Saint Mary’s rallied from a 12-point second-half deficit and claimed a first-round win Friday in the NCAA Tournament for the third time in four years.
The seventh-seeded Gaels, despite missing 16 of their first 18 3-point attempts, downed No. 10-seed Vanderbilt 59-56 at Cleveland’s Rocket Arena.
“Obviously for Saint Mary’s College, it’s big for our program,” Saint Mary’s coach Randy Bennett told reporters afterward. “It’s hard to get past the first round.”
Next up is a Sunday matchup against No. 2-seed Alabama, which pulled away for a 90-81 win against No. 15 Robert Morris in the East Region’s preceding game. If Saint Mary’s pulls the upset, it will advance to the Sweet 16 for the second time in program history, and that game in Newark, N.J. would be against the winner of No. 6 BYU vs. No. 3 Wisconsin.
“Alabama, we all know Alabama. They were in the Final Four last year,” Bennett added. “We were supposed to play them in this upcoming (second-round) game last year and we didn’t get the job done.”
Saint Mary’s got upset in last year’s first round by No. 12 seed Grand Canyon. Alabama indeed downed Grand Canyon and eventually got stopped in the Final Four by UConn, which won its second straight title.
This first-round win by the Gaels was certainly harrier than those in 2022 (vs. No. 12 Indiana, 82-53) and in 2023 (vs. No. 12 VCU, 63-51), which were followed by losses respectively to No. 4 UCLA (72-56) and No. 4 UConn (70-55).
Four Gaels scored in double-digits: Jordan Ross (15), Augustus Marciulionis (14), Luke Barrett (12), and Mitchell Saxen (12).
Saint Mary’s was 2-of-16 on 3-point attempts in the first half but finished 7-of-25, and while that isn’t great, Vanderbilt was just 8-of-26 from 3-point range, including a pair of misses in the final 13 seconds.
Down only 29-22 at halftime, that deficit grew to 12 points, the 3-point shooting slumped to a 2-of-18 mark, and Marciulionis headed to the bench with his fourth foul.
Enter Ross, who alternated layups and 3-point baskets, to which he said: “We needed someone to get down hill. I started to be more aggressive.”
“Ross played really well in the second half when we needed to get back in the game,” Bennett added.
Ross and Saxen combined for 16 points over an 8-minute stretch. Once Ross hit a corner 3-pointer, the score was tied at 43 with eight minutes remaining.
The March Madness momentum had swung Saint Mary’s way.
A Marciulionis 3-pointer put the Gaels ahead 46-45 with 6:54 remaining – their first lead since the game’s opening minutes, when they were ahead for just 42 seconds. Marciulionis hit another go-ahead 3-pointer with 4:32 remaining, for a 53-50 lead. It was quite the turnaround not only for Saint Mary’s but the WCC’s two-time reigning player of the year
Asked what the locker room was like at halftime, Bennett said: “I was pretty real with them. We weren’t playing well. We had six turnovers. Some guys got called out a little bit, and Augustus was one of them, until the last 10 minutes when we put him back in.”
Luke Barrett’s corner 3-pointer gave Saint Mary’s a 56-50 lead with 2 minutes to go, but Vanderbilt’s Dean McGlockton answered with a 3-pointer. Two free throws by Marciulionis made it a 58-53 with 75 seconds remaining, but Tyler Nickel answered with a 3-pointer for Vanderbilt with a minute left.
The madness continued. After Barrett missed a running jumper as the shot-clock expired, Saxen grabbed the rebound (his 11th of the game) and made 1-of-2 free throws with 27.7 seconds remaining. Those points proved a luxury in a game where each team shot just 22-of-55 (40%) from the floor.
Ross grabbed the final rebound as time expired, and he even tried nabbing his nameplate from the postgame press conference as a memento, but that could be needed again this tournament.
The Gaels’ 2-of-16 shooting on 3-point attempts in the first half was a grim reminder of their 0-for-16 effort on 3-point attempt in their last game, a 58-51 loss to Gonzaga in the West Coast Conference Tournament title game 10 days earlier. In fact, Saint Mary’s was just 2-of-13 on 3-point attempts in its WCC semifinal win over Pepperdine.
Saint Mary’s has won 19 of its past 21 games.
Saxen has played in a program-record 155 games, and he wants to make it to No. 157. As for how Friday’s win ranks in school history, he said: “It’s up there, but to get one really up there, we need to get the next one. It’s time to put another team in the history books for us.”
Saxen and 7-foot-1 reserve Harry Wessels proved a formidable tandem in the second-half comeback, and Bennett also singled out the defensive play of Mikey Lewis despite his 0-for-7 shooting.
So many misses — by both teams — figured to bode better for Saint Mary’s, which entered with the nation’s best rebounding margin (plus-10). The Gaels indeed emerged with a 41-28 rebounding advantage, led by Saxen’s 11 and Barrett’s 10.
“That’s one of the things we emphasize, playing hard for 40 minutes and rebounding,” Saxen said. “It wears down a lot of teams. You can kind of feel that.”
Added Bennett: “A big part of rebounding for us is attrition. We just keep coming and coming and coming. It eventually wore them down.”