Vanderbilt Men’s Basketball (20-12, 8-10 SEC) earned its bid to the NCAA Tournament on March 16. The No. 10 Commodores will take on No. 7 Saint Mary’s (28-5, 17-1 WCC). The Gaels are no joke: They cruised to a regular season conference title and reached the West Coast Conference Tournament Championship before losing to Gonzaga. Other than Gonzaga, Saint Mary’s only lost to Arizona State, Boise State, San Francisco and Utah State this season.
Head coach Randy Bennett’s squad finished 4-3 in Quad 1 games, 6-2 in Quad 2 and a cumulative 17-0 in Quads 3 and 4. All of this is to say that the Gaels, ranked No. 20 in the AP Poll and No. 21 in the NET, don’t mess around.
The Commodores played 14 Quad 1 games and 7 more Quad 2 games, posting a cumulative record of 9-12 in those contests. That — along with an 11-0 record in Quad 3 and 4 games — helped the Commodores to a No. 48 NET ranking.
While the Gaels have the advantage when it comes to metrics, fewer teams are more battle-tested than Vanderbilt. The Black and Gold came out of a historical SEC (with a record-breaking 14 teams reaching the Field of 68) with some serious wins. Head coach Mark Byington and Co. picked up victories against a program-record four top-15 teams in Tennessee, Kentucky, Missouri and Texas A&M.
Saint Mary’s has made the Big Dance in each of the past four years, earning a No. 5 seed in 2022, 2023 and 2024. The Gaels reached the second round in 2023 before falling to eventual champion UConn. They fell at the hands of No. 12 Grand Canyon in last year’s tournament. This is Vanderbilt’s first time in the NCAA Tournament since 2017 when it was a No. 9 seed and lost to No. 8 Northwestern in heartbreaking, 68-66 fashion. Both teams will look to come out and play their brand of basketball from the opening tip with a spot in the Round of 32 on the line.
The vets
Saint Mary’s — as is often the case with a team that’s made four consecutive NCAA Tournaments — has significantly more experience than most of the Field of 68. Senior Augustus Marciulionis, along with fifth-years Mitchell Saxen and Luke Barrett, are the hearts and souls of this Gaels team. The trio played and started in all 33 of the team’s games thus far, but they offer more than just experience.
Marciulionis is an elite point guard and played a large role in Saint Mary’s, ranking 43rd in the nation in turnover percentage (15.1%) and 63rd in assists (15.5 per game). Marciulionis’s 6.1 assists per game ranks 16th in the country and third in the WCC. He also leads the team in scoring, averaging 14.3 points per game on 34.8% shooting from downtown. The Lithuanian guard brings size to the Gaels’ backcourt at 6’4 and is unafraid of contact, not entirely dissimilar from Vanderbilt’s starting point guard, AJ Hoggard.
Saxen and Barrett comprise two-thirds of Saint Mary’s backcourt, averaging 7.9 and 6.7 rebounds per game, respectively. Their efforts — along with Paulius Murauskas (8.0 boards per game) — make the Gaels one of the nation’s most formidable rebounding teams in the country. They rank 15th in all of Division I and first in the WCC, averaging 39.8 boards per contest. Saint Mary’s real strength, though, lies in its ability to win the battle on the offensive glass. The team ranks second in the nation in offensive rebound percentage (40.5) and 11th in offensive rebound percentage allowed (24.9) per KenPom.
Marciulionis, Saxen and Barrett are a perfect trifecta of leaders, but they aren’t the only key players on this team. As is the case with most elite college basketball teams, Bennett and Saint Mary’s utilize a blend of veterans and young studs to win games.
The kids
The best of Saint Mary’s young bunch is sophomore Murauskas, and his abilities extend beyond his rebounding prowess. The Lithuanian forward checks in at 6’8 but can score like he’s 6’3. He can move like a guard and, albeit inconsistent, shoots the ball well from downtown (30.5% on the season). While that efficiency won’t blow anyone away, he’s got a clean stroke and is a threat to shoot at all times. That means Vanderbilt’s defense will need to be on its toes at all times. Jaylen Carey and Devin McGlockton will have some work to do against Murauskas, along with the aforementioned veteran bigs.
The Gaels’ X-factor, though, comes in the form of a first-year from Oakland, California. Mikey Lewis is their best shooter — up at 38.8% from downtown on 4.5 attempts per game — which leads the team. His 8.5 points per game (in just 16.1 minutes played) give him the most points per minute of all Gaels (0.53). He’s a genuine spark plug off the bench for Bennett and Co.
Saint Mary’s ranks outside Division I’s top 200 in 3-point percentage at 32.5%, but when Lewis is on, the team is capable of just about anything. The Californian made four 3-pointers against Gonzaga — the only other tournament team in the WCC — on Feb. 1 and five triples against the Bulldogs on Feb. 22; the Gaels won both games. In Saint Mary’s loss to Gonzaga in the WCC title game, Lewis went 0-for-7 from downtown. If Vanderbilt can find a way to neutralize Lewis without giving up too much on the inside, it’ll have a much better chance of advancing.
Elsewhere, sophomore Jordan Ross and junior Harry Wessels, at 8.1 and 5.2 points per game, offer the team valuable depth. Ross is another scorer off the bench and Wessels, while his stats might not show it, is going to cause some serious issues for Byington down low. The Washington native, at 7’1, will be the tallest player on the court by far. Expect him to see more than his average 12.5 minutes per game as Saint Mary’s tries to exploit its size advantage.
The facts
The Commodores are currently playing their worst basketball of the season: They enter this matchup riding a three-game losing streak. In a lot of ways, it feels like Vanderbilt is playing on borrowed time. Picked to finish last in the SEC before the season started, the Black and Gold have overachieved in Byington’s first year at the helm. The fact that they made it this far, considering the lack of previous experience on the roster and the conference in which they played, is nothing short of incredible.
They’ve been one of the country’s streakiest teams all season. They allow more 10-0 runs than any other team in the nation and have gone on two separate three-game losing streaks and a three-game winning streak, all in the past nine games. On any given Saturday — or, should I say Friday — right?
St. Mary’s style of play is about as different from Vanderbilt’s as two teams could be. Vanderbilt runs the nation’s 58th-fastest offense, and St. Mary’s the nation’s fifth-slowest offense. Where the Commodores want to get out into the break and get shots up as fast as possible, the Gaels want to work through their offense methodically and embrace contact. In the Greek epic that is March Madness, these teams are literary foils.
Fans never know what Vanderbilt they’re going to get — will they watch the group that went into College Station and upset then-No. 12 Texas A&M or the unit that ended their home season with a double-digit loss to Arkansas? Will Tyler Nickel and Jason Edwards stay hot from downtown, or is a 0-for-8 3-point performance looming for either of them?
It’s March Madness. Many of the predictive metrics and advanced statistics we’ve relied on all season go out of the window. It often comes down to who wants it more. Whether that’s Vanderbilt or Saint Mary’s won’t be revealed until the opening tip.
The ‘Dores and Gaels will square off at Rocket Arena, home of the Cleveland Cavaliers, in Cleveland, Ohio, on March 21 at 2:15 p.m. CDT.
