Saint Mary’s Basketball will have to reload after losing the team’s star players. Can rising junior Jordan Ford keep the Gaels in the WCC conversation?
In the last two seasons, Saint Mary’s Basketball amassed 59 total wins and stood toe to toe with the Gonzaga Bulldogs for West Coast Conference Basketball supremacy. They were led by players such as WCC Player of the Year Jock Landale, Emmett Naar, and Calvin Hermanson among others as part of another golden era for the Gaels.
That era ended this past season in the NIT with a loss to Utah, with five of the team’s top seven scorers departing the program. That already would normally be an issue for the given team, but for Saint Mary’s in the WCC, that’s an even bigger problem. All the other teams in the league will return their top respective players, making them even tougher to deal with next season. For a program that’s been consistently in the top-3 in the standings for over a decade, falling down would be a bitter pill to swallow.
That still might not happen, if Jordan Ford continues his strong play towards the end of last season. After playing little as a freshman, the 6’1 guard started every game as a sophomore, averaging 11.1 ppg. His shooting percentages were great, including making 44% of his three-point attempts.
When it came to his scoring outputs, it was inconsistent at times, which is understandable considering that he was the third or fourth offensive option on the court. He had plenty of games where he went for 15+ and even more games with less than five points.
That changed at the end of the season, where Ford averaged 19.1 ppg, including 27 points against BYU in the WCC Tournament and 26 to lead the Gaels over Washington in the NIT. His rebounding improved and he rarely turned the ball over from the perimeter. He could be the team’s starting point guard for 2018-19 if head coach Randy Bennett opted to go that route. Either way, look for him to have the ball in his hands a lot.
With Ford going from role player to possible star of the team, the attention and scouting reports will be much more focused on him. If the rising junior can continue the momentum into next year, then Gonzaga and the other WCC teams will still have to fear Saint Mary’s Basketball.