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.
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 in Cleveland. 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 pit the Gaels against the winner of No. 6 BYU vs. No. 3 Wisconsin.
“We’ve been a part of good wins, but this was a special one,” Saint Mary’s coach Randy Bennett said afterward on the truTV broadcast.
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 in the second half before Ross and Saxen got hot and 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.
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, who picked up his fourth foul only four minutes into this game and headed to the bench for a spell.
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.
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.
The Gaels also won their tournament openers in 2022 (vs. No. 12 Indiana, 82-53) and in 2023 (vs. No. 12 VCU, 63-51), only to exit with losses respectively to No. 4 UCLA (72-56) and No. 4 UConn (70-55). Saint Mary’s got upset in last year’s first round by No. 12 seed Grand Canyon (75-66 in Spokane, Wash.).
Saint Mary’s has won 19 of its past 21 games, and this came in the wake of a 58-51 defeat 10 days ago to Gonzaga in the West Coast Conference Tournament finals.