NCAA: Saint Mary's topples Villanova

The Saint Mary's Gaels topple the Villanova Wildcats to advance to the Sweet 16 next weekend. As for Saturday's games this was the second biggest upset behind Northern Iowa.

The Saint Mary's Gaels, a tenth seed in the NCAA tournament topple the another of the Big East's big and bad teams the Villanova Wildcats, 75-68. The Gaels already had beaten the Richmond Spiders in the first round to move on to face the Wildcats. Still St. Mary's had their own unstoppable force in Omar Samhan who led all scorers with 32 points. For Saint Mary's they hadn't won a tournament game since 1959. Now they have won two games in just over 48 hours. The term Gael has a variety of translations but the most fittings seems to be that of "warrior" which the men of Saint Mary's seem to be in their surprising run to the Sweet 16. It was just a year ago that Villanova made it to the Final Four. This year they started out 20-1 before falling apart at the end of the season going 4 and 5 over their last nine games. Villanova was able to slide by Robert Morris in overtime on Thursday 73-70 to face a Saint Mary's team that hadn't lost since February 13th. For the West Coast Conference, Saint Mary's is the first team, besides Gonzaga, to reach the Sweat Sixteen since Loyola Marymount in 1990. Saint Mary's will face the Baylor Bears next Friday.