With Mills back on track, St. Mary's deserves NCAA Tournament berth

St. Mary’s center Omar Samhan had it right, just minutes after the Gaels’ 85-65 win Friday night over Eastern Washington, a.k.a. their last chance to convince the NCAA Tournament selection committee that they deserve an at-large berth.“Nothing you can do now but pray,” said Samhan, who scored a career-high 29 points to go with 12 rebounds. “All you can do is hope for the best. It’s out of our control now.”That it is for a so-called “bubble” team from a mid-major conference. I can only hope that the selection committee is wise enough to realize that St. Mary’s deserves a spot in the NCAA Tournament.Gaels coach Randy Bennett rolled the dice last week when he added a game against Eastern Washington to the schedule. Bennett wanted to give point guard Patty Mills one more chance to convince committee members that he has recovered from the broken right hand he suffered on Jan. 29 against Gonzaga.The risk for Bennett was that his team could have played poorly and Mills could have had his t...