WCC Basketball: Preseason power rankings for 2023-24 season

2. Saint Mary’s Gaels

A week ago, the coaches of the WCC gave the top preseason poll honors to Saint Mary’s, and understandably considering the roster retention after another tournament appearance and first-round win. The Gaels were the assumed victors of the conference when they took down Gonzaga in February, but a couple of losses led to the Gaels tying for WCC regular season champs and they were defeated soundly by the Zags again in the WCC tournament championship.

The reason for optimism is the return of sophomore guard Aidan Mahaney, who drew eyes with his 13.9 point average and 40% shooting from deep. Many are pegging Mahaney to progress into the next great guard for Randy Bennett and one of the premier shooters not just in the conference but in the country. If that’s the case, the Gaels might be criminally underrated in national polls and could be a sneaky team in the NCAA tournament.

Mahaney is joined in the backcourt by junior Augustas Marciulionis, who played an understudy role behind now-graduated Logan Johnson. Marciulionis has the pedigree and skills to be a dependable point guard and facilitate quality looks for Mahaney. Similar to Johnson, he hasn’t shown a dependable shot and struggles from outside.

While Mahaney is getting the offseason attention, the biggest news in the offseason was that Alex Ducas was returning for a fifth year in Moraga. Ducas is a two-way wing who was the second-leading scorer for the Gaels last year, averaging 12.5 points and 4.3 assists last season.

In the frontcourt is Mitchell Saxen, an underrated rim protector and post player who is poised for a big senior campaign. The 6-foot-11 center averaged 11.6 points, 7.6 rebounds and 1.2 blocks last year. He’ll be backed up by sophomore seven-footer Harry Wessels, who performed admirably in limited minutes. That size and skill are hard to find in the rest of this conference.

A big impact for what Saint Mary’s ultimately becomes this season is on the impact that sophomore Joshua Jefferson has while entering into a significantly larger role. Jefferson has the poise and athleticism to play a big role on defense and could become an offensive weapon for Bennett this season. He only took 53 attempts last season and 29 of those were three-point attempts (31%), but he was 59% from inside the arc.

There is so much clearly to like with Saint Mary’s this season that, again, first place should not be considered surprising. But it also feels like many are minimizing the loss of Logan Johnson and Kyle Bowen has to the continuity and defensive identity that the Gaels are known for. Clearly, Bennett recruits to his strength and many of the players that will be leaned on this year were learning and growing to this moment last. But Logan Johnson was the best player on this team and that just isn’t being talked about enough.

Bowen, while not being an offensive weapon, was indispensable on defense last year. Is Jefferson ready to plug-and-play in that role? It’s worth remembering a few years back when the Gaels lost Jordan Ford and Malik Fitts that Bennett and company would just naturally figure it out with his system. They finished 14-10. There is no way that the Gaels don’t find themselves somewhere at the top of this conference, but it is not as clear as a poll would suggest.