MORAGA, Calif. (AP) -When practice started back in October, Saint Mary’s coach Randy Bennett was still trying to figure out just what kind of team he had.
The Gaels had lost perhaps their most dynamic player ever in Patty Mills to the NBA, one of their most productive in Diamon Simpson and four other seniors from a team that fell just short of making the NCAA tournament last season.
Then Bennett watched how well his team played in closed scrimmages against Washington and Nevada and thought the Gaels might take some people by surprise after being picked fourth in the West Coast Conference.
“But I still didn’t know,” Bennett said. “Is Washington bad? That’s kind of what I was thinking. Are they down? I wasn’t sure.”
transferring from Indiana and Matthew Dellavedova would be an impact freshman.
Those four have been the key to success for the Gaels (28-5) this season. Saint Mary’s has turned what was expected to be a rebuilding year into one of the best in the school’s history as the Gaels have advanced to the NCAA regional semifinals against Baylor (27-7) on Friday night in Houston.
And this has all come without Mills, who raised Saint Mary’s profile almost immediately after arriving from Australia in 2008, and Simpson, who left the school as the career leader in rebounds and blocked shots.
“It is weird,” Allen said. “We still have guys here who care so much about the team and are so unselfish. That’s what makes us a great team. Not that those other guys were selfish, but our chemistry is better I think.”
A team having better success after losing its best player is not unprecedented. Virginia, for example, made the Final Four in 1984, the year after Ralph Sampson left for the NBA. In football, Tennessee won the national championship the year after losing Peyton Manning to the NFL.
The departure of Mills turned the team over to McConnell, who is not as flashy as his predecessor at point guard but is leading the nation in 3-point shooting percentage at 51.7 percent and has more than twice as many assists as turnovers.
rds in the past we could have been in the same position we’re in, even though we’ve had some pretty good point guards here in the past.”
Mills was probably the best, averaging 18.4 points per game last season and putting a bit of a spotlight on a once overlooked program.
While praising Mills’ impact, Samhan said he thinks the team is better this year because it doesn’t revolve around one player. While Samhan is the focal point this year, he frequently points out that he couldn’t be having the success he has had without his teammates.
“I just felt like Patty had an agenda for himself,” Samhan said. “It really helped me this year, seeing some of the mistakes Patty made as a teammate last year. I didn’t want to do that. I’m not going to worry about if there’s a scout here tonight. I’m going to play the way it takes for our team to win.
“If that scout leaves unsatisfied and we won, I’m OK with it. I don’t know if that was always guys’ agendas last year, not just Patty, Diamon and those other guys too. I think Patty helped us a lot as a program obviously. He was a great player. But he was definitely flawed. I don’t know if Patty stayed, if we’d be in the Sweet 16.”
Bennett chuckled when asked if losing Mills made his team better, knowing how well the Gaels played before Mills broke his hand last season.
win team the year before he arrived to an NCAA tournament the following year and a 28-win team last year that likely would have made it to the tournament had Mills not broken his hand at Gonzaga.
“Because of Pat’s departure some other guys have had the opportunity to step up and they have,” Bennett said. “That’s the best way I could explain it. But I’m not crazy. If we had a pro here with us, I think we’d figure it out.”
The bigger change this season is that the Gaels almost always have five highly skilled offensive players on the court at the same time. The four starters who surround Samhan have all made at least 40 3-pointers this season, with each of them hitting 38 percent from long range.
With two point guards on the floor who can also shoot in McConnell and Dellavedova, an outstanding passing and shooting big man in Allen, and a 3-point threat in small forward Clint Steindl, the Gaels are a difficult team to defend.
“If you double-team Omar, he’s such a good passer that he’s going to kick it out to all our shooters,” McConnell said. “If you play him one-on-one, he’s so big and skilled inside, he’ll score whenever he wants. It’s a tough decision.”
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