MBB | No. 20 Gaels Begin Exciting Season Against Wisconsin on Tuesday

MORAGA, Calif. — No. 20 Saint Mary's tips off a much anticipated season this week beginning with a neutral site matchup against Wisconsin on Tuesday before hosting Winthrop in the Gaels' home opener on Nov. 11.

GAME INFORMATION
Game No. 1 vs. Wisconsin (0-0)
Date/Time: Tuesday, Nov. 5 at 6:00 p.m. PT
Location: Sanford Pentagon (Sioux Falls, S.D.)
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Gaels' all-time head to head record: 1-1 (Last meeting: 12/2/76, A, SMC 76 - WIS 82)

Game No. 2 vs. Winthrop (0-0)
Date/Time: Monday, Nov. 11 at 6:00 p.m. PT
Location: McKeon Pavilion (Moraga, Calif.)
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Gaels' all-time head to head record: 0-0

QUICK NOTES

Saint Mary's returns 88.2 percent of their scoring from last season after losing just one starter and three total players (Jordan Hunter, Kyle Clark, Alex Mudronja).
Jordan Ford totaled the third most points ever in a single season in program history last year with 716 points. That total trails only Jock Landale (761, 2017-18) and Omar Samhan (724, 2009-10) in the Gaels' record book.
Saint Mary's has more international players on their team than any other Div. I men's basketball program with nine foreign-born members (Tanner Krebs, Jock Perry, Kyle Bowen, Alex Ducas, Dan Fotu, Quinn Clinton, Matthias Tass, Kristers Zoriks, Aaron Menzies)

GAELS IN THE PRESEASON POLLS
In the WCC coaches' preseason poll, Saint Mary's was pegged to finish second in the league and had two players named to the All-WCC Preseason Team, Jordan Ford and Malik Fitts.

The Gaels received three first place votes and six second place votes to finish behind only No. 8 Gonzaga in the poll. Saint Mary's has finished second or higher in the conference standings each of the past five seasons and 11 of the past 12.

Ford finished second in the conference in scoring at 21.1 points per game and owned an impeccable shooting line of .489/.412/.800. He was named First Team All-WCC as a junior. Fitts, in his first year with the Gaels, averaged 15.2 ppg and also led the team in rebounding at 7.6 boards per game. An inside-outside threat, Fitts also shot 40.6 percent from beyond the arc last year.

Saint Mary's also found themselves back in the national spotlight as they were ranked No. 20 in both the initial AP and coaches poll. The Gaels were ranked as recently as 2018 in the final week of the 2017-18 season.

NEW KIDS ON THE BLOCK
The Gaels welcomed three new faces to the roster this season, sophomore transfer Logan Johnson and freshmen Alex Ducas and Kyle Bowen.

Johnson came to the Gaels from Cincinnati after head coach Mick Cronin left for the head job at UCLA. The Bay Area native (Mountain View) received a waiver from the NCAA to immediately play under three weeks before the start of the season.

Both Ducas and Bowen hail from Australia and recently competed together at the FIBA U18 World Cup over the summer. Unlike the other three Aussies on the team, the freshmen both come from Western Australia. They became the 20th and 21st Australians to have donned a Gaels jersey, all of which have come under Randy Bennett's tenure.

ABOUT WISCONSIN
The Badgers were 23-11 last season and 14-6 in BIG 10 play. Similar to the Gaels, Wisconsin made the NCAA Tournament and were a No. 5 seed but were defeated by Oregon, 67-55. The Gaels and Badgers will play on a neutral court, Sanford Pentagon, in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, which is roughly a six-and-a-half hour drive from Madison.

The Badgers return three of their five starters from last year but will be without one of the program's all-time greats, Ethan Happ, who graduated in the spring after leading the team in scoring and rebounding. D'Mitrik Trice and Brad Davison both return after scoring double-digit points in 2018-19. Davison was the team's top outside threat last year as he took 195 three-point attempts and knocked down 39 percent of them.

Saint Mary's and Wisconsin have only met twice before with both matchups coming over 40 years ago. It will be the first time the two schools play somewhere other than Madison.

ABOUT WINTHROP
The Eagles were a respectable 18-12 in the previous season while accumulating a 10-6 record in Big South play. Winthrop played a few juggernauts in their non-conference schedule in No. 10 Kentucky and No. 9 Florida State and lost to both by less than 15 points.

Winthrop will be without three of their top four scorers from last season and will look to senior forward Josh Ferguson to carry the load after putting up 11.1 ppg and 7.3 rpg last year. The team also picked up grad transfer Hunter Hale who averaged 17 points per game at DII Grand Valley State last year. Seven of the 16 members on the Eagles roster are freshmen or redshirt freshmen.

Monday's season opener meeting will be the first time the Gaels and Eagles have met.

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