St. Mary’s should comb its hair, straighten its tie and shine its shoes, because it needs to look good for its appearance on national television on Thursday.    The image the Gaels portray during that two-hour exposure may determine whether they get into the NCAA Tournament.

The ugly mouthpiece that St. Mary's freshman Matthew Dellavedova uses may not look good on national TV, and appearances count -- Photo by Photosport

It might seem that with a 21-3 record and no losses that make you say “How the heck did they lose to those guys?” St. Mary’s should be sitting pretty in terms of an NCAA Tournament berth.

Well, that might not be the case if the Gaels go up to Spokane, Wash., and get spanked by Gonzaga on Thursday.    And if St. Mary’s then loses at Portland two days later as well – and that’s not farfetched  – the Gaels would not be singing a happy tune on Selection Sunday.

The Gaels can eliminate Selection-Day Anxiety – otherwise known as SDA, a modern psychological malady similar to at-large-itis that is common among college basketball players and coaches – by doing one of two things:  They can win the West Coast Conference tournament  and earn an automatic berth, but that would require them to sit on pins and needles for the next three weeks, knowing they would have to beat Gonzaga in Las Vegas to do it.    Or they can beat Gonzaga on Thursday, which should eliminate any question in the selection committee’s mind that St. Mary’s deserves an at-large berth.

Recent history suggests the Gaels have not done enough yet.   Last season, the Gaels went 26-6 through the regular season, and four of those losses occurred when Patty Mills was out with an injury.   But the Gaels’ bid for an at-large berth was rejected presumably because they were 0-3 against Gonzaga, including a nationally-televised 25-point loss to the Bulldogs in the WCC tournament finals.   In 2008, St. Mary’s went 25-6, lost in its WCC tournament before facing Gonzaga, but got an at-large berth because it beat Gonzaga during the season.

So now the Gaels again face the measuring stick for WCC teams, otherwise known as Gonzaga.   Considering the Bulldogs beat St. Mary’s in Moraga earlier this season and that St. Mary’s has lost 14 straight games at Gonzaga, St. Mary’s chances don’t look good. 

Even if the Gaels lose, however, they would go a long way toward getting an at-large berth by just staying in the game against the Bulldogs.    With the game on ESPN2 and NCAA selection-committee members  drawing all kinds of conclusions based on this one game, appearances matter.    If St. Mary’s gets blown out by Gonzaga – as it did in the WCC tournament last year – the folks in charge of determining the NCAA field may issue a collective “eeew” and decide they don’t need the Gaels in their intimate 65-team gathering.  If the Gaels stay within, say, 10 points, the selectors may silently nod and grudgingly admit the Gaels are good enough.

Yeah, yeah, we know: In a fair world, one game should not determine a team’s postseason fate.   But in the reality of college basketball, people base their opinions on what they see on television.   And, to some extent, that includes the NCAA selection committee.

Elsewhere in college basketball . . .

You probably forgot that Isiah Thomas is the head coach at Florida International, so we’re here to bring you up to date.   FIU is 7-19 and is three defeats shy of tying the school record for losses in a season, and that’s a significant record considering some of the poor seasons FIU has had in its 29 years of basketball.   We should have realized this season was going to be a struggle when FIU won by just six points against  Florida Memorial, which subsequently lost by larger margins to Apprentice School and Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.  (We didn’t make that up.)

Numbers of note:

– Defending national champion North Carolina is 2-6 in the ACC, has lost six of its last seven and faces Duke on Wednesday.

– Texas, which was No. 1 just three weeks ago, has lost four of its last six games before playing Kansas on Monday.

– Stanford’s Landry Fields is fourth in the nation in scoring at 23.0 points a game.

– St. Mary’s Omar Samhan is seventh in the nation in rebounding and 12^th in both scoring and blocked shots.

– Three teams from the Mountain West Conference are ranked this week.

– Siena owns the nation’s longest winning streak at 14 before Monday’s games.

– Connecticut is in 11^th place in the Big East.

– Princeton is 4-0 in the Ivy League and has supplanted Harvard as the chief threat for Cornell, which plays at Princeton on Friday.

– William & Mary, which is sixth in the Colonial Athletic Association, has a better RPI ranking that Arizona, Arizona State, UCLA, Washington and USC, who are in a five-way tie for second in the Pac-10.   UCLA’s RPI is 133.