No. 19 St. Mary's awaits visit from San Diego (Dec 31, 2016)
San Diego coach Lamont Smith will be familiar with the surroundings when his team visits 19th-ranked Saint Mary's at the 3,500-seat McKeon Pavilion on Saturday night in Moraga, Calif.
Smith served on the Saint Mary's staff under coach Randy Bennett for six years (2001-2007), and they know each other well. Smith is even trying to match what Bennett did at Saint Mary's.
Smith has said in the past that he'd "be a fool not to duplicate" some of Bennett's methods in building the Gaels into a national power. The similar approach may be why both coaches were upset by the fundamental mistakes made by their teams in their West Coast Conference openers on Thursday.
There was a major difference, though, because Saint Mary's (11-1) won its game 72-60 over Loyola Marymount, while San Diego (7-6) was beaten by San Francisco 80-74, ending the Toreros' five-game winning streak.
The Toreros turned the ball over 10 times in the first half, when they fell behind 51-28.
"I don't think there's any excuse for that poor performance in the first half, other than us not being ready to play and a lot of that falls on me," Smith told the San Diego Union-Tribune. "I challenged them to set the tone, and they didn't set the tone. That goes on me. I've got to have them more ready to play to start the game."
San Diego committed just two turnovers in the second half and got to within four points with 54 seconds left, but could not overcome its big deficit.
Brett Bailey, who leads the team in scoring at 18.5 points per game, had 11 of his 18 points in the second half, while Olin Carter III, the Toreros' second-leading scorer at 17.8 per game, had 16 of his 19 points after intermission. But they combined for five first-half turnovers.
Saint Mary's also committed 10 first-half turnovers in its game and finished with a season-high. That is a habit Bennett wants to break.
"We played well in some areas, but we have to do a better job taking care of the ball," Bennett said. "We had a season high in turnovers, so we got to take of the ball better in conference play."
That has been a common refrain for Bennett recently.
"I don't know what the deal is but we've been turning the ball over more than last year and more than we usually do," Bennett said.
The Gaels returned all five starters from last season's team, which averaged just 9.6 turnovers, fifth in the nation.
They started out well this season, averaging 8.3 turnovers over their first four games. But they committed at least 13 turnovers in five of their past six games, topped off by Thursday's total.
The miscues and poor free-throw shooting nearly cost Saint Mary's, which led Loyola Marymount by just a point midway through the second half.
All five Gaels starters were shooting 75 percent or better from the free-throw line before the start of Thursday's game, but Saint Mary's was just 7 of 16 from the line midway through the second half against the Lions.
The Gaels shot free throws better down the stretch, which helped them pull away.
"Our toughness pulled us through tonight," said Saint Mary's center Jock Landale, who had 13 of his 18 points in the second half.
The 6-foot-11 Landale leads the team in both scoring (17.9 points per game) and rebounding (9.7), while Emmett Naar had a season-high 19 points Thursday and improved his scoring average to 10.2 points for the season.
Don't expect Bennett to take it easy on his former assistant. Last season, in Smith's first year at San Diego, Saint Mary's blasted the Toreros 79-46 at home and handled the Toreros 60-43 when the teams met in San Diego.
Saint Mary's has won five consecutive games against San Diego and 10 of the last 11 meetings.
