Going Forward and Looking Back: Gaels and the Olympics

Saint Mary's product Patty Mills was the star for Australia in men's basketball competition at the 2012 London Olympics. He ran up a tournament high in points with 39 against Great Britain, slayed then undefeated Russia with a buzzer beating three, and was tied (with two time NBA champion and four time NBA all-star Pau Gasol) for first in scoring during group play at 20.6 points per game. This was Mills' second Olympic games. His first, Beijing 2008, came during the offseason before his last season at Saint Mary's. His Boomers were eliminated by the United States, a team that is for all intents and purposes an NBA all star team, in both 2008 and 2012. The situation in Moraga this offseason is eerily similar to 2008.

Matthew Dellavedova, fresh off his first Olympic Games, will play his last season at Saint Mary's this season... sound familiar? As a Zags fan, I've always been afraid of the awkward but effective Aussie when the Gaels play Gonzaga. Things have changed and now I'll be terrified. Dellavedova, like Mills before him, had his first Olympics end at the hands of the King James, Kobe Bryant, and the rest of Team USA.



Last season Dellavedova faced six players taken in the 2012 NBA Draft. Against Team USA he faced just one, but of course the other 11 players he faced happened to be 11 of the biggest names in the NBA. Over the course of the Olympics he faced a Spanish team led by Pau Gasol and four other current NBA players, a Brazilian squad with four, the Russians and Brits with former NBA all stars Andrei Kirilenko and Luol Deng respectively and two others each, and the Chinese team with one, along with numerous former NBA players.

While Mills had a more productive first Olympics, especially in terms of scoring (he was the Boomers only real threat against Team USA with 20 points in the loss), Dellavedova did not disappoint. Against Team USA he put up only three points, but ran the offense with four assists and pulled down seven rebounds against the freak athletes of the United States. Most importantly he started every game for the Boomers, and clocked 26 minutes against the Americans.

Dellavedova's averages in London. Click for larger size.

One of my biggest qualms with Randy Bennett is his scheduling. Saint Mary's doesn't play a rigorous enough non-conference slate, and due to that they've been on the wrong side of the bubble when they don't win the WCC's auto bid. This past season I attribute their loss to Murray State and to Purdue in their first NCAA Tournament game to lack of big game experience. Last season was his worst scheduling job in recent memory. The Gales had the 129th ranked non-conference SOS, and that doesn't factor in their two games against non-D-1 teams.

In 2008/09, the season following Mills' first Olympics, the Gaels ran out to an 18-1 start before losing Mills to a broken hand for the remainder of the regular season. Mills went down in a loss at Gonzaga on January 29th. That loss was followed by three losses over four games, at Portland and Santa Clara, then again to Gonzaga in Moraga. Mills returned for the WCC Tournament and put up 17.3 points per game, his season average would be 18.4. The Gaels would lose to Gonzaga once again in the championship game, and found themselves, as all too often, on the bubble. With the average RPI of the teams they beat being only 174 and ranked 75th in non-conference strength of schedule, the Gaels wound up in the NIT. It's worth noting that the NCAA selection committee takes into account the loss of players to injury, so those two bad losses without Mills (both away games against RPI top 200 teams with Portland being 120 in RPI) wouldn't have been so detrimental considering Mills returned and played at essentially the same level as before getting injured.

Since the Gales' 2012 non-conference schedule isn't out yet I don't know how things will be set up for Dellavedova in his post-Olympics campaign. However, based on Mills experience, he should return battle tested and much improved. That alone isn't enough to guarantee a NCAA berth, especially considering that BYU should be improved, Gonzaga will be loaded next season and the Gaels will have to make up for the loss of Rob Jones with his 20 double doubles.

We know that Dellavedova will be, once again, the leader for the Gaels. He's my preseason WCC Player of the Year. The question is, do the Gaels make it easy for Dellavedova to lead his team to the NCAA tournament in back to back years for the first time ever? Dellavedova can't do it alone as it is, after all, a five-on-five game. If you don't cement your berth to the big dance it's a subjective one as well. Just ask Patty Mills how his 2009 campaign turned out.