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No. 21 Saint Mary's visits dangerous Santa Clara (Jan 28, 2017)
Saint Mary's players and coaches know they cannot afford any missteps as they work their way toward their Feb. 11 rematch with Gonzaga.
Saturday's road game against improving Santa Clara is a potential pitfall for the 21st-ranked Gaels, who hope to earn at least a share of the West Coast Conference regular-season title for a second straight season.
The Gaels (18-2, 8-1 WCC) cannot afford to look ahead. They cannot overwhelm opponents with athleticism, instead relying on precise execution at both ends of the court. If they lose their focus against any opponent it could result in a deadly second conference loss.
"We're trying to win a league championship," said Gaels forward Calvin Hermanson, "but we've got to play one game at a time."
That sports cliche reflects the paradox Saint Mary's is facing: To catch Gonzaga, the Gaels cannot think about Gonzaga.
"It's a challenge staying locked in one week at a time, one game at a time," Saint Mary's coach Randy Bennett said, "and our guys are doing a pretty good job."
The Gaels return all five starters from the squad that beat Gonzaga in both regular-season meetings last season, but Saint Mary's lost twice to fourth-place Pepperdine and once to third-place BYU, dropping the Gaels into a first-place tie in the final 2016 standings.
Santa Clara (12-10, 6-3) is certainly a team that could derail Saint Mary's title hopes, especially at the Leavey Center.
The Broncos have won four of their past five games, losing only to Gonzaga in that stretch, and they are coming off Thursday's impressive 76-68 home victory over Brigham Young that moved them into a third-place tie with the Cougars.
That win ended the Broncos' 14-game losing streak to BYU, which had not lost to Santa Clara since Dec. 2, 1972. It also avenged a 30-point loss to BYU in Provo, Utah, in the teams' first meeting this season.
"We got out, we pushed the ball, everybody was looking for each other, and we made the extra pass we weren't making the first time we played BYU," said Broncos guard Jared Brownridge, who leads the team in scoring at 18.8 points per game.
Because of injuries, the Broncos had only seven players available for Thursday's game, and two of them fouled out midway through the second half.
"Injuries continued this week and on top of that we lost our front-court players with lots of time left in the game and so we almost had to reconfigure ourselves on the fly with the lineup that we've only played with a few minutes this season and then again only very special end of game situations," first-year head coach Herb Sendek said. "Our guys once again showed tremendous resilience."
Santa Clara's top four scorers are still healthy, and one key player who has returned from injury is sophomore guard KJ Feagin. He missed the first 12 games with a broken foot, but is averaging 13.8 points in his 10 games this season. Feagin scored 16 points against BYU, and the Broncos are 7-3 with Feagin available.
Brownridge is the team's star, however. He scored at least 20 points in each of Santa Clara's past five games, including 25-point efforts in the most recent games against Loyola Marymount and BYU.
He will be handful for the Gaels, who relied on their defense to beat San Francisco 66-46 on Thursday in Moraga, Calif.
Saint Mary's, which is second in the nation in scoring defense, allowing 57.3 points per game, limited the Dons to 29.2 percent shooting and 16 points in the second half when the Gaels broke open a tight game.
"Once we came out of the second half with a lot of energy, we played pretty good defense," Hermanson said.
Center Jock Landale leads the Gaels in scoring (16.6 points per game) and rebounding (9.5), but the offensive stars against San Francisco were Hermanson and Emmett Naar, who scored 18 points apiece and combined to make 6 of 10 3-point attempts.
The challenge for Saint Mary's is to maintain that level of play on the road.
"There's a lot of pressure and you have to block all of that out and focus on being as good as you can be at every game," Bennett said.
