OR because what they did DESPITE...?
All-time great teams wouldn't have dropped two to that St Marys squad from last year (& very nearly drop 3 to them). Those guys had a couple special guys in Ford & Malik, but overall they were nothing to write home about. Bennett had had deeper, more talented rotations in the 5 years previous. That SMC team woulda been crushed three times by Jimmer's Sr year team. They would've been crushed largely because we had the personnel, athleticism, & depth on that team to do it. We quite possibly had the makeup to us to do it in 2016-17 as well (the year Bennett unfortunately toyed w us with one of SMU's better squads of recent memory).
Last year's team did NOT have the horses. DESPITE the epic win against a way over-hyped Zags squad.