Mahaney Brings Freshman Fortitude To Saint Mary's

Aidan Mahaney was just 5 or 6 years old the first time Saint Mary’s coach Randy Bennett noticed him. It was immediately after a youth basketball game on the Gaels’ floor and Mahaney’s team had just lost.

“Mom tells me the story about how I ran out of the gym crying,” recalled Mahaney, now a freshman guard with the Gaels.

Mahaney wasn’t sure if Bennett remembers the moment. He does.

“I witnessed it. He didn’t make it to the handshake line,” said Bennett, laughing. “I told his Mom right then, `I like the guy, He cares a lot.’ That’s how he was from Day 1.”

A dozen years later, Mahaney, now 6-foot-3 and successfully navigating his first year in college, no longer dashes out of the gym in tears after a loss. But he doesn’t like it, either. “It hurts him,” Bennett said. “He plays to win. It’s not about him.”

Mahaney has been the most productive freshman in the West Coast Conference so far this season, already twice named the WCC Freshman of the Week. He scored 25 points in his college debut vs. Oral Roberts, went for 20 in a win over Vanderbilt and has scored in double-digits six times in nine games off the bench for a team sitting at 16th nationally in the NCAA’s computer NET rankings. 

Mahaney is averaging 13.0 points and shooting just under 39 percent from the 3-point arc heading into Wednesday night’s home game against Missouri State.

“Immediately he brought scoring, shooting, competitiveness,” Bennett said. “He’s improved defensively already — he’s not a bad defender at all. He brings intelligence. He’s a really good leader. Right now, he leads with his confidence.”

Mahaney has been encouraged by the opening month of his career but knows he has much to learn.

“I’d probably say it’s been a little bit more challenging than I thought it would be, just in the sense that you’ve got to bring it every night,” he said. “In college everybody is a good player. You’ve got to be an every-day guy. That’s something I’ve been working on.”

Not every day has gone perfectly. He shot 3-for-13 on 3’s in the Gaels’ setback to Washington, had five turnovers in the New Mexico loss. 

But Mahaney showed an ability to rise to the moment in the Gaels’ 53-48 loss to No. 1 Houston last Saturday in Fort Worth. He scored 14 points including four 3-pointers — all of them in the final 13 minutes as Saint Mary’s scrambled back from a 12-point hole.

He wasn’t patting himself on the back after the Gaels’ third straight loss following a 6-0 start. “As I continue to adjust to the pace of the game, to our offense, I hope to continue to play better,” he said. “We’re young. We need to be a team that gets better week to week, month to month.”

Bennett’s program has produced a series of excellent guards, but only future NBA players Patty Mills and Matthew Dellavedova came out of the gate this quickly. Mills averaged 14.8 points as a freshman in 2007-08 and scored 37 points in a win over Oregon. Dellavedova scored at a 12.1 clip as a collegiate rookie in 2009-10 after putting up 19 points vs. New Mexico State in his first game.

The Gaels’ other standout guards — including Jordan Ford, Emmett Naar and Tommy Kuhse — needed more seasoning. Mahaney says he benefits from having former SMC all-conference guards Mickey McConnell and Joe Rahon in his ear daily as assistants on Bennett’s staff. “Those guys know what they’re talking about,” he said.

Mahaney acknowledges it seemed destined from the start that he would end up at Saint Mary’s. He played with or against Chase and Cade Bennett — Randy’s sons — in youth leagues in the San Francisco East Bay community of Moraga before the three joined forces at Campolindo High School, located 2.2 miles from the Saint Mary’s campus. “I consider those guys to be brothers,” Mahaney said.

Between camps and tournaments and open gym time, Mahaney cannot calculate the hours he has spent on the Gaels’ court.  “I’m almost a baby when I’m playing there,” he said. 

While Mahaney was always around, Bennett said the Gaels didn’t start recruiting him until his junior year in high school. “I’d always tell him, whenever you’re around my kids, around my house, just be you,” Bennett said. “I’ll never bring up (recruiting). I never did.”

Mahaney tried to keep an open mind, considering other options, including nearby Cal, which pursued him hard. But Saint Mary’s, with its proximity and years of winning, just made too much sense.

“What they do with their program is amazing,” Mahaney said. “They were always toward the top of my list.”

Now that the kid who once ran out of the gym crying is there every day for practice, persevering when there are bumps in the road. 

“We know he’s learning. His approach to everything’s great,” Bennett said. “All those other guys had to do it too, but he’s ahead of where most of where them were after nine games. By the end of the season, he’ll be different.”

FOUR MORE PROMISING FRESHMEN: Mahaney isn’t the only freshman making contributions to WCC men’s teams this season. Here are four others worth watching: 

— Jevon Porter, Pepperdine: The younger brother of the NBA’s Michael Porter Jr., the 6-foot-11 forward is averaging 9.5 points and 7.5 rebounds, with three double-digit scoring games and three games of at least 10 rebounds. 

— Chance Stephens, Loyola Marymount: A 6-3 guard, Stephens is scoring 9.2 points per game and shooting 43 percent on 3’s. He had 23 points, including 7-for-10 from deep, vs. Wake Forest

— Juan Sebastian Gorosito, Portland: A 6-1 guard from Argentina, Gorosito is averaging 6.8 points and making 45 percent from the 3-point line. He has scored double digits in two of the Pilots’ past three games.

— Dallin Hall, BYU: The 6-4 guard is averaging 5.9 points for the season but is scoring at an 11.7 clip over the past three games. Hall made the winning shot in BYU’s 66-64 victory over Missouri State.

FORWARDS POWER ZAGS: In a rarity, the Gonzaga men and women both lost last weekend, albeit to top-10 opponents away from home. Returning to the McCarthey Center, each got big performances from their star forwards to post victories.

Senior All-American Drew Timme scored a season-high 29 points on 11-for-16 shooting, grabbed a career-best 17 rebounds and added four assists and two blocks as the No. 19 Zags beat a very good Kent State team, 73-66, on Monday night. Gonzaga coach Mark Few called Timme’s efforts “heroic.”

“This is a place we don’t lose in and we don’t like to lose in,” Timme told the Spokane Spokesman Review after the Zags stretched their home winning streak to 69 games. “The way we were able to (make a) quick, quick turnaround, and that team was a hell of a team. It’s promising for our team just to know we’re capable of doing stuff like that. Hopefully we don’t look back from here.”

One night later, the No. 22 Gonzaga women scored a 73-49 win over Queens University of Charlotte, NC. With only seven players available, the Zags relied on junior forward Yvonne Ejim, who delivered a career-high 32 points on 13-for-17 accuracy to go with seven rebounds and three steals.

Ejim became the first Gonzaga woman to score at least 30 points in a game since Jill Barta had 32 against San Diego on March 6, 2018.

EARLY NET RANKINGS: The NCAA released its first NET computer rankings this week, and they tend to be quite fluid this early in the season, so expect these rankings to change often.

Men — 16. Saint Mary’s; 22. Gonzaga; 99. Santa Clara; 100. Loyola Marymount; 105. USF.

Women — 24. Gonzaga; 102. Santa Clara; 112. USF; 151. Portland; 160. Saint Mary’s.