CLEVELAND, Ohio – It’s said that defense wins championships.
And while Saint Mary’s doesn’t have a Division I title to its name yet, making a sixth NCAA Tournament appearance in eight seasons has to account for something.
The No. 7 seed Gaels (28-5) play No. 10 Vanderbilt (20-12) in Cleveland in Friday’s first-round matchup.
The game will be played in the East Region, and the winner of that game will face the winner of No. 2 Alabama and No. 15 Robert Morris.
If you want to beat the Gaels, it’s going to take some extra effort to earn your points. Because it’s their defense and physicality that has led the charge this season.
The Gaels rank third nationally in fewest 3-pointers allowed (5.3), seventh in defensive rebounds allowed (20.7), and fifth in points allowed (60.7).
With great defense comes cleaning the boards, and that’s helped bring them 39.8 total rebounds per game. And 7.9 of those boards belong to senior big man Mitchell Saxen, who has derived his mindset for cleaning the boards off one word: crash.
“I’ve been in a lot of practices where I hear the coaches yell ‘crash’ as soon as the shot goes up. It’s just the mindset of next play, next job that gets drilled into us, and as soon as the shot goes up, I start wedging my way for position usually and we crash for our threes and fours as well,” Saxen said.
Of their 6.2 total steals per game, 1.4 of them belong to guard Augustas Marciulionis, who’s the son of Basketball Hall of Fame player Šarūnas Marciulionis.
The defensive success is done by the players, though the origins date back to head coach Randy Bennett, who nears the end of his 24th season coaching the Gaels.
His squads have consistently ranked high in defensive metrics, and he credits a couple little changes to their defensive philosophy to make that happen.
“I think on-ball (defense), defending pick-and-rolls have become such a huge part of the game, and it wasn’t like that,” Bennett said. “I think we were on the front end in like 2010 when we had Delly and Micky. That’s when we went real heavy to it, not many teams had. And that’s grown in college basketball.”
Speaking of 2010, what happened during that time?
Their starting backcourt of Matthew Dellavedova and Mickey McConnell helped bring the program their first Sweet 16 appearance since 1959.
Despite winning the West Coast Conference tournament and a 26–5 record, the Gaels were still given a No. 10 seed. That didn’t stop them, upsetting No. 7 Richmond and No. 2 Villanova.
Ironically, they were better at scoring than they were in limiting opposing points, finishing 21st in points (78.5) and 124th in points allowed (66.4).
Yet, they were still defensively efficient elsewhere, ranking seventh in 3-pointers allowed (4.2), 13th in forced turnovers (10.9), and 49th in steals (5.6).
It has carried over to the present day, though it has come with adaption to how the game is played.
“The last thing you do every time you scout a team is how are we guarding these on-ball situations. Your scout is going to get down to that,” Bennett said.
“So how we defended those, we’ve adapted. Teams have really gotten good at it and guards have become good at it, and there’s more shooters on the floor … you’re trying to cover the on ball coverage and also not giving up 3s.”
The Gaels advanced to the round of 32 in 2023, but fell to No. 12 seed Grand Canyon in 2024.
The Lopes’ 42.9% shooting was slightly better than the Gaels’ 38.8% performance, but it was the Lopes using the Gaels’ physicality to their advantage by making 36 trips to the free throw line, and draining 28 of them.
The senior trio of Saxen, Marciulionis, and Luke Barrett are striving to come out on top during their last dance.
“We try to go in every game with that mindset of, we can try to break these guys,” Barrett said. “Especially teams that like to score, we know our defense and our rebounding and our effort on those ends can carry throughout a 40-minute game.”
This season, two teams tie for the most points scored versus the Gaels (75): Utah State and Washington State. Vanderbilt eclipses that on average with 79.6 points per game, which ranks 48th in the country.
The best way for the Gaels to win on Friday is with their three seniors leading by example, and the defense sticking to its strengths.
“We pride ourselves on just being everyday guys and doing our musts every game. That’s kind of helping us have a mindset of, yeah, it’s a bigger game and it’s a bigger setting, but if we do the things that got us to this point, then we’re going to be all right,” Barrett said.
