Schedule keeping Gaels on bubble?

ESPN analyst says team needs better opponents

LAS VEGAS — If St. Mary’s wants to stop finding itself on the NCAA Tournament bubble, the Gaels either can earn an automatic bids by winning the WCC tournament every season, or head coach Randy Bennett can start scheduling tougher opponents.

“He’s got to schedule better,” ESPN bracketologist Joe Lunardi said Thursday, three days before St. Mary’s finds out if it has built a strong enough resume to earn one of the NCAA Tournament’s 36 at-large bids. “… It really hurt him a couple of years ago, and it might bite him this year. It is going to bite him, at least in terms of seeding.

“I think that’s unfortunate and also avoidable.”

Lunardi said he has had that conversation with Bennett, both in person and via telephone, and the bracketologist also recognizes it’s not quite as simple as it sounds.

Many major-conference schools won’t grant St. Mary’s return games for traveling to their gyms, and some simply won’t play the mid-major school. Then, there are the perceived tough games that don’t turn out that way.

St. Mary’s scheduled a game at Cal this season, only to find out that the Bears would produce their worst team in program history. The Gaels also played Dayton, which went 102-36 (.739) the previous four seasons before posting a sub.500 record this season.

Of course, St. Mary’s also played Sacramento State and San Jose State, both among the nation’s worst 50 teams, according to RPI.

“They’ve got too many cupcakes,” Lunardi said. “They need to trade a couple of them for some tests and take themselves out of this predicament.”

The Gaels are in a similar spot to where they were in 2016, when they were left out of the NCAA Tournament field despite a 27-5 record and a No. 37 RPI. This season, they’re 28-5, with a No. 43 RPI ranking and the 172nd-ranked strength of schedule.

Still, Lunardi, who correctly predicted 67 of the 68 tournament teams last season, has St. Mary’s as a No. 10 seed.

“It’s real simple: I think they’re really good,” he said. “… I basically think that once they won at Gonzaga, they had shown their level. I know that on paper they’re weak, or at least weaker than a lot would like to see, but at some point, just a little bit of common sense needs to come into play.

“They pass all of that for me.”