Saint Mary’s kept the game close with No. 13 Arizona but didn’t have the depth to keep it that way losing Saturday afternoon 81-68 in McKale Center.
“Arizona’s a good team. It’ll be good this year,” Saint Mary’s point guard Joshua Dent said.
In time, the Gaels could be a good team, too.
“Playing against a good team… It’ll show you what your deficiencies are,” Saint Mary’s coach Randy Bennett said.
In a competitive exhibition game, Arizona led Saint Mary’s in all major categories except for total rebounds, free throws and turnovers.
“Defensively, I don’t feel like they were doing anything that really took us out of our rhythm. It was just we, kind of shot ourselves in the foot too much,” Dent said.
He had five of the Gaels’ 12 turnovers.
“We just had two guys that had nine of them,” Bennett said. “I didn’t think we were very good offensively, and I didn’t think we were very good defensively. … Our turnovers were close, except for our point guard.”
Bennett said his team’s defense wasn’t up to par, “I thought they scored on us at a pretty good clip,” he said. “Probably shot a good percentage on us.”
Arizona shot 53 percent from the field but only 25 percent from beyond the 3-point line, making 4-16.
Saint Mary’s still won the rebounding battle.
“(We) led the country the last two years on rebound margin so that’s something we take a lot of pride in,” Bennett said. “We were decent, but they’re a good rebounding team too.”
While Motiejus Krivas led both teams with 17 rebounds, St. Mary’s Andrew McKeever had 10. Saint Mary’s ended with 39 rebounds to Arizona’s 35.
Bennett said he was impressed with some Arizona players.
“Their point guard (Jaden Bradley) played well…one of their guys off the bench, No. 8 (Ivan Kharchenkov) I thought played well, and then (Anthony) Dell’Orso played really well,” he said.
Saint Mary’s will go on to play Ole Miss in Mississippi on Oct. 26 while Arizona will face Embry-Riddle on Oct. 27 in Tucson in more exhibition play.
“This was good to get out in front of the fans, kind of simulate a real game,” Dent said.
