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Gonzaga Basketball

Q&A: Longtime Bay Area reporter breaks down Saturday’s Gonzaga-Saint Mary’s matchup

Gonzaga head coach Mark Few, background right, chats with Saint Mary’s counterpart Randy Bennett prior to the 2019 West Coach Conference Tournament championship game in Las Vegas.  (TYLER TJOMSLAND/THE SPOKESMAN-REVIEW)

Gonzaga and Saint Mary’s have had so many memorable showdowns, which stands to reason since one or the other – or both – has earned every West Coast Conference regular-season title since the 2002-03 season.

The Zags have 17 solo crowns, the Gaels two and the WCC powers have shared the championship three times over that time. GU’s dominance of the WCC under coach Mark Few dates back to the 2000-01 season when Few celebrated his first championship in his second season at the helm, followed by a shared title with Pepperdine the following year.

Gonzaga and Saint Mary’s have finished in the top two, typically in that order, 14 of the past 17 years. It’s a similar story in the WCC Tournament, with Gonzaga claiming 12 titles and Saint Mary’s four in the past 16 events.

Twelve of those title clashes featured GU against SMC. The Zags defeated BYU in the other four.

Defending champion Saint Mary’s (19-3, 9-0 WCC) holds a two-game edge over second-place Gonzaga (16-6, 7-2) entering Saturday’s matchup at University Credit Union Pavilion in Moraga, California.

We turned to Steve Kroner for a closer look at Saturday’s showdown. Kroner covered Bay Area college basketball for the San Francisco Chronicle for two decades.

He works for Saint Mary’s as a broadcaster and a writer and still covers the other Bay Area schools as a freelancer for the Chronicle.

Q: Saint Mary’s lost Aidan Mahaney to UConn and Joshua Jefferson to Iowa State – two starters, proven players and potentially WCC Player of the Year candidates. Obviously, those are huge losses, but the Gaels haven’t missed a beat. How have they replaced those two?

SK: They’ve replaced Jefferson with Paulius Murauskas, a Lithuanian who spent last season as a freshman at Arizona. Murauskas has a game similar to Jefferson’s: strong as a scorer inside and an excellent rebounder. Murauskas might be a better outside shooter than Jefferson. Murauskas started the season extremely well, slumped for a few weeks offensively but has gotten back on track the past three games.

The Gaels have replaced Mahaney with, in effect, two players, starter Jordan Ross and sixth man Mikey Lewis. Ross is a sophomore who played sparingly last season but has been steady this season. Lewis, a freshman, was one of the top recruits Bennett has had. Lewis has been inconsistent; he can be an outstanding scorer but has alternated strong games with not-so-strong ones.

Q: Randy Bennett’s teams are always physical, stingy defensively, in part because they slow the pace, and strong on the boards. This squad seems to be even better defensively and particularly on the glass. Fair to say this is one of Bennett’s best defensive units and what makes this one unique?

SK: This is definitely one of the Gaels’ better defensive teams and I don’t think people would have thought that in early December. The Gaels have gotten much better defensively over the past six or seven weeks. I think it starts with Mitchell Saxen in the middle and Augustas Marciulionis at point guard. They’re both excellent defenders.

Add in Luke Barrett, a fifth-year senior forward who was a walk-on. He gives SMC both a versatile defender and another good rebounder, and this has become a team that has allowed more than 58 points in only one of its nine WCC games.

Q: The question I get all the time, though not as often as the years go by: Would Mark Few ever leave to coach somewhere else? Bennett’s record certainly has made him a viable candidate for jobs in the past. What’s kept him in Moraga and is there a dream job to keep an eye on if it were to open up?

SK: I don’t have a definitive answer on this, but if Bennett has stayed in Moraga this long, it would be a shock for him to leave now. I think he likes the familial atmosphere in Moraga and likes the program he has built, with the Australian pipeline a big reason but surely not the only one.

Q: One or two of the biggest keys for the Gaels against Gonzaga on Saturday?

SK: Over the years, I’ve talked with Bennett many times in the lead-up to a Gonzaga game, and he almost invariably stresses that the Gaels have to take care of the ball. They can’t afford to let Gonzaga get transition baskets. The Zags are good enough offensively without getting fast-break buckets. If Gonzaga gets a number of transition buckets, SMC will have a tough time prevailing.