Australian natives boost Saint Mary's stature
Saint Mary's center Omar Samhan is happy to smooth out any cultural differences his team's Australian contingent encounters in America, especially considering he lives with two Aussies.
The 6-foot-11 sophomore dropped 20 pounds over the summer in anticipation of playing with Patrick Mills, a freshman point guard from Down Under with a penchant for pushing the tempo.
Samhan will even toss out the occasional "no worries" when talking to his foreign mates.
But he draws the line at Australia's best-known food staple.
"They eat this stuff called vegemite that's horrible," Samhan says. "They tried to get us to eat it."
That didn't go far, but the Gaels like just about anything else Mills, 19, dishes. He's leading in scoring (15.5 ppg) and assists (4.4) helping draw attention to the 2,600-student school in Moraga, Calif., 20 miles east of San Francisco.
A 7-0 start that included victories over then-No. 11 Oregon and Seton Hall earned the Gaels the 24th spot in the ESPN/USA Today poll last week, the first time they were ranked since 1989. The distinction didn't last long. A 71-56 loss at Southern Illinois on Dec. 11 got them bounced.
Still, hopes are high for the Gaels, who returned six of the top seven scorers and the three top rebounders the 17-15 team that finished tied for third in the West Coast Conference last season. With Mills pushing the break, Saint Mary's is averaging 80.1 points a game, 10 more than in 2006-07.
And ever since backup guard Carlin Hughes taught a Midnight Madness crowd last month a popular chant from his homeland ("Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, oi, oi, oi"), games at 3,500-seat McKeon Pavilion have become a celebration of the men at play from Down Under.
"Speaking on behalf of the other two brothers, that's really warming," Mills says. "Sometimes it feels like we're playing back home."
There are three Australians on Saint Mary's 12-man roster — forward Lucas Walker and guard Carlin Hughes are the others — and a fourth one, 6-11 center Ben Allen of Melbourne, is redshirting after transferring from Indiana. Assistant coach David Patrick also hails from Melbourne.
Coach Randy Bennett says their joie de vivre has rubbed off on the program.
"They're fun, upbeat. Their culture's a little more carefree," Bennett says. "They'll have a good time, sing songs. They're not afraid to expose themselves a little bit. They're not as concerned with being cool or looking good."
Sometimes they manage that without even trying, especially the lightning-quick Mills, whose savvy belies his 19 years of age.
Mills ran circles around the Ducks in his fourth collegiate game, scoring a school freshman-record 37 points against Oregon and handing out five assists with only one turnover. Afterward, Ducks coach Ernie Kent compared him with San Antonio star Tony Parker.
"Patrick's really a confident, poised, composed guy," Bennett says. "He's played in some big games (internationally), games that really mattered. He's been playing against 24-, 25-year-olds for years, so this isn't a big shock to him. He's nothing like the typical freshman."
Though basketball is perhaps the fourth most popular spectator sport in Australia — after Australian rules football, rugby and cricket — Mills says as a kid growing up in Canberra "I played 24/7."
His parents, Benny and Yvonne, and several of his cousins played basketball, and his uncle, Danny Morseau, was the first indigenous Australian to play for the national team, known as the "Boomers." He's a member of the Hall of Fame in the country's pro circuit, the National Basketball League.
Over the summer, Mills helped the Boomers qualify for next year's Beijing Games, where he could become the team's youngest starting point guard ever.
"Coming here, one of my objectives was to continue developing in some crucial areas so I can get there come next year," says Mills, who goes by "Patty."
Mills probably would not have landed at St. Mary's had it not been for Adam Caporn, an unheralded Australian point guard who joined the Gaels for the 2001-2002 season, shortly after Bennett took over to try to resurrect a program that had gone 2-27 the previous season.
Caporn, a two-year starter, attracted countryman Daniel Kickert, who became the school's career scoring leader, and a pipeline was established.
"A lot of people would say, 'Why would we go to Australia to find a point guard when we can find one here in our backyard?' " says Patrick, in his second year on the staff. "That's the upper hand we have over there, because we keep track of those kids from a young age."
The Gaels played an exhibition against Mills' Australian Institute of Sport club during a tour of the island continent in the summer of 2005 — when he was just 16 — and their coaching staff stayed in touch with him.
Mills, an only child, had never lived farther from home than the 15-minute drive it took to go from the AIS, where he played the last three years, to his parents' house in Canberra. He wanted to go someplace where he could play extensively right away and feel at home.
"We could help him out settling in," Hughes says. "I think having a few Aussies around made it a lot easier for him."
So did the early success. After the Gaels toppled Seton Hall 85-70 on Dec. 1, Pirates coach Bobby Gonzales said, "I think that team is an NCAA team."
Though the loss to Southern Illinois, which outrebounded Saint Mary's 39-24, showed the Gaels are still far from a powerhouse, they've established themselves as a solid mid-major with four consecutive winning seasons.
A 2005 trip to the NCAA Tournament — the school's first since 1997 — boosted their recruiting efforts in the Bay Area. Samhan and junior forward Diamon Simpson, the team's second and third leading scorers are local products.
They're happy for the infusion of talent from overseas, and Samhan has become adept at understanding terms that used to baffle him.
"It's gotten to the point that when they meet new people, they'll say something and the new person will look at me. That's the indication I need to explain what they said," Samhan says. "I'm their translator, from Australian to English. And it is a different language."
But so far, no worries.
