Friday, March 20, 2015

St. Mary's: rising, treading water or sinking?

Try Patty Mills, Diamon Simpson, Omar Samhan, Mickey McConnell, Rob Jones, Matthew Dellavedova with Brad Waldow as the latest. The Gaels have parlayed a very good college talent (or two), surrounded by a bevy of steady and solid role players, into the establishment of a long and successful run as a West Coast power.

But what about now and into the future? Especially now that the season is over with a 75-64 homecourt loss to Vanderbilt.

Well, inconsistency has been the premium disturbing element in the 2014-15 season. Waldow would usually generate or exceed his expected numbers but it was a game-in game-out question mark if anyone else would shine. There was no Stephen Holt-type this season, the absence of a Beau Levesque contributor, a being Mitchell Young-less, to name a few of the recent non-stars who played major roles. Kerry Carter, Aaron Bright and Desmond Simmons were erratic and that's must change if St. Mary's hopes to continue with the rep as a 'you-don't-want-to-mess-with-them' kind of team.

Granted, the absence of injured junior guard Joe Coleman this year was a setback as he would have aided a higher degree of good shot creation although probably not any sort of a better outside shooting.

Now Waldow, Carter, Bright and Simmons plus Garrett Jackson are all departing.

So what does Coach Randy Bennett need in order to regain the loftiness the Gaels once enjoyed?

At least two well-functioning bigs and that's an immediate question mark because the current roster lacks even one who is ready at this moment. 6-foot-11 Jock Landale and 6-foot-9 Dane Pineau have enjoyed impressive moments and stretches but neither is close to filling the hole Waldow is leaving behind.

It's accurate if simplistic to say recruiting has fallen off. The Australian pipeline remains flourishing but just not recently with the level of talent of a Mills or Dellavedova. Pineau and Emmett Naar have shown promise with their peak still to be determined.

Redshirt freshman Calvin Hermanson displayed promise in 2014-15. 6-foot-10 Evan Fitzer redshirted this season so he's an unknown. Help from both is needed.

6-foot-2 point Joe Rahon, a Boston College transfer, will be a plus after redshirting this season and he should be someone who can be counted on game-in and game-out.

Transfers from four-year and two-year schools have been a lifeblood, if you will, of the program of late but contributions of Simmons, Bright and Carter just weren't at the level that was needed.

Incoming freshmen-to-be 6-foot-2 point Stefan Gonzales (out of Idaho), 6-foot-6 Tanner Krebs (Australia) and 6-foot-7 Kyle Clark (Australia) all look promising but it's a big leap moving from where they are into the West Coast Conference. Also, 6-foot-9 Jordan Hunter (Australia) is another frosh heading to Moraga. This influx makes it seem like the Gael brass are going with a get-'em-young-and-develop-'em' philosophy and veering away from transfers although the 'whys' of any recruiting class is impossible to pinpoint.

Perusing the roster-to-be, St. Mary's, similar to the patterns of USF, Santa Clara, San Jose State University, will not have any scholarshipped northern California-connected talents on it's 2015-16 roster and that's unusual.

Finishing 21-10, 13-5 is an achievement, especially for most college teams. There is no denigrating such an achievement. But the West Coast Conference was down this season and currently there is no detectable buzz is emanating from Moraga.

However, that's why the games are played. Let's see how St. Mary's performs in 2015-16.

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