Saint Mary's faces tall order against Baylor

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The Saint Mary's College basketball team simply didn't have the kind of personnel that could replicate Baylor's 2-3 zone defense in practice this week. Not that many midmajor teams have three players 6-foot-10 or taller just hanging around.

But that's hardly diminished the Gaels' confidence or enthusiasm going into today's NCAA South Regional semifinal against the Bears at Reliant Stadium. And really, there's not much that could at this point.

"It's hard for a big guy to score in the zone when the (players defending) are 6-10, 6-10 and 7-feet," senior center Omar Samhan said. "But we've got shooters that can make them pay for zoning us."

That, in essence, is what 10th-seeded Saint Mary's (28-5) needs to do on offense if it hopes to continue its magical run and advance to the Elite Eight. The Gaels, who rank fifth in Division I in 3-point field goal percentage (41.1), will try to get open looks from the perimeter to offset Baylor's size advantage inside.

That won't be easy. Saint Mary's coach Randy Bennett likened Baylor's defense to Portland's, but the Pilots' starting small forward is 6-6 Ethan Niedermeyer, a graduate of De La Salle High. The Bears' is 6-10 sophomore Anthony Jones.

"Their defensive numbers are what they are because of their size around the basket," Bennett said.

Baylor, the No. 3 seed, led the Big 12 in fewest defensive rebounds allowed (32.5) and blocked shots (6.9) per game, and 6-10
junior Ekpe Udoh led the conference in offensive rebounds per game (3.5) and blocks (3.8).

In their second-round game against Old Dominion, the Bears (27-7) were out-rebounded 31-20 but scored 13 second-chance points and outscored Old Dominion 36-26 in the paint. Baylor has held opponents this season to a 38.3 field goal percentage and is 22-4 when it has out-rebounded the other team.

"It's not that Baylor plays zone. It's that Baylor is big," George Mason coach Jim Larranaga said earlier this week. "The guy contesting you in the zone, can you shoot it over him? If you've got a big guy inside, and they're surrounding him and making it difficult for him to catch and score, someone has to step up and make shots."

Saint Mary's guards Mickey McConnell and Matthew Dellavedova have shown in the NCAA tournament, and in the West Coast Conference tournament, that they could drive to the basket while being defended by more athletic guards.

They'll need to do the same thing against Baylor's LaceDarius Dunn and Tweety Carter, as quick as any guard tandem the Gaels have faced this year, to draw defenders and create space on the perimeter.

"They're athletic, and they can get out and put pressure on you. Well, we can't. That's not our deal," Bennett said. "We play more inside-out. Make you finish over us and then offensively just execute until we get a good open shot.

"But we'll usually make you pay when we get an open shot."

If Saint Mary's is concerned about what it will face today, it certainly didn't show Thursday. As the Gaels' open practice took place, Samhan spent as much time chatting with fans and posing for pictures as he did on the floor. Others, such as forwards Beau Levesque and Tim Williams, practiced the lost art of shooting 35-footers while sitting on a stool near the bench.

In other words, the Gaels already know what they're up against, and what they'll need to do to advance.

"I'm excited for the challenge," Samhan said. "We fooled Baylor and most of the country. They think we win because we have this great inside post player. It's not that. It's 100 percent the shooting. It's the threes."
Baylor is one of the few Division I teams with a better field goal percentage (48.9) than Saint Mary's (48.8). The Gaels have to limit LaceDarius Dunn's and Tweety Carter's drives to the basket and hold down any disparity in second-chance points.
Saint Mary's has had success in its past four games by being patient on offense. It can't afford to run-and-gun with Baylor or force shots with plenty of time left on the shot clock.

It'll be a pro-Baylor crowd, but everyone loves an underdog. As it did in Providence, Saint Mary's can get neutral fans in attendance on its side by keeping the game close.

 

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Saint Mary's Gaels basketball team turns to Mickey McConnell for success




You may not recall, but the Saint Mary's basketball program was big news last spring, too. Fresh off an NCAA tournament snub and a brief but cathartic romp in the NIT, the Gaels were holding their breath as they awaited word on the future of their best player.

Would point guard Patty Mills return for his junior season? Or would he leave Saint Mary's to go pro? Gael Nation was on the edge of its collective roll-out bleacher seat.

With the exception of the one guy who figured to be impacted most.

"If he stayed, I'm sure we would have played together and we both would have had a chance to start," said junior Mickey McConnell, who became the team's starting point guard when Mills

declared for the NBA draft. "This year we played three point guards at a time, so either way, if he'd stayed or left, I wasn't thinking too much about that. I was just worrying about making myself better and seeing what I could do."

And how did that work out? Pretty well, considering McConnell was speaking Thursday from the underbelly of spectacularly oversized Reliant Stadium, where Saint Mary's will meet Baylor in a Sweet 16 game tonight. Certainly it worked out better than the easy logic: Plucky team loses best player, staggers aimlessly through lost season.

McConnell's right, he would have played plenty even if Mills had stayed. But it wouldn't have been at point guard, where his decisions and personality have had such a
bearing on this team's all-for-one chemistry.

"First of all, I didn't know it would happen like this," coach Randy Bennett said in the heady minutes after Saturday's second-round upset of Villanova. "I knew Mick was good. Pat was a great player for us, and we would be a really good team with Pat. But when Pat went to the pros, it became Mickey's team."

Just like that? Well, no. Even Bennett admits McConnell can be "a little passive."

McConnell agrees that "in the past I've been more leading by actions, and I still do that quite a bit."

It helped that Saint Mary's had scheduled a summer tour of Australia, and that they packed just one point guard for the trip.

"So I think I played 40 minutes in most of the games," McConnell said. "With the team we had, I felt it was important from there to take control a little bit and make myself more of a leader on the court."

