14-17), but they are a confident bunch right now. Friday's win improved SCU to 27-26 all-time in the WCC Tournament, as it seeks its third championship, and first since 1993.

BYU earned the No. 2 seed in the tournament after winning the tie-breaker with Saint Mary's, both teams finishing with conference marks of 13-5. The Cougars, who picked up a huge confidence booster by upsetting regular-season champ Gonzaga on its own floor last Saturday, ending a couple of record-setting winning streaks for the Bulldogs in the process, are 3-3 all-time in the event, and they are seeking their first WCC Tournament title after falling to Gonzaga in the championship game last year, 75-64.

The Cougars won both bouts with the Broncos this season -- 81-46 in Santa Clara on New Year's Day, and 78-57 on Jan. 31 in Provo. As a result, BYU owns a 23-5 lead in the all-time series with SCU, which includes victories in each of the last 12 meetings. The Broncos' last win over the Cougars was on Dec. 2, 1972, 66-64, in Provo, Utah.

Santa Clara shot 55.0 percent from the field in Friday's rout of Loyola Marymount. Jared Brownridge and Brandon Clark scored 19 points apiece, with the former nailing five 3-pointers. Jarvis Pugh tacked on a career-high 12 points to with seven rebounds and six assists for the Broncos in the easy victory.

Clark and Brownridge are both averaging in excess of 15 ppg this season to pace the Broncos, but they definitely have their work cut out for them going up against a BYU squad that lights up the scoreboard with reckless abandon, doing so twice against them already this season.

BYU is second in the country in scoring at 84.0 ppg, and it boasts a couple of college basketball's top performers in the school's all-time leading scorer Tyler Haws (21.9 ppg), as well as Kyle Collinsworth (13.5 ppg, 8.6 rpg, 5.8 apg -- and the NCAA single-season record holder with five triple-doubles). Anson Winder (13.3 ppg) and Chase Fischer (13.0 ppg) have been significant contributors as well for a team that also owns favorable margins in both rebounding (+5.0) and turnovers (league-high +1.7), while shooting a WCC-best 76.8 percent at the free-throw line and leading the league in assists (17.1 apg) and steals (7.8 spg).

BYU is clearly the better team in this matchup, and it would be surprising to see the Cougars struggle even a little a bit as they look ahead to the next round.