If St. Mary’s doesn’t win the West Coast Conference championship and automatic bid — and Gonzaga is favored to do that — the Gaels will need to hope that the NCAA Tournament selection committee believes St. Mary’s is one of the 34 best at-large teams. To boost those odds, coach Randy Bennett added a game to the schedule to give the committee a chance to see the Gaels with all-conference point guard Patty Mills back in the lineup, according to ESPN.com’s Andy Katz.
“Meanwhile, Bennett’s decision to add a game next Friday was a unique move by a bubble team. Bennett was a game short of the maximum of 30 regular-season games. Eastern Washington was one of a number of teams that Bennett contacted with interest of playing. EWU, which finished 12-17 after failing to qualify for the Big Sky tournament, had an open game after it played at Hawaii. The NCAA allows teams to schedule another game if it plays at Hawaii.”
Mills broke his hand against Gonzaga Jan. 29. He averages 18.7 points and 3.9 assists per game for St. Mary’s, and he helped the Gaels get off to an 18-1 start to the season. Given other bubble teams’ inability to come up with big wins — or any wins, for some teams — late in the season, this move might be enough to prove that St. Mary’s is a dominant force with Mills in the lineup, not the team that lost games at Santa Clara and Portland while Mills was injured.
