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GAME NOTES: The second half of the West Coast Conference schedule kicks off for the Saint Mary's Gaels tonight as they entertain the Santa Clara Broncos at McKeon Pavilion in Moraga, California.

The Gaels enter tonight's matchup tied with nationally-ranked Gonzaga for first place in the WCC standings at 6-1 and are currently riding a four-game win streak. On Saturday, the team moved to a perfect 8-0 on the road this season with an 85-67 stomping of Loyola Marymount, which means SMC has won nine of the last 10 outings overall, with that lone setback coming against the Bulldogs in the middle of January.

As for the Broncos, they are at the other end of the conference standings with just a single league win in seven tries, and that one came by only a single point versus San Francisco a few weeks back. Most recently, SCU was taken apart by the University of Portland over the weekend in a 74-52 final. The loss was the second in a row and the seventh in eight tries.

The Gaels won the first meeting of the season with Santa Clara on the road by a score of 80-72 on January 10th, as Omar Samhan scored a game-high 24 points and cleared nine rebounds before fouling out for the visitors. In terms of the all-time series between these two teams, one that began way back in 1910, the Broncos are ahead by a commanding 131-75 count.

Robert Smith scored 17 points and Marc Trasolini added 10 on Saturday, but by no means was that enough to keep the Broncos competitive with Portland at home. Santa Clara shot a collective 36 percent from the field and just 4-of-19 behind the three-point line as Smith made 3-of-7 on the perimeter and the rest of the squad a combined 1-of-12. Smith and Trasolini are the two double-digit scorers for the Broncos in conference play this season with averages of 13.7 and 13.1 ppg, respectively, but the former continues to fire up shots beyond the arc even though he is just 7-of-31 (.226) from there in seven games. Obviously, as he showed over the weekend, Smith can knock down some long- distance shots but he's just not consistent enough. Then again, no one on Santa Clara has been able to find the range in conference play at just 28.8 percent, while the opposition has made good on a collective 41.1 percent behind the three-point line.

Except for Jordan Page who finished with just three points on 1-of-6 shooting from the floor, every starter for the Gaels hit for double digits in the win over Loyola Marymount on Saturday, beginning with Samhan who came up with 19 points, 13 rebounds three assists and three steals on the rout. Mickey McConnell tacked on 16 points and six assists and Ben Allen and Matthew Dellavedova scored 15 points apiece. Samhan, a career 13.2 ppg scorer for the Gaels in more than 120 contests, is reaching new heights in 2009-10 with his 21.5 ppg to go along with a staggering 11.1 rpg that places him among the best in the nation. McConnell (13.8 ppg) provides decent scoring numbers for the program as well, but his focus tends to be on getting the rest of the team involved with almost six assists per game. Dellavedova is in just his first season with SMC, but already he has been a huge benefit with 12.9 ppg and 4.5 apg, not to mention a 42.2 percent shooter beyond the arc.

This really should be no contest given how well the Gaels have been playing this season. Keeping up with Gonzaga is all that SMC should be focusing on, so perhaps this might not be the blowout win that it could be.