On consecutive Saturdays on the road in big games against red-hot Bay Area rivals, the Saint Mary’s men’s basketball team wasted no time making itself at home. A week after leaping out to a 30-6 lead in a win at Santa Clara, the Gaels made their first six 3-point attempts to forge a 19-7 advantage on the way to a 77-60 victory at San Francisco.
“Our message every single game is make the first punch,” said sophomore forward Joshua Jefferson, who practically KO’d the Dons by making three 3-pointers in the game’s opening six-plus minutes.
There are lots of games still on the schedule — including two always consequential matchups between Saint Mary’s and Gonzaga — but the Gaels (14-6) are looking the part of West Coast Conference favorites so far, 5-0 and alone atop the standings.
“I think we’ve gotten better. Knock on wood, I think that’s real,” said Gaels’ head coach Randy Bennett, whose team started the season 3-5 against a challenging nonconference schedule but has won 11 of its past 12. “We played really well at Santa Clara and we played really well tonight. We can keep getting better . . . it’s still January.”
USF (15-5, 4-1) entered the game averaging nearly 89 points during a seven-game win streak. In a matchup of the two teams still unbeaten in conference play, the Dons wound up losing for the first time in 11 home games and for the ninth straight time in the series. Head Coach Chris Gerlufsen conceded the damage was done early.
“Credit to Saint Mary’s. I thought they came into the game extremely focused, ready to compete,” Gerlufsen said. “I tried to put that into our team, that they were going to come out ready to play and I just thought we didn’t respond. They beat us in every facet of the game.”
Some telling numbers:
— Saint Mary’s, which entered the game ranked last in the WCC in 3-point accuracy, made 11 of 23 from deep.
— Ranked second nationally in rebounding margin, the Gaels dominated the boards, 41-24. They allowed USF just three offensive rebounds and outscored them, 13-0, on second-chance points.
— Now 5-0 on the road and 3-3 in high-value Quad 1 games, the Gaels jumped from No. 30 to No. 22 in the NCAA’s NET computer rankings.
Jefferson assembled the best game of his career, with 21 points and 10 rebounds. The sophomore forward made his first four tries from 3-point range after shooting 18 percent from deep through the Gaels’ first 19 outings.
“He went from being a guy who played eight to 10 minutes last year to starting for a team that preseason was supposed to be a very good team,” Bennett said. “And he wasn’t quite ready for it yet. He keeps getting better and he keeps getting more confident.”
Sophomore guard Aidan Mahaney scored 22 points, including five 3-pointers, senior center Mitchell Saxen had 16 points on 7-for-8 shooting along with eight rebounds, and much-improved point guard Augustas Marciulionis had nine points, nine rebounds and seven assists.
The Gaels, who play their next three in a row at home, don’t face Gonzaga until Feb. 3 (in Spokane) and March 2 (at Moraga).
LAST WEEK’S BIG THING: Pacific graduate player Cecilia Holmberg, a 6-foot-2 forward from Sweden, scored a career-high 20 points in a win at San Diego then topped that with 21 points a home victory vs. Pepperdine. Holmberg shot a combined 17-for-26 in the two games as the Tigers, playing without injured All-WCC guard Liz Smith for the past five games, improved to 12-7 overall, 4-2 in conference action.
THIS WEEK’S BIG THING: USF must put the loss to Saint Mary’s in the rear-view mirror quickly before trekking north to face Gonzaga on Thursday in a duel of teams with just a single WCC defeat. The Dons will try to regain their footing while facing some daunting history against the Zags: Gonzaga has won their past 27 meetings and hasn’t lost to the Dons in Spokane since 1989. Tipoff is 6 p.m. on ESPN2.
THIS WEEK’S UNEXPECTED THING: The city of Portland, accustomed to lots of rain, got enough snow and ice last week that the Pilots had to postpone men’s and women’s home games scheduled for Thursday. The Portland women will host Saint Mary’s on Monday at noon before the men welcome San Diego on Tuesday at 6 p.m.
700 AND COUNTING FOR FEW: Mark Few pocketed his 700th career victory on Thursday when Gonzaga (13-5, 4-1) beat Pepperdine, 86-61, then notched No. 701 with a 105-63 cruise-control win at San Diego.
Few said he had no idea he was approaching 700 wins until it was mentioned to him a week before. “It’s crazy,” he said after reaching the milestone faster (in 840 games) than any coach other than Kentucky legend Adolph Rupp.
“It’s so hard to win one game,” Boise State coach Leon Rice, an assistant under Few from 1999 to 2010, told the Spokane Spokesman Review. “What goes into all the prep, all the coaching and all the recruiting and everything you have to do to get your team in position to win that one game and to do that 700 times, it’s remarkable. He’s built that monster where the expectations are beyond ridiculous.”
Current assistant Brian Michaelson called the achievement “unfathomable,” adding, “It’s mind-boggling, quite honestly.”
250 AND COUNTING FOR FORTIER: Zags’ women’s head coach Lisa Fortier is on her way to her own mind-boggling win total after securing No. 250 — in just 10 seasons — with a 72-48 win at LMU on Thursday. She added another two days later when the No. 17 Zags (18-2, 5-0) beat Saint Mary’s, 89-60.
“All my time at Gonzaga as an assistant and head coach I’ve been really lucky to have players and people who you want to coach and who are good at basketball and make you look smart most of the time,” said Fortier, whose winning percentage of .804 is fifth among active Division I head coaches.
ESPN’s Charlie Creme, who currently has the Zags penciled in as a No. 4 seed in the NCAA Tournament, wrote last week that this Gonzaga team might be Fortier’s best. No one in the WCC is likely to argue the point right now.
The Zags, who have won their first five conference games by an average margin of 26 points, can beat you inside or from the perimeter. Senior forward Yvonne Ejim is averaging 20.7 points and shooting 65 percent from the field. The backcourt threesome of Brynna Maxwell and twins Kaylynne and Kayleigh Truong have combined to make 141 3’s at a 41-percent clip.
DOUBLE-DOUBLES EVERYWHERE: An unusual note regarding the Gonzaga men, who got double-doubles from three players in the same game Saturday against San Diego. Ben Gregg had 15 points and 11 rebounds, Anton Watson had 12 points and 10 rebounds and Ryan Nembhard contributed 12 points and 12 assists (without a turnover).
And that’s besides freshman Braden Huff, who shot 12-for-17 from the field to score a season-high 26 points. In just 20 minutes on the floor.
SHARP SHOOTERS: The LMU men shot 24-for-26 (92 percent) from the free throw line in a win at Pepperdine. Santa Clara’s Christoph Tilly scored 22 points on 10-for-12 accuracy from the field in a victory over Portland. Olivia Pollerd scored 23 points on 9-for-13 shooting in just the first half as the Santa Clara women topped Pepperdine.