St. Mary's Gaels Punch Fifth Straight Ticket From Moraga To March Madness: Report

MORAGA, CA — The Saint Mary's Gaels men's basketball stormed into the NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Tournament again, extending one of college basketball’s most consistent postseason streaks and sending the Moraga program back to March’s biggest stage for a fifth consecutive year.

Saint Mary’s landed the No. 7 seed in the South Region and will open the NCAA tournament against the Texas A&M Aggies men's basketball of the Southeastern Conference, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

The game will be played on Thursday in Oklahoma City. The berth marks a school-record fifth consecutive NCAA appearance for the Gaels.

The Gaels finished a dominant 27–5 season and captured their fourth straight West Coast Conference regular season title, San Francisco Chronicle reported.

This continued a run of success that has placed the Moraga program among the nation’s most reliable tournament teams.

Saint Mary’s joins a rare group of just 14 programs that have reached five straight NCAA tournaments. Outside the so-called power conferences, only the Gonzaga Bulldogs men's basketball and the UConn Huskies men's basketball have matched the Gaels’ streak.

The consistency runs even deeper. Saint Mary’s stands among just 13 programs that have earned a single-digit seed in each of the last five tournaments and among 11 teams that have worn home uniforms in the round of 64 during that same stretch — a mark reserved for higher-seeded teams, according to the school.

Texas A&M enters the tournament with a 21–11 record after finishing tied for fourth in the Southeastern Conference alongside the Vanderbilt Commodores men's basketball and the Tennessee Volunteers men's basketball.

The Aggies stumbled in the conference tournament, where the Oklahoma Sooners men's basketball knocked them out in the second round, according to reports.

The Oklahoma City pod also includes the Idaho Vandals men's basketball, champions of the Big Sky Conference, as the No. 15 seed, and the No. 2 seed Houston Cougars men's basketball, runners-up in the Big 12 Conference.

For Saint Mary’s, the moment may seem familiar but it's still a rare one — another opportunity for the small Moraga campus to test itself against college basketball’s biggest programs.