Non-conference schedules are incredibly important when dictating a team’s season resume. St. Mary’s schedule raises a lot of question marks.
When the Georgetown Hoyas released their non-conference schedule, it was met with mockery and ridicule. Part of that is due to the prestige of the program and the depths they seem to fall, but it’s not that surprising the Hoyas did this.
Teams who schedule nothing but cupcakes do so for a couple of reasons. First being that they’re either young or inexperienced together as a team, so easy games help build chemistry. Second is that they know they’re going to be bad, so they try to get as many wins as possible. Even if a team goes 5-11 in conference play, it just looks better if a team wins 17 games total than 11.
That’s what makes what Saint Mary’s is doing even more frustrating for everyone. After winning over 30 games, bringing back a potential All-American player in Jock Landale, and having four seniors in their starting lineup, they should be playing the top teams in the country.
Instead, here’s the murderer’s row lineup of teams the Gaels have:
St. Francis
New Mexico State
Cal State Fullerton
At San Jose State
At California
Seattle
UC Irvine
Dayton
UNC Asheville
They also take part in the Wooden Legacy Classic, where the best case scenario is that they’ll play Harvard, St. Joe’s, and then San Diego State.
At first glance, with the possible exception of San Diego State and Dayton, there are no at-large teams on this schedule. And the only power conference team they play is Cal, who might be the worst team in the PAC-12.
This certainly isn’t the first time, as Bennett and Saint Mary’s has developed a reputation for not scheduling tough games, unlike their conference rival Gonzaga. Bennett discussed this on a podcast with Andy Katz and Seth Greenberg, bringing up things like how teams don’t want to travel to Moraga and that there aren’t any takers for straight up home and home games.
To that point, he’s right. If teams don’t have to come to Moraga, then they choose otherwise. Plus, it’s starting to get harder and harder for mid-majors to get high-profile opponents.
The problem is they aren’t trying hard enough. Saint Mary’s could call up the Mountain West Conference instead of the Big West Conference. Quite frankly, this Saint Mary’s team is more than capable of beating a Oregon, USC, or a UCLA on the road in a one-off game.
Now the script is clear for what Saint Mary’s will do this year. Win all but one game out of conference, lose one or two in conference, and get a six or seven seed because the SOS is in the 200s — despite the analytics saying they’re a top 15 team.
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We as basketball fans all know how this works, and so too does Saint Mary’s. What makes this so shameful is that the Gaels are an excellent team and Bennett is a top-notch coach. There’s just not too many opportunities to see it, and that’s what will keep the program from Moraga from getting to the status they should be at.