Randy Bennett did a fascinating thing over the weekend. Well, two, really. One, he raised Saint Mary's College's best player, point guard Patty Mills, back from the dead in time for the West Coast Conference semifinals.
But two, and this is the remarkable thing, he fit in a super practice for Friday night, two days before Selection Sunday. A super practice in this case being a game with Eastern Washington, another showcase as it turns out for his bubble team and the nonpareil Mills.
No skullduggery, really. He had an extra game available, Eastern Washington had one because it played in Hawaii, and Mills is coming off a broken hand that cost him six weeks. He played 35 minutes Sunday night against Portland but had an erratic shooting night (3-for-12, including 2 of 9 from beyond the arc), and with No. 14 Gonzaga Monday night in the WCC title game, the Galloping Gaels need all the tune-ups with Mills they can get.
So Bennett, who is rapidly becoming one of the nation's perennial short-list job candidates, went looking for someone who (a) had a game to use, (b) didn't have a conference tournament to prep for, and (c) would be willing to come down to Moraga, Calif., a suburb of Oakland, to play before a packed house of 3,500 semi-rabid fans and, in all likelihood, take a gratuitous loss.
Enter EWU and head coach Kirk Earlywine, who checked with his players and the school's travel budget, and told Bennett, "Sign us up."
Now this would be kind of an inside-basketball story, a touching tale of two phone calls, except for the fact that Mills is one of the best guards in the country. With Stephen Curry of Davidson, last year's tournament darling, almost guaranteed to play in the NIT after Davidson's loss to College of Charleston in the Southern Conference tournament, Mills could lay a claim to being, in fact, the most electrifying guard in the 65-team field if his hand, which he broke against Gonzaga Jan. 29, 11 games ago, is right.
In other words, Saint Mary's, which is a team on the selection edge after going 7-4 without Mills, needs a good showing tonight in Las Vegas against Gonzaga and then for Mills to have a good showing Friday night against the plucky Eagles.
Now Bennett said this wasn't improving Saint Mary's tournament profile for the fellas and gals in the cardigan sweaters with the bad coffee-and-Danish breath, but we suspect he is fibbing at least a bit. Saint Mary's was a lock to go to the tournament when Mills was healthy, but when he went down, the questions "When will he be back?" and "How will he play?" were justifiably raised. Bennett decided Friday to add the game to hedge his bets against both eventualities, and given Mills' performance Sunday night, it was a fairly brilliant call by whomever on his staff keeps track of teams with unexpired rollover games.
You know, like the cellphones.
But whatever his motivation, Bennett showed a level of ingenuity too mand coaches waste on trying to figure how to funnel the money through the AAU coach to the recruit. He was lucky the Big Sky, Eastern Washington's conference, has such a restrictive playoff policy, and that EWU had a spare game since so few schools miss a chance at a check. He was also lucky that he had one, and that the WCC tournament runs so early.
But luck is often the mother of invention, and it so happens that opportunity met need at just the right time for Bennett, Mills, and potentially the nation, which is always looking for a fun little subplot in the first weekend of the tournament.
So hats off, to those of you who still do that sort of thing, to Bennett and the Gaels, Earlywine and the Eagles, and Mills. Nice thinking, kids.
And as a friendly aside, this sure as hell better work.
Ray Ratto is a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle.
