In a sport defined by coaching carousels and one-year mercenaries, the Saint Mary's Gaels have the rarest thing in college basketball: a constant. Randy Bennett took over in Moraga before the 2001-02 season and never left. A quarter century later, he is the winningest coach in school history, a seven-time West Coast Conference Coach of the Year, and the architect of one of the great program builds of the modern era — all of it done in the shadow of Gonzaga, the sport's most dominant mid-major.
The rivalry defines everything. Twice a winter, the Gaels and the Zags play for West Coast supremacy, and for two decades Saint Mary's has been the one program that refuses to bow. Mark Few himself has said it: “Saint Mary's is the same every year, right? Very disciplined, very purposeful with what they do on offense and what they do on defense. Just plug ’em in.” And then the kicker: “They know who they are and they don't beat themselves. It's a great recipe and Randy's figured it out. I think people are figuring out he's one of the best coaches in college basketball.”
The Gaels' identity is Australian. Bennett built a pipeline from Down Under that changed the program forever: Patty Mills, whose electrifying 2008-09 season made him a college basketball sensation and launched an NBA and Olympic career; Matthew Dellavedova, the gritty guard who became an NBA champion; Jock Landale, the dominant big man. Saint Mary's basketball speaks with an accent, and it's beautiful.
The breakthrough came in 2010, when Omar Samhan's dominant post play carried the Gaels past Villanova and into the Sweet 16 — the program's deepest March run, the moment SMC announced itself as a national program. Since then: WCC titles, tournament trips, and a staggering 18 straight postseason appearances. The program's first postseason victory since 1959 came under Bennett; the Gaels haven't looked back.
The 2025-26 season was peak Bennett ball. The Gaels went 26-4 overall and 15-2 in the WCC behind a trio of fifth-year seniors — reigning WCC Player of the Year Augustas Marciulionis, center Mitchell Saxen, and forward Luke Barrett — earning a No. 7 seed in the NCAA Tournament, their fourth straight single-digit seed. They held Santa Clara scoreless for the first 11 minutes of the second half in one February statement. Disciplined. Purposeful. Relentless.
Now comes the retool. Marciulionis, Saxen, and Barrett are gone, and the 2026-27 Gaels will lean on the next wave. Junior forward Paulius Murauskas — a first-team All-WCC selection, all 6-foot-8 of Lithuanian craft — is the centerpiece after averaging 13.1 points and 8.9 rebounds, a do-it-all power forward ready to carry a bigger load.
The backcourt has intrigue. Sophomore Mikey Lewis averaged eight points as a freshman and dropped 18 in a road win at Gonzaga — the kind of performance that announces a future star. San Diego transfer Tony Duckett (10.5 ppg) brings proven scoring and ballhandling. Rory Hawke, the Australian sharpshooter who missed all of last season to injury, could be a difference-maker if healthy. Fellow Aussie Josh Dent, who played 24 games as a true freshman, is in line for a bigger role. And four-star freshman Dillan Shaw — the highest-rated recruit in the class — may step straight into the rotation.
The depth chart runs young but long: junior Cade Bennett, 7-foot-1 sophomore Andrew McKeever, junior Jazz Gardner, and freshmen Liam Campbell, Oliver Faubert, Trent MacLean, and Lithuanian guard Mantas Juzenas. Bennett has made a career of turning unheralded pieces into a precision machine — the system is the star, and the system endures.
That system — Bennett ball — is the program's true identity: deliberate, precise, ruthlessly efficient. The Gaels don't beat themselves. They defend with pride, rebound with force, and shoot it beautifully. It's produced two decades of winning, and it's why Gonzaga circles these dates as much as anyone.
The University Credit Union Pavilion in Moraga is one of the WCC's great home courts: intimate, loud, and full of fans who've watched their team go toe-to-toe with the Zags for twenty years. When Saint Mary's is rolling, the little gym in the East Bay hills shakes.
The 2026-27 outlook is familiar: retool, reload, refuse to go away. The WCC race runs through Moraga and Spokane as always, with Santa Clara and San Francisco looming as the league's best challengers. The Gaels won't have the veteran trio that defined last season, but they have Murauskas, a blossoming backcourt, and the best program-builder in the league's history. Eighteen straight postseasons is the streak to protect — and Bennett's teams have made a habit of protecting it. In Moraga, Saint Mary's doesn't just compete with Gonzaga — it hunts them. Twenty-five years in, the hunt continues.