It also helped that this season's team is top-heavy with freshmen. McConnell, one of just four upperclassmen, went from being a newbie to a sage in a blink.

"We have so many young guys," he said, "that it was easy to be a leader out there."

(We now pause for the kind of Omar Samhan vignette that no contemporary Saint Mary's story is complete without. One reporter asked Saint Mary's senior center if, given that he follows singer Taylor Swift on Twitter, he would be listening to her music for inspiration before tonight's game.

("Are those cameras on?" Samhan said, pointing to a bank of cameras that were, in fact, recording every word he said. "I love you, Taylor. You should call me." We now return to our story.)

Sure enough, McConnell has set the tone for the first Saint Mary's team to win two games in a single NCAA tournament. Yes, guard Matt Dellavedova can handle and Bennett describes 6-foot-11 Ben Allen as a "point forward."

But you can't describe the strength of this team without describing its point guard down to his DNA. And not to belabor the point, but only one player on last year's team had Mills' unique DNA, that being the whirling dervish himself.

It's fitting, then, that McConnell figures heavily in today's game. Baylor plays zone defense almost exclusively, with three long, lanky defenders in the post.

"It's going to be a quiet (offensive) night for me," Samhan predicted.

The best way to beat a zone, of course, is to shoot over it. Plenty of Gaels can shoot the long ball, but only McConnell led all qualifying NCAA players in 3-point percentage (51.7) this season.

So if he does have a selfish streak, this would be a good time to show it off, since his sky-scraping 3s could help beat Baylor at its own game. That said, it would come as something of a shock ? the selfish thing, not the shooting.

 

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No. 3 Baylor (Vulnerability Rating 26.1) vs. No. 10 St. Mary's (Giant Killer Score 80.
UPSET CHANCE: 21.1 percent

You can win a game if one thing goes fantastically right, and the Bears have secured two very different one-dimensional triumphs in the first two rounds. In the opener, they hung around until Sam Houston State wilted, and then in Round 2, LaceDarius Dunn (whose name is great but probably only the third-coolest on his own team) went wild, bombarding Old Dominion for 26 points. Neither of those opponents made Baylor pay for its weaknesses, as the Bears have won despite losing the overall turnover battle (27-25) and getting outrebounded on the offensive boards (21-16).

Our model says St. Mary's could be a different kettle of fish. Not only has Omar Samhan been unstoppable (61 points in the first two rounds), but the Gaels are also an outstanding 3-point shooting team (41.0 percent, sixth in the NCAA, and 15-for-38, or 39.5 percent, in the tournament so far). Indeed, St. Mary's looks an awful lot like ... Baylor. Both are very tall and highly effective shooting the ball from inside or outside. Baylor scores 119.1 points per 100 possessions (fifth in the NCAA), while St. Mary's clocks in at 116.0 (16th). Neither relies heavily on free throws. And both are terrible at generating turnovers.

St. Mary's is better at protecting the ball, while Baylor is better on the offensive glass, but there's not a lot separating these teams' statistical patterns. Our model gives the nod to the Bears, partly because their interior defense is better (opponents shoot 41.7 percent on 2-point FGs, eighth in the NCAA), partly because they have played far tougher opponents and partly because -- as we've explained often -- if it's truly an upset, St. Mary's should have less than a 50 percent chance of winning. But chew on this: The model generated a much higher upset percentage for the Gaels in this game than in their previous victory against Villanova. In fact, it's one of the higher upset ratings of the tournament (not on the order of Murray State versus Vanderbilt or Cornell versus Temple, but still quite strong). So, if the Gaels are to continue their run, they'll need to maximize their possessions (as they did against Richmond, whom they crushed on the offensive boards 18-3, but failed to do against Villanova, where they lost that battle 14-6) or hit 3s at an extraordinary rate. Or bring down some more divine intervention.

 

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Two teams with much to prove
Both Baylor, Saint Mary?s fill Cinderella roles



In the old days, anonymity was not something the Baylor Bears had to fight for. The most significant part of their national identity was their utter lack of one. And as they worked to build their program over the past few years, this was how they motivated themselves:

Someday, they said, they would be recognized.

But in the span of just over a week, the circumstances around Baylor's rallying cry changed. In their first trip to the Sweet 16 in the history of the program, the Bears found themselves pitted against their third consecutive out-of-nowhere underdog opponent.

That might explain why they spent the day before their South Regional semifinal against Saint Mary's not professing their superiority but instead reminding everyone that the Gaels aren't the only ones doing the sneaking.

?I don't think anyone has heard of us, either,? Baylor forward Quincy Acy said. ?We're in the same boat. We're both Cinderellas.?

Tonight at Reliant Stadium, a ticket to the Elite Eight might go to whichever team is better able to keep convincing themselves they are being overlooked. Lately, though, that's been a tough sell for both.

Saint Mary's, the No. 10 seed, has been one of the most talked-about stories of the NCAA Tournament, with sound bite-dispensing, Twitter-happy, high-scoring center Omar Samhan becoming March Madness' biggest celebrity.

And Baylor not only has a No. 3 seed to hurt its us-against-the-world attitude, it also has taken a path devoid of traditional Goliaths to get worked up about. To get to the Sweet 16, the Bears beat 14th-seeded Sam Houston State and 11th-seeded Old Dominion.

Samhan, who has averaged 30.5 points and 9.5 rebounds in the Tournament, said the Gaels aren't paying attention to the seeds even though ?people think we should be scared for some reason.?

The Bears can relate to that defiant feeling. Before last week, they hadn't won an NCAA Tournament game since 1950, and they were picked in the preseason to finish 10th in the Big 12.

?No one expected Baylor to be here,? Bears guard LaceDarius Dunn said. ?We still have something to prove.?