About the only good news for Saint Mary's after stinking it up on national TV with a 51-65 loss at #16 Murray State was that Matthew Dellavedova was able to play. Dellavedova's ankle was certainly a problem for him, he wasn't as impressive at creating space as usual, but he still managed to lead the Gaels in scoring with 17 points. No other Gael scored more than 7 points. Murray State held the Gaels to a 37.7% shooting percentage and an even more disturbing 14.3% from three. Saint Mary's has the 26th best shooting percentage in the nation hitting 47.6% of their shots. Tonight was a completely different story.
Rob Jones, who had 50 points over the past two games, was a no show tonight. His four points and three rebounds were nowhere near good enough. I am not sure what Randy Bennett was thinking, but he played nine different big men tonight, and none of them got a rhythm going. Reserve forward Beau Levesque fouled out of the game but only played 22 minutes. That is the same amount of time as Brad Waldow but more than Rob Jones, Kenton Walker and Mitchell Young. Levesque averages nine minutes per game and only 2.5 points. Kyle Rowley started the game at center but managed to accumulate less time than his average. Once again, I have no idea what coach Bennett was thinking. He played Rowley for two minutes, that's it. I'm not sure why he started him, much less gave him any playing time. Rowley averages 4.4 minutes per game and a measly 1.1 points.
Murray State proved they are for real with this win. Granted Saint Mary's was fighting injuries. Stephen Holt didn't even make the trip. Murray State didn't just beat a short handed Gaels squad, they completely dominated them, making it appear that even at full strength the Gaels would have still come up short. Isaiah Canaan scored a game high 23 points, including 5 of the Racers 9 threes. Canaan and Dellavedova are two of the 11 Bob Cousy Award finalists for best point guard in the land. Canaan looks very much like a lottery pick in this year's NBA draft. Dellavedova had a very hard time getting any space between himself and Canaan, who showed defensive prowess on top of his scoring. To Dellavedova's credit he also deserves to be a Cousy award finalist, as he was the only Gael who came to play tonight, despite his bum ankle.
When will Randy Bennett realize that late season games like this, when the Zags come to town and now, with BYU, are big games. A non conference schedule worth approximately 3 cents does not generate the experience necessary to win big games late in the season. I sure hope we're not witnessing another end of the year slide from being ranked to being NIT bound for the Gaels. They're three of their last four games.
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