MBB | Historic Season Comes to an End in NCAA Tournament Second Round vs Alabama

Sunday, March 23

Cleveland, Ohio

3:10 PM PST

Saint Mary's College of California

29-6,17-1WCC

Alabama

27-8,13-5SEC

Saint Mary's (CA)

Alabama

The Gaels Finished Out 2024-25 With The Same Starting Lineup in All 35 Games

Photo by: Saint Mary's Athletics / Tod Fierner

MBB | Historic Season Comes to an End in NCAA Tournament Second Round vs Alabama

3/23/2025 7:56:00 PM | Men's Basketball

Box Score

CLEVELAND — Back in the second round of the NCAA Tournament for the third time in four year, the Saint Mary's Gaels (29-6) squared off with the second seeded Alabama Crimson Tide (27-8) with a trip to the Sweet 16 on the line. Known as the best scoring offense in college basketball, the Gaels were able to hold Alabama 11 points below their season average, but a sluggish offensive first half prevented Saint Mary's from completing their second double-digit comeback of the tournament, eventually falling 80-66. The historic 2024-25 season has now come to an end, with the Gaels holding an impressive 29-6 record, the second most wins in a single season in program history.

Through the first eight minutes of this game, Saint Mary's matched Alabama play for play, and at the second media timeout of the game, the Gaels and Crimson Tide found themselves deadlocked at 13 apiece. In those opening eight minutes, five different Gaels combined for the first 13, with Harry Wessels serving as the high man with four. An 8-0 Crimson Tide run over the next 90 seconds demonstrated their quick strike ability, and while the Gaels would claw back to within three at 24-21, Alabama would continue to convert at a high offensive clip, finishing the half on an 18-8 run over the final 7:22 to take a 13 point lead into halftime, their largest of the half, 42-29. More than half of the Gaels scoring in the first half was made up by the big man duo of Mitchell Saxen and Harry Wessels. Wessels led the way with nine, including a 5-6 clip from the stipe, while Saxen scored seven on 3-5 shooting, while reeling in a team-high four boards and poking away a pair of steals. In a rather intriguing statline, the Gaels took seven more shots than Alabama in the first half, but made seven fewer shots. The field goal attempt discrepancy was due in big part to the Gaels finishing the half with no turnovers to Alabama's eight, and seven offensive rebounds. Unfortunately, the Gaels could not capitalize on these advantages.

The entire second half of this game mimicked the first eight minutes of the first half, as the Gaels and Crimson Tide once again look extremely evenly matched, with Bama narrowly outscoring SMC 38-37 in the second stanza. The Gaels jumped out on a 12-6 run to cut the deficit to seven at the 15:47 mark, as Jordan Ross and Mitchell Saxen each scored four in that stretch and again looked like they would shoulder the load for the Gaels in the second half, like they did two days ago vs Vanderbilt. That was as close as the Gaels would get however, as the deficit would waiver between eight and 14 throughout the half, and would eventually settle at 14 when the final horn sounded. Jordan Ross, Augustas Marciulionis and Mitchell Saxen all scored eight points in the second half. The Gaels showed positive strides in the second half, seeing their shooting percentage improve from 25% in the first half to 44.1% in the second, their three point percentage improve from 0% to 37.5% in the second, and their rebound margin go from -10 in the first half to +5 in the second half. As such, the Gaels score nine more points in the second half than they did in the first, and limited Alabama to four fewer points, but it was not enough to dig out of the double-digit deficit.

Mitchell Saxen led all scorers with 15 points. The fifth year senior played 39:13 of 40 minutes, shot 7-12 from the field, reeled in five boards and poked away three steals, doing everything in his power to extend his Saint Mary's career. Fellow big man Harry Wessels finished with 12 points and a team-high eight boards and three blocks. This dynamic duo found there way on the court together down the stretch throughout the season, and tonight, like most nights this year, were a force to stop in the paint against the Crimson Tide. Augustas Marciulionis rounded out the double-digit scorers with 11 points and a team-high four assists. The 80 points that the Gaels held the Crimson Tide was the second fewest they've scored against a mid-major program.

LET'S HEAR IT FOR THE SENIORS
When the final horn sounded in this one, there was no questions that seniors Augustas Marciulionis, Luke Barrett and Mitchell Saxen left absolutely everything on the floor. Barrett scored six points, but was tremendous on the glass with seven boards, including three offensive. This was indicative of how Barrett played all season, averaging 2.6 offensive boards per game, and consistently sacrificing his body in high effort hustle plays, also coming up with two steals. Marciulionis scored 11, bringing him to 1227 for his Saint Mary's career (23rd all-time), while also coming up with four assists, moving him to 504 (4th all-time). Mitchell Saxen closed out his Gael career with a 15 points, five rebound, three steal performance. He will finish out his time at Saint Mary's with the most games ever played in SMC history (156) and most games won in SMC history (116). His 1341 points rank 17th, his 544 field goals made rank 10th, his 927 rebounds rank third and his 156 blocks rank third.

HALFTIME ADJUSTMENTS
After the Gaels fell behind 13 at the half, they made an epic effort to claw back into things against the Crimson Tide. Offensively, the Gaels made seven more shots, including their first three three pointers in the second half. Their field goal percentage climbed 9% from halftime to the end of the game, while their three point percentage climbed 21%. On the rebounding front, Saint Mary's ripped down four more second half rebounds than they did in the first half, and cut a -10 rebounding margin in half by the end of the contest. Defensively, Alabama was limited to four fewer points in the second half, and saw their field goal percentage drop off 4% and their three point percentage drop off 14% in the second frame.

SEASON IN REVIEW
By the eye test, the 2024-25 season was one of the best ever by Saint Mary's men's basketball, but let's take a look back at the Gael history books to see just how special this regular season was. The Gaels finished at 29-5. Their 27-4 record heading into the postseason matched their best regular season record from the 2017-18 season in which the Gaels finished with their only 30 win in program history. Their 17-1 conference record was the best in program history both by win volume and win percentage, besting their two 16-2 seasons in 2016-17 and 2017-18 for volume, and their 15-1 season last year for percentage. The Gaels won the WCC by three games, their largest margin for a regular season title, besting 1988-89 and 1958-59, when they won the conference by a two game margin. The Gaels made it their fourth straight NCAA Tournament, something that has never been done before in a four year stretch, and back to the NCAA Round of 32 for the third time in the past four years, also a feat that had never been accomplished before in SMC history. Looking at some of the individual standout performances this season, Luke Barrett played 1278 minutes on the year, the fourth most ever in a single season. Augustas Marciulionis finished with 208 assists, good for sixth most all-time. The Gaels had two players surpass the 1000 point mark (Marciulionis and Saxen) and finished with the same exact starting lineup in every game this year, one of just two teams this year to claim that.

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