Saint Mary’s flexes its muscles due to USC in the Acrisure Invitational

On November 30, 2024By Littum

A big win in the Acrisure Invitational on Thursday might not quite say which teams are and aren’t West Coast basketball powerhouses. But Saint Mary’s 71-36 win over USC certainly says something about where the two teams are early in the men’s basketball season.

“I feel like we’re getting better. We have a lot of new key players,” Saint Mary’s head coach Randy Bennett said after his team improved to 7-0.

Considering Saint Mary’s has been a powerhouse from the West Coast Conference for years, it’s surprising that Thursday night’s game at Acrisure Arena was the first time Saint Mary’s has ever beaten USC in 11 tries.

While Saint Mary’s showed its potential to once again be an NCAA Tournament team and perhaps challenge Gonzaga for the WCC title, Thursday’s game also showed that USC remains in rebuilding mode. A month after winning an exhibition game at Acrisure Arena against Gonzaga, the Trojans struggled in every aspect of the game, scoring just 15 points in the second half and shooting just 26 percent from the field, including missing all 12 of their 3-point attempts.

“Obviously they were off,” Bennett said of the Trojans. “They didn’t hit a 3. But we had something to do with it.”

USC took a 19-18 lead with 7:25 left in the first half, but that’s when the Trojans’ shooting went cold. USC scored just two more points in the half and didn’t score at all in the final 4:59 of the half. By then, Saint Mary’s had built a 32-21 halftime lead.

That lead expanded to 44-25 five minutes into the second half, with much of the Saint Mary’s damage coming from guard Jordan Ross. Ross scored the first eight points of the half for the Gaels en route to 15 points to lead Saint Mary’s in scoring.

“Things are clicking at the right time,” said Ross, a returning sophomore for the Gaels. “We’re getting better every game, we’re getting better as we go. That’s usually how you want it to be. You don’t want to be playing your best basketball in November, December. We’re going to keep getting better as the games go on.”

The Gales were so dominant in the second half that their 39 points total in the 20 minutes was more than USC’s 36 points for the entire game.

USC coach Eric Musselman, who did not speak after the game, had said at the exhibition with Gonzaga that he wanted to start the year finding the right combination of players with 13 new players on the USC squad. Although the loss only dropped USC to 5-2, it was clear that Musselman and the Trojans are still searching for consistency.

That’s not a problem for Saint Mary’s, as Bennett says his team has added depth for the 2024-25 season.

“Paulius (Murauskas) is new, he’s a key player for us. Ashton (Hardaway) has become a key player for us. He’s developing some depth for us,” Bennett said. “And Mikey Lewis is a freshman who is one of our leading scorers. As they grow and figure it out, we’ve improved.”

Bennett also praised the tournament, Acrisure Arena and the desert, perhaps only half joking that it seems like a nice, livable place to retire.

After Ross, two Gaels’ Murauskas and Augusta Marciulionis each scored 11 points. Saint Mary’s shot 50.8 percent from the field and outrebounded the Trojans 46-23. USC had just one player in double figures on the night, forward Josh Cohan with 12.

“We’ve gotten better defensively. We’re good on the boards. So we’ve got to continue to play to our strengths,” Bennett said.

But Bennett wasn’t ready to say his team was ready for conference play.

“I know after a game like that it sounds crazy, but we have a lot of room to improve,” he said. “I think in the last week and a half we made some progress defensively. One of our weaknesses was defending the 3, so we did that tonight.”

The win moves the Gaels into Friday’s 6:30 pm championship game against Arizona State Sun Devilswho survived a wild game to defeat the New Mexico Lobos 85-82 in the final game of the night at Acrisure Arena.

Arizona St. 85, New Mexico 82

After building a lead as large as 13 points in the first half, Arizona fell behind as New Mexico put together a 21-1 run, including 16-1 to end the first half and the first five points of the second half. The game remained close the rest of the way, with New Mexico leading by as many as nine points.

Trailing 75-74, Arizona State got back-to-back 3-pointers by Basheer Jihad and BJ Freeman to take a five-point lead with under a minute left. A Mustapha Amzil 3-pointer brought New Mexico back to a one-point deficit, and Arizona State had to survive a mid-court 3-pointer to clinch the game.

Jihad led Arizona State with 20 points, while Joson Sason added 19 for the Sun Devils, who improved to 6-1. New Mexico (5-2) was led by 30 points from Donovan Dent and 28 points from Amzil, including 17 in the first half.

New Mexico will face USC on Friday at 21.00 in the third place in the invitational match.