Cal, Stanford to play Saint Mary's... Finally

SMC gets Stanford/Cal for 1st time in LONG time. Just so happens SMC goes into season w/ most unproven team in yrs. https://t.co/OmkH1HdSoe

— Zack Farmer (@Zack_Farmer) September 17, 2015

This needs to get off my chest. When the announcements of matchups between my alma mater Saint Mary's and both Cal and Stanford came up, I was initially excited. Two marquee Bay Area matchups. We finally get our shot at the local Pac-12 teams.

But then the reality of the situation set in. This isn't a Saint Mary's team with Matthew Dellavedova. Or one with Patty Mills or Omar Samhan. It's not even one with Brad Waldow or Stephen Holt.

It is one with the most experienced returner being Emmett Naar. This is not to say that this team does not have talent. It is just a lot of unproven talent.

The bottom line: Cal and Stanford are finally willing to schedule the team from Moraga but waited until the cupboard was seemingly bare. Cal hasn't played SMC since the 2004-05 season (a Gaels win at Haas Pavilion) and Stanford has not met the Gaels since, well, I can't even remember when. It's been a LONG time.

Additionally, Both Pac-12 teams also look like they will be top tier teams and, in Cal's case, one looks like the prohibitive favorite to win the conference.

Nonconference scheduling in college basketball has to be one of the more frustrating parts of the game if you are a fan of the have-nots. Saint Mary's, despite the recent success, still remains one of the have-nots when it comes to scheduling.

Cal and Stanford can essentially schedule who they want, when they want. Stanford has put USF and Santa Clara on its schedule in recent years and has now rounded out the local WCC teams with SMC. Cal has willingly played a Division I Bay Area school once since 2009 (San Jose State, 2011).

Over the years, especially when Saint Mary's was an automatic postseason team, it seemed to have made sense from an RPI or strength of schedule perspective to put strong local teams on the calendar. More butts in the seats, helps with your potential tournament resume, and travel costs at a minimum.

This could spiral into the conversation of an annual Bay Area basketball invitational that involves the six local teams but that is a different conversation for a different day.

They may be matchups that Bay Area fans, or more specifically Saint Mary's fans, have been waiting to see but maybe not in the circumstances the teams sit in. Dellavedova vs. the Allen Crabbe Cal team? Great matchup. Jabari Bird and Ivan Rabb against Naar and Dane Pineau? Not so much.