Gaels Country

The attention that the St. Mary's basketball team has brought to itself by its run to the Sweet 16 round of the NCAA tournament reminds me of why I enjoy college basketball. Little else in the sports world compares to the intense national focus the tournament can bring to schools that would not otherwise garner notice. The unexpected triumph of David over Goliath, when the whole sports world is watching, is a good time, guaranteed. When it happens to a college with an enrollment of 3,500 in a town of 15,000 people, it's a great time. Moraga is abuzz about the Gaels (as much as this laid back town can abuzz about anything), and St. Mary's success has taken the sting out of the failure of the much larger local favorite, Cal, to advance in the tournament.

Click here for video of the team receiving a hero's welcome upon its return to campus in Moraga earlier this week after its memorable, two-win weekend in Providence. (Here is another nice article about the team coming home.) In the video, it is the slightly bashful look on the faces of the first players off the bus that reminds us that these are still boys playing a game. Overnight, their world has changed. For most of them, these two weeks will be the high point of their sporting lives. For one of them (center Omar Samhan, the gregarious kid at the end of the video), a future as a professional athlete that was a laughable thought a week ago may now be a possibility.

Samhan is living everything that is right about this team. He grew up locally, he is outgoing and funny and clearly enjoying everything about this improbable run in the national spotlight, and he is a senior with loads of game experience. Four years of collegiate practices and games have given him moves on the basketball floor that few big men in the college game can match.

(It is so rare for a top player to stay in school that teams with talented seniors can surprise the best teams that are stocked only with underclassmen. Samhan has developed skills in four years that gave him a tremendous advantage over his opposition in the first two rounds of the NCAA tournament. No matter how much high school and AAU ball a top recruit has played before getting to college, talent can only take a player so far against a player who has been through thousands of hours of practice and games at the collegiate level. Cornell, for example, an even more improbable Sweet 16 participant than St. Mary's, relies heavily on smart, experienced upperclassmen.)

Now that St. Mary's is no longer a secret, other teams may neutralize Samhan and clamp down on the Gaels' outside shooters. Even if Baylor (or Duke) sends St. Mary's home, it will take up residence as a happy footnote to this year's tournament.

St. Mary's plays at 7:30 Eastern on Friday. Tune in to see a bunch of guys playing the game well, with joy.