Coach Randy Bennett’s Saint Mary’s basketball team sits atop the West Coast Conference standings at 6-0, but he understands the road is about to get steeper. Much steeper.
The Gaels have a two-game lead in the loss column on the rest of the pack after winning by an average margin of 26.5 points in those six games against teams that currently reside in the lower division of the WCC standings with a combined conference record of 8-32.
Compared with those half-dozen squads, the Gaels’ next eight opponents — beginning Thursday night at home against USF — are all legit contenders with a combined record of 41-17 in WCC games.
“It’s 10 out of 12 if you want to keep going. It’s nuts,” Bennett said of the schedule facing the Gaels. “It’s kind of daunting if you just look at it in those terms. I’m trying to make sure our players don’t do that. The old coaches’ cliche is really applicable in this situation — you’ve just got to take one of them at a time and go from there.”
After the first of two against the Dons (16-5, 6-2), Saint Mary’s faces a gauntlet featuring two games vs. Washington State (15-5, 5-2) and Santa Clara (13-7, 5-2), and one each against Gonzaga (14-6, 5-2) and Oregon State (14-6, 4-3) through Feb. 15.
“I told our guys we’ve never had a tougher conference than this year,” said Bennett, who has won 549 games in 24 seasons. “It means some tough stretches of games this year.”
The addition of WSU and OSU as two-year affiliate members of the WCC — before they return to a reconstituted Pac-12 — has made the league deeper than ever.
Bennett is eager to see how his Gaels (16-3 overall) match up. They have exceled so far thanks to a defense that is statistically the best in the WCC in conference play. After its 74-50 win at Pepperdine last Saturday, Saint Mary’s is allowing just 53.5 points per game against WCC foes, limiting them to 37.9 percent field-goal shooting and 29.1 percent from the 3-point arc, and winning the rebounding battle by 14.8 per game.
The Gaels are anchored by three seniors: Point guard and reigning WCC Player of the Year Augustas Marciulionis, center and 2024 WCC Defensive Player of the Year Mitchell Saxen and over-achieving former walk-on Luke Barrett.
The Gaels’ improvement has come over the past three weeks mostly because players new to the program have started to figure things out. “That’s the key to why we’ve had success and the key to why we’ve improved,” Bennett said. “Our depth defensively has gotten better.”
The next step — the last one most years for Saint Mary’s, Bennett acknowledged — is to become more efficient offensively. It’s not a question of scoring more, which is a function of the pace the Gaels choose to play, but improving their shooting percentage and turning the ball over less often.
“We’re a better shooting team than our numbers,” said Bennett, whose Gaels made just 31 percent from 3-point range the first 11 games but are at nearly 44 percent the past four outings. They’re also giving up fewer than seven turnovers per game in WCC play.
Those numbers are about to be tested at a different level.
KRIMILI CLOSE TO 400
Cal senior guard Ioanna Krimili needs just two 3-point baskets on Thursday night at Stanford to become the 17th woman in Division I history to reach 400 for her career.
A native of Heraklion, Greece who began her career at San Francisco, Krimili will be the first international player to reach that plateau. She is the current active leader with 398 made 3-pointers and also is No. 4 with 2,408 career points.
California Golden Bears guard Ioanna Krimili (21) gestures while playing the Florida State Seminoles during the first half of their NCAA game at Haas Pavilion in Berkeley, Calif., on Sunday, Jan. 12, 2025. (Jose Carlos Fajardo/Bay Area News Group)
The Division I record for career 3-pointers is 548, set by Iowa’s Caitlin Clark (2020-24).
The 22nd-ranked Bears (17-3, 5-2 ACC) take on the Cardinal (10-8, 2-5) at Maples Pavilion, tipping off at 7 p.m. Cal beat Stanford 83-63 last month and is going after just its second-ever regular-season sweep of its rival, its first since the 1981-82 season.
DONS DIMINISHED WITHOUT DOS SANTOS
Just two weeks ago, USF’s women sat atop the West Coast Conference standings with a 5-0 record. But a serious knee injury to All-WCC forward Debora dos Santos (12.9 points, 7.7 rebounds) changed everything.
The Dons (8-10, 5-4) have lost four in a row without her, falling into a tie for sixth place entering Thursday’s home game against Oregon State.
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