The Rise and Rise of St. Mary's Basketball and How a Basketball Game Changed Lives

There's a phrase popularly said regarding the best high school team's in the nation, "They don't rebuild, they reload." There's a lot of colleges that do this too--like a Duke or a Michigan State. But sometimes the reloading is done in places you don't expect it to happen, yet it does time and time again. If you don't follow college basketball, most people throughout the United States are probably unfamiliar with the town of 16,755 people in California called Moraga. If you do follow the college game, however, you probably know that St. Mary's College is located there and that they're coming off a Sweet Sixteen season led by Omar Samhan, who led the West Coast Conference regular season in scoring with 21.5 ppg, rebounds with 11.1 per game, and block with 2.9 per game). He was named the WCC Defensive Player of the Year and was a First Team All-WCC selection. He had a phenomonal first 2 games in the NCAA Tournament averaging 30.5 points and 9.5 rebounds while shooting 75 percent 24-32 from the floor. He also became the school's most prolific scorer in a single season. He's currently playing in Lithuania with BC Zalgiris.

Before Samhan, St. Mary's had Patrick Mills. Mills who now plays point guard for the Portland Trail Blazers, signed with the Gaels in November of 2006. An important thing to note is Mills Australian heritage. He is one of the youngest players to suit up for Australia's national team and one of the first Indigenous Australians to play in the NBA. Mills became the 5th Australian player that coach Randy Bennett successfully recruited since arriving at Moraga in 2001. One of the other Australians to have played under Bennett at St. Mary's was fellow AIS old boy Daniel Kickert, the Gaels' all time leading scorer. Like Kickert, he became the first freshman to start for the Gaels since Kickert did so in the 2002-03 season. In the fourth game of the 2007-08 season, he entered the American consciousness when he scored 37 in an upset of nationally ranked Oregon on November 20th. They became nationlly ranked for the first time since 1989 after a 7-0 start and have not left the consciousness since. In their Christmas Tournament in Hawaii that year, the Gaels won and Mills was named tournament MVP. He won several accolades as a freshman and they went on to the NCAA Tournament where they lost in the first round to Miami (Florida). Mills had 24 in that game and was the only Gael to score in double figures.

Randy Bennett took over a team in 2001 that had gone 2-27 in the 2000-01 season. In his 10 or so seasons, he has a overall record of 203-107 and a conference record of 86-49. His most impressive season was last year going 28-6 and making it to the Sweet 16. In 04-05, he went 25-9, 07-08 went 25-7 and 08-09 went 28-7. He has been to the tournament 3 of St. Mary's 6 times. They've made it in 1959, 1989, 1997, 2005, 2008 and 2010. Prior to him coming to Moraga, the Gaels were 1-3 in the tournament and have since gone 2-3 with him. So Bennett has led an underappreciated turnaround and one that stays off the radar when you think about programs who have become great overnight. In this case, it is probably because of the fact that Gonzaga is in their conference and are consistently on the national radar.

I thought this team would not be very good without the double double threat Samhan. The rest of the team were pretty much slightly above average Australian players who were good ball handlers and three point shooters. This was one of those cases I was wrong. As I said, some teams don't rebuild, they reload. Turns out that St. Mary's has the ability to reload too and this season's potential Omar Samhan has a interesting backstory both personal and collegiate and is very fortunate to be both playing ball and alive.

A couple weeks ago, when I was watching St. Mary's epic win against Gonzaga in Spokane, a place where Gonzaga has gone 50-1 or so over the last few years, I noticed a familiar face. A couple years ago in a 4-13 matchup in the NCAA Tournament, the Connecticut Huskies played the San Diego Toreros and the Huskies were upset 70-69. One of the players on that team, Rob Jones, was a freshman at the time, yet played more like a senior on that day scoring 14 points and pulling down 6 rebounds in 29 minutes of play and was one of the key pieces to leading San Diego to an upset win that day. He wound up transferring out of San Diego after the 2008-09 season and went to Diablo Valley College in the 2009-10 school year where he did not compete in basketball. He completed his AA degree in Fall of that year before transferring to Saint Mary's for the spring semester. This season he has been playing very well, leading the team in scoring in 6 of those games--2 of those were BYU and at San Diego State, both of who are in the top 10. He has led the team in rebounding in 16 of the Gaels 24 games. He is second on the team in scoring with 14.3 ppg and leads the team in rebounding with 7.6 boards per game.

They only lost 4 players from last year, Samhan and Ben Allen were the 2 biggest losses by far. But they still keep Matthew Dellavedova and Mickey McConnell who are huge contributors to the team and more than enough to potentially get the Gaels a couple wins in this year's tournament. Add Jones and a couple freshman to the mix and they are still a very formidable team. I don't think Jones is as dominant an inside force as Samhan, but he clearly has talent and has made a difference for this Gaels team.

