I wrote this on November 21.
At the time, Saint Mary’s was 2-3 and coming off an absolute ass-kicking at the hands of Xavier. Ten days later, the Gaels would fall to 3-5 after a loss at Boise State and look as lifeless and rudderless as a Randy Bennett team can look.
And since then they’re 19-1 with wins against Colorado State, San Francisco (twice) and yes, Gonzaga to brag about. They’re the proud owners of the nation’s longest active winning streak at 14 games, and have a very good chance of running it to 16 games by the time they meet Gonzaga on the final night of the regular season. I said in the beginning that they would right the ship, and they did. I closed the above piece by saying it wasn’t as bad as it looked, and it wasn’t.
But I did not think they’d get back here, comfortably in the field of 68, the odds-on favorite to win the WCC and about to be (once again) criminally under-seeded come March.
So how’d they do it? Is Randy Bennett actually a warlock? How, very quietly, did Saint Mary’s get back to being appointment late-night viewing? Well, I gave three at the start of the year about why it was all shit, so let’s give three here at the final stretch about why it’s all coming up Gaels again.
Defense
Saint Mary’s defending is done primarily in the half-court; because the Gaels slow the game down so much, every possession is a grind-it-out affair.
Of course, it still has to be done, the defending. And the Gaels defend their collective asses off, in ways evident in the scoresheet—like holding opponents to sub-40% shooting for the season or holding 14 opponents below 40% from the floor this season, including poor Stanislaus State and its 9-for-58 showing—and some that require a little further reading.
(By the way, it’s good that they’re doing that on defense because Aidan Mahaney’s shooting splits remain butt-bad despite putting up 60 shots more than any teammate. There are also fewer Alex Ducas touches than there should be, and I wrote my congressman about it twice already.)
The Gaels are third nationally in eFG% allowed (44.6%) and third in offensive rebound rate allowed (22.8%, more on that later). A few more turnovers forced or a few fewer opponents put on the free throw line and that’s a top-10 KenPom defense.
This isn’t like what Houston does, where the Cougars enjoy deploying three or four of the best individual defenders in the nation at any given time. Saint Mary’s has Jefferson (presently injured) as the linchpin, Saxen and Wessels to pick up the slack and a lot of slack to pick up sometimes, because the guards can get lost in rotation if the switches aren’t fast enough (in Tuesday night’s game against San Francisco, Marcus Williams REPEATEDLY cooked Augustus Marciulionis, whether in pick-and-roll or just straight-up beating him off the dribble).
So why does it work as well as it does? Well, because so much effort is exerted inside by the Gaels, every foray into the paint is an adventure for the opponent. This has led to a season-long malaise for Saint Mary’s opponents trying to find any level of success at the rim; the Gaels are third in the nation on field-goal percentage on twos (which, the majority are now taken at the rim; a few more paid subscribers and I’ll spring for a Synergy subscription and get more detailed at-rim data) at a paltry 43%. More teams would be smart to opt for more threes against the Gaels, who at least allow perfectly rancid 32.2% from beyond the arc.
Rebounding
Saint Mary’s is not overly impressive from a counting stats perspective on the glass; Saxen leads the way, Joshua Jefferson does his fair share and Harry Wessels does work in limited minutes; per 40, he’s grabbing 15.2 rebounds and would be among the nation’s leaders in both offensive rebound rate (18.1%) and defensive rebound rate (26.9%) if he played more minutes.
By percentage, think Zach Edey on the offensive glass and Hunter Dickinson on the defensive glass. On about 10 minutes a night.
But because the game is so slowed down from a tempo perspective (there that is again), every rebound winds up being crucial. And a lot of this is a philosophical gambit based on that pace; because Saint Mary’s isn’t looking to run-and-gun, the whole team sells out to crash the glass on the defensive end (it also helps that, on balance, Saint Mary’s is one of the taller teams in Division I). But the Gaels don’t just get the lion’s share of boards; Saint Mary’s nation-leading rebound margin of plus-12.0 is both a damning indictment of the opposition and cause for occasional hilarity in the box score.
The Gaels out rebounded Davidson 45-19. Yes, 19.
Over a three-game stretch in December, Saint Mary’s was plus-81 on the glass in wins against UNLV, MTSU and Northern Kentucky.
Against UNLV, Saxen and Jefferson combined for 27 rebounds; the Runnin’ Rebels had 33 as a team.
Not only do the Gaels pull down offensive rebounds at a top-five rate nationally (if Saint Mary’s misses, they get a second chance opportunity nearly 40% of the time), they only surrender a second-chance opportunity 22.7% of the time, another top-five mark.
Purdue, with the nation’s best player and a guaranteed 12 boards a night in the pivot, isn’t even top-10 in both offensive rebound rate and offensive rebound allowed rate. The little ol’ Gaels are in the top-five though.
Randy Bennett actually is a wizard
Look, none of this should work. The problems—Ducas not shooting enough, Mahaney’s poor shooting overall, Jefferson being hurt—are still problems. But it has not mattered over the last 20 games; credit probably needs to go to Randy Bennett for keeping this thing afloat after the first eight games, hammering the anvil on the things they do well and not trying to do things they’re bad at. The Gaels aren’t gonna run, aren’t gonna fire away from three, aren’t gonna force a bunch of turnovers and aren’t gonna get to the line a lot.
But, it seems like they are gonna keep winning. That felt rather unlikely just three months ago.