Saint Mary’s blows out Gonzaga

Mickey McConnel scored 26 points and had six assists and four steals to help Saint Mary’s to an 81-62 rout of Gonzaga in the West Coast Conference tournament men’s championship game at the Orleans Arena on Monday night.

McConnell hit 4 of 7 from 3-point range and several of those were from far behind the line.

Gonzaga coach Mark Few said the guard was seeking to redeem himself after a poor game against the Bulldogs in the regular season.

“He was great tonight. I think he was really intent on getting after us,“ Few said of McConnell. “We were a little bit casual with him early on and that really got him going. He had a phenomenal game.”

McConnell said the same thing, pointing out he was very frustrated by being shut out in Spokane and the game was still on his mind.

“I kind of made a conscious effort to be aggressive and the shots were going early,” he said. “I got a couple of open looks that I ordinarily wouldn’t get against them and it really got be going.”

The Gaels also got 20 points, nine rebounds and four assists from Ben Allen, who also knocked down four 3-pointers.

Saint Mary’s star Omar Samhan was held to just nine points, but all came in the second half. He also had seven rebounds and six blocked shots.

Samhan was involved in an altercation with Gonzaga’s Robert Sacre in the second half that resulted in a technical foul against the star center.

It seemed to fire up his teammates though.

“I made the analogy to (my teammates) that Gonzaga is like a bunch of sharks,” Samhan said. “If they see blood in the water, you’re done. As soon as (Sacre) told me to bring it on, I couldn’t back down. I told coach sorry, but I had to do it.”

The free throws that resulted from the technical foul cut Gonzaga’s deficit to three points, but Saint Mary’s rallied and crushed the Bulldogs from there.

Steven Gray had 16 points for Gonzaga and Matt Bouldin added 14. Those two players combined to hit all 15 of their free thows, but the rest of the team struggled.

The Bulldogs other four players that got to the line combined to go just 2 of 9.

The lead bounced around between three and five points for much of the second half, but Allen hit a 3-pointer and Jorden Page converted a fast-break layup into a 3-point play to put the Gaels ahead 56-47 with 8:23 to play.

The Gaels used a similar run late in the game to put the win away for good.

Gonzaga had cut a 14-point lead to 64-54, but Saint Mary’s scored nine straight points to go ahead by 19. The fans were dancing in the aisles the rest of the way.

All-Tournament Team

Mickey McConnell was rewarded for his efforts in the two victories this week with the tournament MVP award.

The junior point guard had a great deal of pressure replacing former Saint Mary’s star Patty Mills this season. He struggled at times, but stood out in this tournament.

Teammates Omar Samhan and Ben Allen were also on the all-tournament team.

Gonzaga’s Steven Gray and Matt Bouldin rounded out the squad.

The voting was very good, but shows both the bias people have to what they last saw and the fact that too much of the media only watched the championship game.

Four of the selections were fine. McConnell, Samhan, Gray and Bouldin were very good in both the semifinals and championship game.

Allen had a tremendous title game, but he struggled mightily in the semifinal win over Portland. The senior had just four points on 2 of 8 shooting in that game.

He even joked that the reason he was able to make so many shots tonight was because he was left open after going 0-for-4 from the 3-point line last night.

Vernon Teel helped Loyola Marymount become the only team besides Saint Mary’s to win two games in this tournament.

Teel was the best player on the court in the Lions two victories, averaging 22.5 points, 6.5 rebounds and four assists per game in the wins.

He probably should have been included over Allen who had just one great game on the night people decided to actually show up.

Stress-free Sunday

Omar Sanham is looking forward to watching the NCAA tournament selection show and only needing to worry about seeding and location, instead of whether or not the Gaels will be invited.

“The last two years we’ve been sitting there on selection Sunday wondering,“ he said. “Once it worked out, once it didn’t. We just did not want to leave it in anyone’s hands.”

This will be the sixth tournament appearance for Saint Mary’s and the third under current coach Randy Bennett.

This was the coach’s first WCC tournament title in four championship game appearances, however.

“It took us nine years to get this done. It’s hard just to get in this position,” he said. “We’ve been there four times and this group was finally able to knock the door down and get the tournament championship.

Bennett said the players and coaches got a bit lost in the excitement of actually winning.

“It’s not like we’ve done this a whole bunch of times, so we’re all kind of sitting around wondering, “What do you do next?’” he said.

What went wrong?

Gonzaga coach Mark Few pointed to the fact that his team was stagnant on offense as the reason Saint Mary’s was able to win so convincingly after two Bulldog blowouts in the regular season.

The Gaels weren‘t hurt by Mickey McConnell and Ben Allen combining to go 8-for-13 from the 3-point line either.

“On the offensive end, we didn’t do a good job of moving the basketball and Saint Mary’s did a phenomenal job of stepping up and making shots,“ he said. “They really took it to us.”

Matt Bouldin, the conference regular season player of the year, offered a harsh critique of his team’s performance.

“We kind of lost our identity in terms of not moving the ball around and not making the defense move around,“ the Gonzaga guard said. “When we force things, we’re not hard to guard.”

Good news for the league

League officials weren’t seen doing cartwheels courtside, but they had to be feeling great on the inside.

Saint Mary’s had a great resume last season, but was left out of the NCAA tournament on selection Sunday.

There was a chance it could happen again, but the Gaels took care of that by clinching the automatic bid.

Gonzaga’s great resume means the conference will have two teams in the tournament.