Saint Mary's head coach Randy Bennett coaches his players against the San Francisco Dons in the first half of their game at McKeown Pavilion in Moraga, Calif., on Thursday, Jan. 23, 2020. (Jose Carlos Fajardo/Bay Area News Group)
Being picked over perennial favorite Gonzaga to win the West Coast Conference this season doesn’t elicit much reaction from the Saint Mary’s basketball team.
“Sure, it’s cool,” senior forward Alex Ducas said. “But getting picked to win doesn’t guarantee you any wins. We really try to keep the outside noise to the outside.”
Coach Randy Bennett, who passed 500 career victories with the Gaels last season, wasn’t surprised the league’s coaches gave his team the nod. Saint Mary’s returns three all-WCC players and Gonzaga lost four starters.
What’s more meaningful to him is the experience his players have accumulated after reaching the second round of the NCAA tournament two years in a row for the first time in a decade.
“They’ve seen what it looks like to play in the NCAA tournament two years in a row, win a game,” Bennett said. “All that stuff, I can’t explain how valuable that is for a coach. These guys have done what it takes and seen what it looks like when you get there.
“They’re pretty sharp guys, high-character guys. They can take that and right now they can use it. They get it. Their talk at this time of year is about doing the little things, don’t waste days — the things that truly matter.”
Once again the Bay Area’s best team, Saint Mary’s assembled a 27-8 record last year and shared the WCC regular-season crown with Gonzaga, each at 14-2.
Gonzaga, despite losing all-time WCC scoring leader Drew Timme and Julian Strawther, now a rookie with the NBA champion Denver Nuggets, checked in at No. 11 in the preseason AP Top-25. Saint Mary’s is No. 23.
Bennett agrees the Zags aren’t going anywhere, even with a lot of new pieces.
“They’re good pieces,” he said. “They’ve got to put it together with guys who are new to the league. But they’ll be good.”
So will Saint Mary’s, which takes aim at a 10th NCAA bid under Bennett.
Gonzaga coach Mark Few has no gripe with the Gaels being picked first in the WCC race. They got his vote.
“Saint Mary’s is the same every year, right?” Few said. “Very disciplined, very purposeful with what they do on offense and what they do on defense Just plug ‘em in.”
The Gaels do have a lot of familiar faces this season. It starts in the backcourt, where East Bay product Aidan Mahaney (13.9 points, 40-percent 3-point) returns after earning first-team All-WCC honors as a freshman.
With guard Logan Johnson gone to the G League’s Oklahoma City Blue, Mahaney is determined to become more of a leader.
“There’s something you can improve on in every facet of your game,” he said. “I feel like people who don’t think that are people who aren’t willing to get better.”
Junior Augustas Marciulionis, the son of former Warriors standout and Naismith Hall of Famer Sarunas Marciulionis, will move into Johnson’s spot alongside Mahaney. He has been more of a ballhandler and defender than scorer, but he put up 22 points (to go with 25 by Mahaney) in a charity exhibition in Hawaii last month.
Ducas, a 6-7 wing from Australia, has started 89 games for the Gaels heading into his fifth season. He averaged 12.5 points last season and is a 40-percent career shooter from the 3-point arc. Bennett calls him a complete player.
Senior center Mitchell Saxen played sparingly his first two years before blossoming last season, when he produced 11.6 points, 7.6 rebounds and blocked 42 shots on the way to All-WCC honors.
Joshua Jefferson, a 6-8 sophomore, or Mason Forbes, a 6-9 senior transfer from Harvard, could land the other starting forward spot.
Two sophomore returnees likely to see increased opportunity are guard Chris Howell and 7-1 center Harry Wessels.
The Gaels added three freshmen, including 6-3 point guard Jordan Ross, who was listed as a 4-star prospect by ESPN and comes from the well-regarded Compass Prep in Arizona.
Andrew McKeever, a 7-1 center from Livermore, adds size, and 6-10 forward Jensen Bradtke brings pedigree as the son of four-time Australian Olympian Mark Bradtke and mother Nicole, who won mixed doubles titles at the 1992 Australia and U.S. Open tennis tournaments.
Rory Hawke, a 6-5 guard who has played in Australia’s national program, arrived on campus midseason last year and was redshirted.
“I like our team a lot,” Bennett said. “We have a lot of guys returning. The freshmen just have to keep up, we’re not waiting for them.”
Originally published at Jeff Faraudo