By PAUL GOTHAM
In one month’s time, the Saint Mary’s Gaels turned a nadir into precipice. What it took in getting to that point will be the difference in Thursday’s South Region first round matchup with Villanova.
On February 9th, Saint Mary’s looked lifeless in a 94-46 loss to then No. 4 ranked Gonzaga. The 94 points allowed represented a season-high (or low depending upon persecutive) for the Gaels.
One month later on March 12th, Saint Mary’s beat Gonzaga 60-47 in the West Coast Conference finals.
“We turned around after that,” Saint Mary’s head coach Randy Bennett said of the loss. “Maybe we needed to see that. Maybe that woke us up a little bit. I don’t know. But we’ve been working on it for a while.”
In the eight games since that loss the Gaels (allowing 64.4 points per game for the season) have held five opponents to 55 points or fewer with no team scoring 70 or more.
“I honestly can’t tell you why it turned then,” Bennett said during Wednesday’s press conference from the XL Center in Hartford, Connecticut. “We knew we were working on it. We knew we were deficient defensively. We knew our numbers had to be better.”
Bennett may not know or is not willing to explain the why, but here’s the what. In the loss, Gonzaga connected on 8-of-18 attempts from 3-point land. In the win, Saint Mary’s limited their rival to 2-of-17 from long-range land.
That trend will be tested against a Villanova squad ranked 11th in the country connecting on an average 10.6 times per game from 3-point land.
“I don’t think anybody in the country does it like them,” Villanova head coach Jay Wright said of the Gaels. “They have the ability to keep you in front of them — keep enough space to keep you in front of them, take away threes, and they protect the rim. It’s really — it’s a great scheme.”
Phil Booth leads Villanova’s long-range attack connecting on 92 of 251 (36.7 percent) attempts from long range. Collin Gillespie has hit 71 of 186 (38.2) and 6-foot-8 forward Eric Paschall adds 66 of 185 (35.7 percent).
“The big part of their deal is they’re going to make you help and kick out and have some really good shooters and they put five guys out there that shoot the three,” Bennett noted. “They always put you in a position where you have to decide where you’re going to get help from on the penetration. And from there, they’ll find that and play off that and get open threes or turn it into a second penetration and get another three.”
While Saint Mary’s 3-point percentage defense (31.8) sits outside the top 50 of the country, the less than six makes (5.4) is the reason they have won eight of nine heading into Thursday evening’s contest.
“I don’t think anybody that we’ve seen does it like they do, and you know we like to shoot threes,” Wright explained. “So it’s going to be a really tough challenge for us because they don’t do it like anyone else does it. Most people get out on you, and they extend, they deny. They use their length and they space you, and yet if you try to get to the rim, they keep their bigs in front of the rim and they protect the rim. It’s why they’re one of the best defensive teams in the country. They get a lot of credit for their offense, but defensively, they’re really good.”
What: No. 11 Saint Mary’s (22-11/11-5) vs. No. 6 Villanova (25-9/13-5)
When: Thursday, March 21st – 7:20 PM.
Where: XL Center – Hartford Connecticut
How to Watch: TBS
Transcription courtesy of ASAP Sports.
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