No stopping Goose: Augustus Marciulionis scored 25 points and had seven assists. / Photo by Thurman James for AP Images
Gaels Finish Championship Season with Senior Day Victory over Oregon State
Seniors Augustas Marciulionis, Luke Barrett, and Mitchell Saxen combine for 50 points in the 74–64 win. And Saint Mary’s takes the West Coast Conference Regular Season Title by a three-game margin.
Saturday night brought the regular season to an winning end for the Saint Mary’s Gaels (27–4, 17–1 West Coast Conference), with a final victory at home over the Oregon State Beavers (20–11, 10–8 WCC), 74–64. The Beavers played the Gaels much tougher than their first meeting of 2025 in Corvallis, but an 18–6 surge from Saint Mary's starting the final minute of the first half would prove to be the difference. Saint Mary’s 17–1 conference record marks a new program record for conference wins and win percentage in a single season. The Gaels now ride a seven game winning streak into the postseason.
As it was the final home game of the season, the Gaels honored seniors Augustas Marciulionis, Luke Barrett, and Mitchell Saxen in a pregame ceremony. And it was that trio who were the stars of the night, combining for 50 of the Gaels’ 74 points.
Marciulionis is defending WCC Player of the Year and a strong candidate to repeat. He put on one final show for the hometown fans in Moraga, with 25 points and seven assists. Marciulionis also tied a career-high with four made threes on six attempts. Fellow seniors Luke Barrett and Mitchell Saxen—who is defending WCC Defensive Player of the Year—both tallied double-doubles on their senior nights. Barrett went for 13 points and 10 boards, and Saxen scored 12 and 11 rebounds. To say the Gaels were dominant on the boards would be an understatement: They won the rebounding battle 39–22, won the offensive rebounding battle 20–6, and the second chance scoring battle 24–12—the key separating factor in this one.
Marciulionis was the go-to scorer for the Gaels, scoring both inside and out. He was also a foul-drawing machine, getting seven infractions called against Oregon State, resulting in eight attempted free throws, seven of which he connected on. While Marciulionis was excellent as ever as a scorer, he also made his teammates look good with seven assists, moving him to 189 for the season, tying him with current Gael Assistant Coach and former player Joe Rahon for 12th most in a single season.
For Luke Barrett and Mitchell Saxen, the double-doubles were their sixth and ninth of the season, respectively. Barrett, like Marciulionis, was a well-balanced scorer, with two made layups, two threes, and a perfect 3–3 clip at the stripe. He also had five offensive and five defensive rebounds, while also dishing out three assists. Saxen entered the evening ranked third in the country in offensive rebounding, and will likely climb even higher, with seven of his 11 boards being of the offensive variety. He scored 12 points in total, doing most of his work on second-chance opportunities, with six of his 12 coming as a direct result of one of his own offensive boards.
This group has led the Gaels all season long, with Marciulionis serving as the Gaels leader in points, assists, and steals; Saxen ranking third in scoring, second in rebounding, and leading the team in blocked shots; and Barrett ranking fourth in scoring, third in rebounding, and leading the team (and often the conference) in minutes played.
The Beavers Came to Play
Oregon State came out energized, looking to avenge a loss on their home court to the Gaels earlier this season. The Beavers shot in the high 70s from the field for the first seven-plus minutes to take an early 18–13 lead. While the Gaels didn’t quite have the same shooting numbers, they dominated on the offensive glass, with 13 offensive boards, leading to 15 second chance points. A huge offensive board from Luke Barrett led to an Augustas Marciulionis three with 7:56 remaining in the frame to push the Gaels ahead 21–20. Both teams traded blows, with Oregon State regaining a two-possession lead with a minute to go, but in that final 60 seconds, the Gaels went on a 5–0 run to take a 34–33 lead into the break.
Augustas Marciulionis served as both the Gaels’ primary scorer and playmaker, with 13 points and three assists. Luke Barrett stuffed the stat sheet with five points, five boards, and two assists, while Paulius Muauskas also finished with five points and five boards. The Gaels finished +7 on the glass, +8 on the offensive glass, and +5 in second-chance scoring.
