Hermanson dunk a ‘nice play’
SALT LAKE CITY — Calvin Hermanson kind of waits for his moments in the St. Mary’s offense, which has so many scoring options. Usually those moments consist of swishing three-pointers, as his 44 percent shooting from beyond the arc is 13th in the NCAA, and he made 3-of-5 from long range in the Gaels’ NCAA Tournament first-round win Thursday.
But after scoring six straight points late in the game, Hermanson had the ball in the open court and saw he had a footrace to the basket with VCU’s Mo Alie-Cox. Hermanson got there first and flushed the ball down over the defender’s hand, to the surprise of the crowd.
“I thought I’ve got to put it down as quick as I could, because the shot blocker was coming,” said Hermanson, who finished with 16 points. “He couldn’t catch up and it turned out to be a nice play.”
It was a nice finish, after the 6-foot-6 junior took only two shots in the first half, making both from three-point distance.
“Calvin didn’t get off to a good start,” Gaels coach Randy Bennett said. “But he eventually gets aggressive in a game, sometimes it’s right away. … He’s got a good feel there and he lets the game come to him. He’s just a basket maker. He was key for us in that stretch in the second half, and we were able to extend the lead again.
“I kind of leave him alone.” Tournament bonus: Bennett loves all the in-game TV commercials during March Madness because they allow him to play center and leading scorer Jock Landale more minutes. Landale played a career-high 40 minutes against VCU and punched out with his 16th double-double of the season.
“He did a good job defensively, too,” Bennett said. “We eliminated their starting bigs. A total eight or nine points in the game between them. He was a huge factor in the game. He never came off the court. Fortunately the timeouts are long, so you can play more minutes in these games.”
Landale said he took a defense-first approach Thursday.
“We knew the majority of their points came from transition and offensive rebounding,” he said. “We just had to cut that out and we did.” Young spark: Freshman guard Tanner Krebs — the second youngest of the team’s seven Australian players — had six of his 12 first-half points during the Gaels’ 19-4 run.
“Tanner came in, and he was outstanding in his free throws, made shots,” Bennett said. “I thought he helped us defensively. He’s a good defender. We didn’t play him much in the second half ... but he was key.”