If the St. Mary's Gaels don't end up making the NCAA Tournament, they can point at losses to teams like the Pepperdine Waves for that. The Waves are back on the docket once again in the semifinals of the WCC Tournament, and they'll have a legitimate shot to knock out the Gaels and perhaps make the WCC a one-bid league to the dance.
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HOW THE PEPPERDINE WAVES CAN COVER THE SPREAD
Perimeter defense is going to end up being huge in this game. Pepperdine's defense probably isn't quite as good as 30.9 percent shooting allowed from beyond the arc suggests, but that was the difference in beating the Gaels in the second meeting of the year in Moraga.
St. Mary's shoots 41.2 percent from deep, seventh best in the nation, but in that second meeting of the year, it went just 4-of-19.
The Waves aren't going to be able to keep up here with St. Mary's in a game which gets into the 80s, but keeping it in the 60s is certainly doable if the Gaels don't go crazy from distance.
Stacy Davis is only 6-foot-6, but he's been insane of late with five straight double-doubles, including scoring 18 points with 12 boards against San Francisco in the WCC quarters on Saturday. If he doesn't reach another double-double in this game, you can kiss the Waves goodbye.
HOW THE ST. MARY'S GAELS CAN COVER THE SPREAD
We'll admit we're a little scared by what we saw out of St. Mary's against Loyola-Marymount on Saturday. The Gaels were down 31-25 early in the second half before really ratcheting up the pressure on defense. Sure they were able to win the game, but scoring just 60 against the Lions in spite of the fact that they shot 50.0 percent from the field was abysmal at best.
St. Mary's has a pair of de facto point guards on the floor at all times with Emmett Naar and Joe Rahon. These two men not only average double-digits in scoring, but they're also both good for around six assists per game.
Size could be a huge factor in this game. Evan Fitzner, Calvin Hermanson and Dane Pineau are going to be the biggest men on the court at any given time, and if the guards can work the ball down in the paint for easy buckets time and time again, St. Mary's shouldn't struggle.
ANALYSIS AND ODDS PREDICTION
The Gaels though, didn't look like themselves on Saturday, and we're not sure the day off on Sunday is going to help them at all. They struggled against San Francisco and Grand Canyon State before heading here to Sin City, and we think they're going to struggle here once again.
In the end, we do think that size and talent is going to rule the day, and that's why we think we're still destined for a St. Mary's/Gonzaga winner-take-all in the final on Tuesday.
Still, we're happy to take what should be an extreme number of points with a Pepperdine team which is much better than you probably think at the moment.
St. Mary's 71, Pepperdine 66
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