Bennett, on brink of 500 wins, has built Saint Mary's from ground up
MORAGA >> When Randy Bennett was hired as basketball coach at Saint Mary's College in the spring of 2001 to take over a program that was coming off a 2-27 season, Darlene Bennett had no idea what to expect from her husband's new gig.
“I didn't think we'd be here this long,” she said.
Bennett wasn't sure, either. At 38, he had worked as an assistant coach in the West Coast Conference at San Diego and Pepperdine, but knew very little about the Gaels' program.
“So my expectations were, let's get better,” he recalled. “I had enough confidence in myself and the players and coaches around me, I knew we could win more than two games.”
Now in his 22nd season, Bennett has exceeded what he or anyone else could have imagined. The 18th-ranked and Wcc-leading Gaels (194, 8-0) play rival USF (15-9, 4-5) on Thursday night at Moraga, and if the Gaels prevail Bennett will pocket his 500th victory.
Darlene Bennett had a sense a few weeks ago that her husband was close to 500 and asked him about it. Determined not to become distracted in the middle of a season, Bennett declined to go down that road. “He ignored me.”
No one is ignoring it now, even Bennett. “Now it's getting close,” he conceded said last week. “That number's hard to get to.”
Former Gaels athletic director Carl Clapp, who hired Bennett, said with satisfaction, “What he has accomplished there is truly remarkable.”
“When it's all said and done, based off the resources that we've had, it's going to be one of the better coaching (jobs) in the history of the NCAA,” said current Saint Mary's AD Mike Matoso. “It's pretty unparalleled.”
Gonzaga coach Mark Few, whose 12th-ranked Zags (18-4, 7-1) visit Moraga on Saturday night in a duel for first place, labeled as “amazing” what his friend and rival has achieved. “He's far and away one of the best coaches in all of college basketball.”
Some evidence:
• Discounting the 202021 COVID season, Saint Mary's has won at least 20 games in 14 consecutive seasons, dating to 2007-08. Among 61 other Division I programs in 13 Western states — including the likes of UCLA and Arizona — only Gonzaga can match that. Saint Mary's had never won 20 games in a season before Bennett came on board.
• The Gaels had advanced to the NCAA Tournament just three times in program history before Bennett arrived. They have made it eight times since 2005 — more than any WCC team other than Gonzaga and more than any Bay Area program during that span.
• The Gaels won just once in their three previous NCAA appearances — an opening game in the 1959 NCAAS before losing to eventual national champion Cal in the regional final — but have won five under Bennett, including a trip to the Sweet 16 in 2010.
• Bennett, at 499-204, is about to join former Stanford and Cal coach Mike Montgomery as the only men's coach to compile 500 victories at any of the Bay Area's six Division I schools.
Montgomery took over a Stanford program in 1986-87 that hadn't been to the NCAA tournament since winning it in 1942, then led the Cardinal to 12 NCAA bids including a Final Four appearance in 1998. That gives him a special appreciation for what Bennett has achieved.
“Randy's as good as it gets,” Montgomery said. “He's established a program in terms of how they want to play, a culture there, that you just don't see in college basketball.”