CLEVELAND, Ohio — The Alabama men’s basketball team plays Saint Mary’s at Rocket Arena on Sunday in the second round of the NCAA tournament. The winner will advance to the Sweet 16.
On Saturday, Saint Mary’s coach Randy Bennett talked with reporters about playing the Crimson Tide, the 2-seed in the East Region. The Gaels are the 7-seed. It will be the first-ever meeting between these two programs.
Here’s what Bennett said:
From his opening statement …
“Yeah, you’re excited to play in the next round of the NCAA Tournament. You get to see teams like Alabama, teams you see in the rankings all the time and you’d like an opportunity to play against those type of teams, and we have that opportunity tomorrow. It’ll be contrasting styles of play. It should be a good game.”
Q. What do you think of the point guard matchup, Mark Sears and Augustas, and connected to that, if there’s any example you can think of this year of Augustas’s leadership, poise, his experience showing in helping you guys?
BENNETT: “Yeah, well, everybody knows who Sears is, first-team All-American, so it’ll be a good challenge. Gus is a good player, and he’s played against good ones the last four years. It’ll be good. Sears is good. They have others that are good, too. But he’s the head of the snake for sure, and he’s constantly attacking.
“We’ll have to do a good job there. But it won’t be a one-on-one matchup. It’ll get down to team coverage and how you’re covering their team. But they’re so big in transition, I think that’s a big part of the deal.
“As far as Augustas all year, he’s continued to improve. Last year he did what he did, and we did what we did. It’s hard to have that kind of year again, and he had that kind of year and better. And one of the reasons he’s better is his leadership has continued to improve.
“I think just being over in the U.S. for another year, the fourth year, I think some of the language barrier stuff was a deal early, but it’s cool to see. He’s grown. He’s grown as a person. He’s grown as a leader. But being over here, being in the same program, being here four years, he’s kind of taken on more and more responsibility and become a better and better player.”
Q. Looking at stats, Alabama leads the country in scoring, and I think Gonzaga is second. Is there a similarity between Gonzaga and Alabama, and if there is, do those three games this season help you for tomorrow?
BENNETT: “There’s definitely a similarity. They both score a lot. We’ll be dealing with that. But we’ve played — they have differences in how they do it, but they both have a really hard push, and they’re both relentless at it. Alabama shoots more threes, and Gonzaga puts it inside more, but they both have really good point guards.
“Yeah, we’ve seen this style of play — Santa Clara is that, too. They play that way a little more now, and Santa Clara is even more threes. They hit 12 threes a game. I think Alabama hits 10. I think Gonzaga hits about eight. But all three of them are really a hard push, hard transition, and they’ll look for threes all the time.
“But yeah, Gonzaga is more — a little more inside, into the post. Yeah, they definitely go through Ike a lot, so that’s the difference.”
Q. One more point guard question. Sears is fifth year, obviously Augustas is fourth. Curious your thoughts on that in a college basketball landscape where players don’t stay that long, to see two-point guards excelling at this point of their careers. How much does that help explain their impact, that they’ve been playing the game for that long?
BENNETT: “Yeah, so there’s a huge advantage to having older players. You just don’t see as many young ones playing big minutes on really good teams now, and that’s totally because of the — well, this group is the last group of the COVID thing. But the NIL is keeping these guys around, too. They’re getting paid better money than they’ll get paid when they go overseas and play. So they stay in college. That’s the good thing about — one of the good things about the NIL is these guys stay longer.
“The quality of teams, I said this the other day, the quality of teams 1 through 60 has improved. The depth in college basketball now, these teams are good. We saw one the other day, Vanderbilt, they had a bunch of guys that transferred in. They’re just all old. You just don’t see these teams that have young ones playing big roles very often. If they are, they’re probably going in the draft the next year.
“This is a classic example, but even like Nembhard in our league, he’s a fifth-year guy. These fifth-year guys keep playing and they’ve played all the way up like Augustas has, they play all the way up. They get good because they get so many reps playing against good competition. I think you just see it more and more, as long as this NIL stays around.”
Saint Mary’s guard Augustas Marciulionis
Q. Augustas, I’m curious how much you’ve watched Mark Sears, what you think of his game and how that matchup might unfold tomorrow.
MARCIULIONIS: “Yeah, I’ve seen him on TV a couple times just watching college basketball. Today, we did some film. Obviously, he’s a good player. He plays with a lot of pace, tries to get to the basket, shoots deep threes. He’s going to be a key cover, and he’s a good player, so I’m excited for that matchup. I’m ready to compete and I’m excited to play against a good player.”
Q. Obviously, I’m sure you know how fast Alabama likes to play. What do you think are the keys to playing how you guys want to play so you can dictate the pace?
MARCIULIONIS: “Yeah, first thing, just taking care of the ball. I think that’s the biggest key because even the game against Vanderbilt they — in the first half, most of their points were either just a fast break lay-ups or fouls or something in transition. So taking care of the ball would be the main key. And then just knowing personnel and just not letting their shooters shoot the ball and just playing the tendencies, but the most important thing is to not let them push the ball fast. After a make, after a miss, get back on defense. As we say, building the walls, not letting them play one-on-one in transition, bringing the help and taking care of the ball, so these would be the main things.”
Saint Mary’s center Mitchell Saxen
Q. Obviously, I’m sure you know how fast Alabama likes to play. What do you think are the keys to playing how you guys want to play so you can dictate the pace?
SAXEN: “I would say watching them on film, it’s really impressive how relentlessly their guards are kind of attacking, and Sears just keeps on coming, and Philon just keeps on coming in on-ball. It’s really about doing a job over and over again in on-balls and helping where you can help because you kind of need to take out the roll on those lob threats. Then their guards can really score it, as well. Funneling them to their weaker hand a little bit and trying to get them to take tougher shots because they’re going to get some shots up.”
Saint Mary’s forward Luke Barrett
Q. Obviously, I’m sure you know how fast Alabama likes to play. What do you think are the keys to playing how you guys want to play so you can dictate the pace?
BARRETT: “Yeah, I think we’re obviously going to try to slow them down. I think we’ve done that to a couple teams this year. But we already talked about they’re going to still play fast. They’re not going to slow down in the half court. They’re still going to try to get their shots. But as long as we’re not giving them easy shots, we can force them to take bad shots, and we can use that to our advantage and just clamp down on them and hold them under their average.”
Cody Goodwin covers the Alabama Crimson Tide for 247Sports. Follow him on Twitter at @codygoodwin.
