NCAA TOURNAMENT • Spokane — Saint Mary’s ready for “road” treatment tonight against Grand Canyon at Arena
By MARK NELKE
Sports editor
SPOKANE — It didn’t take Grand Canyon long to realize it may be the crowd favorite when the 13th-seeded Lopes (29-4) take on fourth-seeded Saint Mary’s (26-7) tonight at 7:05 p.m. in the first round of the NCAA tournament at the Spokane Arena.
“We actually just did on the way (to the Arena), Grand Canyon junior guard Ray Harrison said Thursday afternoon. “We were practicing at an elementary school, and on the way in, all the kids were chanting, ‘Beat Saint Mary’s,’ and they had on Gonzaga gear. It was cool.”
“We’ve definitely felt it,” added Bryce Drew, Grand Canyon’s fourth-year coach. “We went out to eat last night and we stepped in the restaurant and people are saying, ‘Beat Saint Mary’s.’ … So that rivalry is real out here. It only took us a little bit of time around people to realize how serious that rivalry is.”
Saint Mary’s, of course, is Gonzaga’s main rival in the West Coast Conference. Saint Mary’s won at GU in January en route to winning the WCC regular-season title. The Gaels then beat the Zags last week to win the WCC tournament.
Told of this newfound local love for Grand Canyon a few minutes later, at their news conference, Saint Mary’s basically responded: Bring it on.
“I honestly think the WCC has a lot of good fan bases and will support each other,” said Gaels senior center Mitchell Saxen, the conference’s defensive player of the year. “I know a lot of them aren’t juiced that we are here, but at the end of the day, you want to support your conference. But I have a feeling Grand Canyon is going to ship a lot of fans up here and it will be a great environment, so we’re excited for that.”
Sophomore guard Aidan Mahaney asked for clarification from a reporter who said a couple of Gonzaga players suggested fans show up in purple (GCU’s colors) tonight.
“We love it; that’s all good,” Mahaney said. “We’re excited to go. We like playing on the road, so bring ‘em on.”
“Yeah, we are undefeated on the road,” fifth-year forward/center Alex Ducas said, “so let’s hope there’s more GCU fans in there.”
Saint Mary’s was 9-0 in true road games this season, with wins at New Mexico and Colorado State, in addition to the victory at Gonzaga.
“I’m not positive (why), but my best guess would be that we have a pretty tough group,” said Randy Bennett, in his 23rd season as Gaels coach. “They’re pretty mentally and physically tough. They like challenges. I mean, the boxes they were trying to check at the beginning of the year are the boxes they checked at the end of the year. I think to win the league, win the conference tournament, you had to be tough on the road. All expressions that are there about toughness travels, they buy into that … so that’s why I think we’re good on the road, is our guys are pretty mentally tough.”
TIES TO PRIBBLE
Before Darrion Trammell helped San Diego State reach its first NCAA championship game last season, he was being recruited to Seattle U by Alex Pribble — then an assistant for the Redhawks, now recently completed his first season as head coach of the Idaho Vandals.
“I grew up around Pribble,” Trammell said Thursday, the day before the fifth-seeded Aztecs (24-12) were to take on 12th seed UAB (23-11) in a first-round NCAA tournament game today at 10:45 a.m at the Arena. “He watched me grow into the player I am today. It was special to play for him at Seattle University. He pretty much gave me the opportunity to play there, when no one else really believed in me.”
At the time, as a high school senior, Trammell was also talking to Cal Baptist and Cal State-Bakersfield.
“He knew me when I was in middle school,” said Trammell, who attended Saint Ignatius High in Marin City, Calif. “He coached my brother. He coached a lot of my family, and he watched me when I was a young kid. He ran camps, I came to the camps, he saw me. He watched me grow.”
Trammell, a 5-10 senior guard, played one season at City College of San Francisco, then two at Seattle U before transferring to San Diego State, where he was the Most Outstanding Player of the South Regional.
Pribble was there one more year, before being hired at Idaho. He coached high school and college ball in California from 2007-13.
“That’s what he deserved,” Trammell said. “He’s a great coach; he knows exactly what he’s doing. He loves the game of basketball, and it’s hard to not give a head coaching job to someone like that.”