In his senior year of high school, Jones knew he was either going to San Diego or St. Mary's. Eventually, Rob's father was diagnosed with renal failure and would have to undergo dialysis for a failing kidney. Rob said 'I found out my dad was sick, and it was hard. I didn't really have a father figure down there at the time. It was a rough time for me, not being able to communicate with my dad as much as I wanted to with him being in the hospital". He informed the San Diego staff that he was going back to the Bay Area to be with his family. Rob's father is back in good health and Rob appears to be improving as a player. Rob said "my mom and dad are right up there behind the basket, my godmother comes to the games, my brothers come to the games all time time. It reminds me of high school and that family feel. It's good."

So while that's his collegiate story, the personal story is a harrowing one I'm sure for both him and his dad and it's a part of their life they don't acknowledge and try to leave behind even though unfortunately for them, it will always be part of their family's history. Rob's father, Jim is the adopted son of cult leader Jim Jones who was the founder and leader of the Peoples Temple. On November 18, 1978, more than 900 Temple members in Jonestown, Guyana committed suicide by being poisoned by cyanide. The results of this day was the greatest single loss of American civilian life in a non-natural disaster until the September 11th attacks. Jones reason to commit suicide was because he was paranoid and believed that intelligence organizations were conspiring against the Temple and that "men would parachute in here on us", "shoot some of our innocent babies" and "they'll torture our children, they'll torture some of our people here, they'll torture our seniors." Jones also believed the hostile forces would convert captured children to fascism. Because of that reasoning, Jones and several members argued that the group should commit 'revolutionary suicide" by drinking cyanide-laced grape flavored Flavor Aid along with a sedative. When members apparently cried, Jones said "Stop this hysterics. This is not the way for people who are Socialists or Communists to die. No way for us to die. We must die with some dignity". He also said "Don't be afraid to die", Death is "just stepping over into another plane" and that "death is a friend". At the end of the "death tape" that was made, he said "We didn't commit suicide, we committed an act of revolutionary suicide protesting the conditions of an inhumane world." Another event that stands out with the Jonestown suicides is that in November 1978, U.S. Congressman Leo Ryan led a fact-finding mission to Jonestown to investigate allegations of human rights abuses. His delgation included relatives of Temple members, Don Harris, an NBC network news reporter, an NBC cameraman and reporters for various newspapers. On November 17, Ryan's delegation reached Jonestown. The following day they left after Temple member Don Sly attacked Ryan with a knife. Congressman Ryan and his people succeeded in taking with them fifteen People's Temple members who had expressed a wish to leave. Upon leaving however, Ryan, three journalists and a defecting temple member were shot at and 9 others wounded. The murder of Congressman Ryan was the first and only murder of a Congressman in the line of duty in the history of the United States.

It's not everyday a person can say a basketball saved their life. In this case, Rob's dad can

and Rob would have never been born if not for the fact that Jim Jr. did not take part in the mass suicide because they were playing with the Peoples Temple basketball team against the Guyanese national team in Georgetown. After the mass suicide, Guyanese soldiers kept the Jones brothers under house arrest for five days, interrogating them about the deaths in Georgetown. Upon returning to the United States, Jim Jones Jr. was placed under police surveillance for several months while he lived with his older sister, Suzanne, who had previously turned against the Temple. Unfortunately, Jim lost his wife and unborn child at Jonestown and has returned to San Francisco where he has obviously remarried and has 2 other sons besides Rob.

I find Rob's personal and collegiate stories fascinating. To know that you're only alive because your dad had a basketball game the day the mass suicide happened has to make everyday a gift for both Rob and his dad. This is one of the best examples you can give for living life to the fullest, because you never know what can happen. It almost seemed to an extent the mass suicide was a spur of the moment thing. It almost seemed that the Peoples Temple knew that after the killing of Congressman Ryan as well as the others, they were pressed for time. Fortunately Jim Jr. had a good hand. For all the bad that came out of that incident, the fact that the remaining Jones' can still make a positive difference to their communities and to people around them are a great thing. Without Rob is St. Mary's a 20-4 team, leading the WCC and well on their way to making the NCAA Tournament for the 3rd time in 4 years? I doubt it. The fact that he has led rebounding in 16 of those 24 games and led scoring in 6 of them is a testament to that and how important he is for the Gaels. He seems to have found his comfort zone in Moraga and seems to be enjoying his time at St. Mary's and hopefully they'll continue to be a factor in the WCC race over the years. I expect him to have a great rest of the year and believe he is more than capable of at least putting up comparable numbers to that of Samhan last year. It is also a great thing to see how the Jones are still so often to come together as a family to watch Rob play games in Moraga and I think Rob did a great unselfish thing by being closer to his family so he could be near his dad during his sickness as well as so he could see his family more often. I look forward to seeing how Rob continues to develop and it'll be interesting to see where his journey goes from here.