East Region opponents Saint Mary’s and Vanderbilt meet in the first round Friday in Cleveland, bringing squads of considerably different makeup but with a similar goal: reaching the second weekend of the NCAA Tournament for the first time in more than a decade.
Seventh-seeded Saint Mary’s (28-5) has one of the sport’s longest-tenured head coaches, Randy Bennett, at the helm since 2001-02. His roster features several players who have been with the program for years.
The Gaels come into the NCAA Tournament looking to parlay their signature tough defense into the program’s first Sweet 16 since 2010.
Vanderbilt (20-12), meanwhile, is in the tourney for the first time since 2017 and looking for the program’s first trip to the second weekend since 2007. Guiding the 10th-seeded Commodores is first-year coach Mark Byington, who led James Madison to the second round last March.
Vanderbilt’s lineup features a trio of double-digit scorers in Jason Edwards (17.0 points per game), Tyler Nickel (10.5) and Devin McGlockton (10.4), who were all transfer additions last offseason.
“We’re fortunate to be in,” Edwards said. “We knew we were a tournament team from the beginning of the year, but we had some ups and downs. But that comes from playing in a league like this.”
That league, the Southeastern Conference, landed a record 14 tournament bids. That includes Alabama, which is the No. 2 seed in the East and the likely second-round opponent for Friday’s winner.
While the Commodores had to sweat out their tournament placement on Selection Sunday after going 4-8 to close the regular season, Saint Mary’s returned to the postseason comfortably.
The Gaels spent the latter half of the season ranked in the Top 25 and won the West Coast Conference regular-season championship. Saint Mary’s is in its fourth consecutive NCAA Tournament appearance and 11th since 2005 under Bennett.
The Gaels had winning streaks of seven, eight and 10 games during the regular season, one of which only ended in the WCC title game against Gonzaga. Despite the 58-51 loss on March 11, Saint Mary’s won the season series over the perennial March Madness fixture Bulldogs.
“It was pretty drama-free this year,” Bennett said during an appearance on “The Tom Tolbert Show.” “Year before we started 3-5 and had to overcome that. … But this year, the leadership from our three seniors has been incredible — as good as any three seniors we’ve had.”
The seniors — forward Mitchell Saxen and guards Augustas Marciulionis and Luke Barrett — combine to average 34.7 of Saint Mary’s 73.5 points per game. Paulius Murauskas leads the team with 8.0 rebounds and Marciulionis’ 6.1 assists per game rank seventh among all players in the NCAA Tournament field.
The trio also help key a typically stout Saint Mary’s defense. Saxen averages 1.3 steals and 1.3 blocked shots per game, while Marciulionis produces 1.4 steals for a unit that allows only 60.7 points per game.
The Gaels finished the regular season ranked fifth in Division I for scoring defense. The Gaels held opponents to 31.2 percent shooting from 3-point range.
Vanderbilt ranked 48th nationally this season in scoring at 79.6 points per game.
–Field Level Media