The two teams traded buckets to start the second half, but a Harry Wessels layup put the Gaels ahead 38–37 just 2:20 into the second frame, and it was a lead they would not relinquish. After not leading by more than a single possession in the first half, an 18–6 run that spanned nearly seven minutes gave SMC their first multi-possession lead, which they pushed out to eight points. Four times, Oregon State managed to get back within one possession, but the Gaels remained steadfast in defense, limiting the Beavers to just eight made second-half field goals and preventing them from hitting an equalizer. Oregon State narrowed the deficit to just two with 8:40 to play, but a 9–0 Gaels run built up a double-digit lead and took the wind out of the Beavers’ sails. Saint Mary's went on to finish out the game with a double-digit victory, 74–64.
Augustas Marciulionis kept his momentum rolling in the second half, with 12 more points and four more assists. Fellow seniors Luke Barrett and Mitchell Saxen each added eight in the second stanza while recording seven and five rebounds, respectively. Rebounding again told the story in the second half, with the Gaels finishing +10 on the glass in the second half, +6 on the offensive glass and +7 in second chance scoring.
You Don’t See That Every Game…
While Saint Mary's has been one of the best offensive rebounding teams in the country this year, they accomplished something Saturday that is seldom seen in the game of basketball at any level: They racked up more offensive rebounds (20) than defensive boards (19). Mitchell Saxen led the charge with seven o-boards; with 130 of his 247 boards being on the offensive, he has consistently had more offensive boards than defensive all season. Luke Barrett chipped in five, bringing his season total to 81 o-boards on the year.
Notably, this was not the first time the Gaels accomplished this feat this year. In their big win over Nebraska in November, the Gaels had 17 offensive rebounds to 14 defensive. In total, this was the sixth time this season that the Gaels have reached 20 offensive rebounds in a game.
…And You Don’t See That Every Season
The Gaels secured the WCC Regular Season Title a week ago with a victory over Gonzaga (23–4, 14–4 WCC) in the Kennel. Saturday night, answering questions after the final game of the season, SMC Head Coach Randy Bennett noted of his team: “It’s hard to go 17 and 1” in conference play, he said, and “to win the league by three games…People don’t understand how tough what they did was.” As for his seniors and the win over Oregon State, “They had a great senior night, but they had a great season. And they had a great junior season…and they won as sophomores, and they won as freshmen.”
With what the Gaels have accomplished in regular season play, predictions are for another invitation to the NCAA Tournament. That would make four years in a row for Saint Mary’s. “How many teams have done that?” Bennett said. When it comes to programs in the West, “You quit counting pretty quick.”
For his part, senior Mitchell Saxen likes the momentum this team is carrying into the postseason. Of teammate Luke Barrett, he said, “Luke's been the hardest playing dude on the court. Played 40 minutes again tonight, and that’s just the story of his career. There were a couple of threes, and Goose banked in one at the end of the shot clock. Luke hit one at the end of the shot clock…That's how you're supposed to go out. I'm just so proud of our group. And I feel like we got a lot left in the tank.”
One of the team's mantras, Saxen said, is “‘On our front foot.’ That's just attacking everything in front of you. And it's the teams that get better this week going into the conference tournament, and then get better after that, going into March Madness, that are able to play their best and win games there.”
West Coast Conference Tourney, Here We Come
At the beginning of last week, in the , Saint Mary’s was voted . The Gaels also earned a spot in the last Monday, ranking No. 23 in the nation. Monday, March 3, the AP poll ranked Saint Mary’s No. 21 in the country.
Crunch the stats, and Saint Mary’s continues to be ranked No. 17 in the country in NCAA NET rankings. Along with winning percentage, the NET rankings take into account game results, strength of schedule, game location, scoring margin, net offensive and defensive efficiency, and the quality of wins and losses. For the NCAA, it’s both a results-driven and predictive metric.
The Gaels will be the No. 1 seed in the Credit Union 1 West Coast Conference Tournament, having won the WCC Regular Season Title. The tourney takes place March 6–11 at the Orleans Arena in Las Vegas. Saint Mary’s has a bye until the semifinals on Monday, March 10.
UP NEXT: Watch the No. 1 seeded Gaels in the semifinals of the WCC Tournament in Las Vegas on Monday, March 10 at 6 p.m. If you’re not in Vegas to cheer on the Gaels in person, catch it on ESPN.
Story updated March 3, 2025 at 10 a.m. with additional photos and AP poll updates.