Cade Alger, a 6-9 senior forward at San Diego State, also played at Seattle U. He was recruited to Seattle by former Redhawks coach Jim Hayford, who formerly coached at Whitworth and Eastern Washington. Alger’s freshman season in Seattle was Pribble’s first there as assistant coach.
“Great dude, man,” Alger said. “He’s just a players’ coach, always looking out for the guys. He’s one I definitely miss. He’s a guy that was always there for everybody. Good dude all around.”
Alger, from Oakdale, Calif., redshirted in 2019-20, his only season at Seattle U, before transferring to San Diego State.
THOSE ZAG CONNECTIONS
When current UAB coach Andy Kennedy was redshirting at UAB after transferring from NC State, Dan Monson was in his second season as a grad assistant at the Birmingham school.
“Remember in the old days you had to sit out a year when you transferred, so I transferred from North Carolina State to UAB, so he was kinda like my guy,” Kennedy recalled Thursday. “He was a GA, I wasn’t eligible to play, so I spent a LOT of time with Mons.
“We’ve been friends for a long, long time, starting there, and we actually just texted again (Wednesday) night. And through him obviously I met Fewie (Gonzaga coach Mark Few), and we’ve got some stories as well.”
Monson, of course, was an assistant coach at Gonzaga for nine seasons, then head coach from 1997-99, guiding the Bulldogs to their second NCAA tournament in school history in ’99, and first in the current run of 25 straight NCAA appearances for the Zags.
Monson also made the news recently for the “mutual” decision for him to no longer coach Long Beach State after 17 seasons. He was allowed to finish out the season, and naturally the Beach won the Big West tournament and qualified for the NCAAs, where they lost 85-65 on Thursday to Arizona
“Crazy, right?,” Kennedy said, dapping blood from the top of his bald head after the 6-foot-7 coach clipped his head on something overhanging deep in the bowels of the Spokane Arena. “I don’t know all the dynamics, I just think the optics are such that I think he’s handled it like a champ.”
Kennedy, in his fourth year at UAB, noted Monsoon’s pre-tournament news conference on Wednesday, when he said he’s living out an episode of “Seinfeld.”
“I told him, for those of us who know you as well as I do, you’ve been living this episode for quite some time,” Kennedy said.
Kennedy coached against Monson in the 2006 NIT, when Kennedy was interim coach at Cincinnati (after Bob Huggins resigned), and Monson was at Minnesota. Cincinnati won.
In 2003, Kennedy was an assistant under Huggins at Cincinnati when the Few and the Zags beat the Bearcats in an NCAA first-round game in Salt Lake City.
ALABAMA TIMES THREE
In one of those quirks of scheduling, the NCAA assigned three teams from Alabama — UAB, Auburn and Alabama — to the Spokane site.
“I wish we were closer, but it’s a great experience for the whole (state of) Alabama,” UAB guard Eric Gaines said.
“I would say it’s awesome too, “ UAB forward Yaxel Lendeborg said. “I’m a big Twitter guy. I always see those Alabama fans coming together to cheer one another on. I just hope those fans that are here early for the other (Alabama) teams can cheer us on as well, and we can do the same for them.”
“I was kind of surprised with being in Alabama and three schools going all the way to Spokane, Washington,” Auburn junior forward/center Johni Broome said. “I think it’s like 28 hundred miles, something like that. The draw is kind of a weird draw, but we’re all excited.”
BOISE STATE PLAYER COMP
San Diego State coach Brian Dutcher compared UAB’s 6-9 Lendeborg to big man Tyson Degenhart of Boise State, formerly of Mt. Spokane High.
“He’s as close to Degenhart from Boise as we can play,” Dutcher said. “He’s important to them. He can shoot the open 3. If you take the 3 away, he’ll drive by you. He can post up. He can score at all three levels — he shoots it, he drives it, he posts it. And then add rebounding to that, he’s super dangerous.”
MARK NELKE/Press Saint Mary's coach Randy Bennett gives instruction during the Gaels' open practice Thursday at the Spokane Arena.