WCC Basketball Fans

(2) Saint Mary’s 69, (3) Portland 55

Just like last year, the Saint Mary’s Gaels faced a must-win game in the second semifinal of the West Coast Conference Tournament. Unlike last year, the men from Moraga, Calif., hope that after coming through against the Portland Pilots, they’ll be able to land an NCAA Tournament at-large bid.

Yes, coach Randy Bennett will want to dethrone Gonzaga in Monday night’s WCC final. Yes, Saint Mary’s would love to bump off its rival and nemesis to remove all doubt about its postseason destination. Yet, with those two things having been acknowledged, the most important task for the Gaels this weekend in Las Vegas was to advance to the championship game of this conference tournament. Without a victory over coach Eric Reveno’s Portland squad, Saint Mary’s would have had no ground to stand on as an at-large candidate.

SMC lost at home to Vanderbilt and then proceeded to get swept by Gonzaga during the West Coast Conference regular season. It’s not as though the Gaels accumulated bad losses – they didn’t – but an NCAA-worthy portfolio has to include some high-value scalps, and outside of a victory at Utah State, there just wasn’t much meat on the Gaels’ plate. A win over San Diego State is solid as well, but the Aztecs must win a few games in the Mountain West Conference Tournament before they can be considered an NCAA team. Saint Mary’s owned a schedule without a lot of heft, and that’s why this game against Portland mattered so much. If SMC absorbed a second loss to the Pilots in three tries, the Gaels would have been exposed just one week before Selection Sunday. Losing this game was not an option.

Reassuringly, then, for their fans and for the administrators in the WCC’s offices, the Gaels played with the urgency their situation demanded.

Bennett’s boys delivered a clinical dissection of a Portland team that hit 49 percent of its field goal attempts the last time these teams played. On Feb. 13 in the Pacific Northwest, the Pilots rode the stellar play of slashing guard T.J. Campbell to an 80-75 overtime win over Saint Mary’s. With Campbell hitting 9 of 16 shots in that game, Portland’s offense frequently outworked SMC’s defense and got to the rim with far too much regularity.

That changed on Sunday at Orleans Arena in Vegas.

If a purple-clad Portland ballhandler did approach the basket in this significant semifinal, a white-shirted Saint Mary’s defender was there to meet him and alter a shot. The second-seeded Gaels displayed terrific help defense, collapsing on drives and making timely rotations on kick-outs. The same T.J. Campbell who scored 24 points in the Feb. 13 thriller was limited to just seven points in this tilt on 2-of-12 field goal shooting. Portland hit just 29 percent of its shots as a team and experienced four separate scoring droughts that lasted at least three minutes and 24 seconds. The Pilots also endured a field goal drought of 10 minutes and 49 seconds in the second half; by the time the dry spell ended with 6:58 left in regulation, SMC owned a 61-43 stranglehold on the proceedings.

One more stat puts this romp into perspective: While Portland hit just 15 of its 52 shots, three Gaels – center Omar Samhan, guard Mickey McConnell, and backup guard Jorden Page – went 19 of 26 from the field. That’s right: SMC’s three most outstanding performers, by themselves, hit more field goals than the entire Pilot roster in exactly half the number of shot attempts.

Need anything more be said, NCAA Selection Committee? Even if Saint Mary’s loses this time around to Gonzaga (as was the case in last year’s WCC final), the Gaels have made a convincing case that they should be allowed to wear their Dancing shoes in 2010.

What’s Next

Gonzaga, of course. Saint Mary’s will face the rival Bulldogs for the second straight year in a Vegas-hosted WCC final. The Gaels have finished second in the West Coast Conference in each of the past three seasons, with the colossus from Spokane, Wash., always standing in their way. How will SMC be able to topple the king of the (West) Coast? The Zags throw waves of long, athletic bodies at opponents, so the Gaels need to have an “all hands on deck” mentality on Monday night. Omar Samhan can hold up his end of the bargain in the low post, but the key will be the play of the Gaels’ backcourt. Mickey McConnell and Matthew Dellavedova simply have to play their best games of the season. More specifically, they have to get to the rim on occasion and not rely solely on the 3-point shot. Gonzaga’s guards and wings are stronger and longer than anyone Saint Mary’s can put on the floor, so SMC will have to run very crisp sets and get great spacing in order to break down the Zags’ defense. At the other end, Dellavedova and McConnell – along with their teammates – have to turn Gonzaga into a jump-shooting team. If all these ingredients emerge on Monday, Saint Mary’s College will have a great chance for an upset… and an automatic bid that will take all the stress out of Selection Sunday.

By: Matt Zemek
DFN Sports Senior Staff Writer