MORAGA — Saint Mary’s College will celebrate Australia Night on Thursday when it faces BYU in a West Coast Conference showdown.

Meat pies and other Aussie-themed treats will be sold at the snack bar and commemorative T-shirts will be handed out to students. A representative of Australia’s San Francisco consulate office has been invited. Australian music will be played, including the national anthem before tipoff.

Really, though, every game night is Australia Night for the 16th-ranked Gaels.

From the beginning, coach Randy Bennett has built his program around Australian players, including Patty Mills and Matthew Dellavedova, who went on to win championships in the NBA. A total of 18 Aussies have worn Gaels jerseys.

This year’s team, which entered play Thursday with a 19-2 record, a 14-game win streak and alone atop the conference at 8-0, features three starters and a total of six players from Australia, including likely WCC Player of the Year Jock Landale.

The Saint Mary’s women’s team has picked up the trend, with four Australians and a New Zealander on this year’s roster.

How this all started was “a fluke deal,” according to Bennett.

Hired in 2001 to repair a program that was 2-27 the season before, Bennett got a call from a coaching friend who had just returned from recruiting in Australia and mentioned a player his program wasn’t taking.

Bennett called Marty Clark, now the Gaels’ associate head coach, who was then an assistant at the Australian Institute of Sport. Bennett asked about Adam Caporn, and got an encouraging report.

Bennett had two open scholarships and it was just weeks before the start of school. He had no time to visit Australia, or even engage in a long courtship. Frankly, he was a bit desperate to rebuild his roster.

He called Caporn, and the brief conversation went along these lines:

“You wanna come?”

“Yep.”

Bennett still hadn’t seen his new guard play when he arrived on campus, but Caporn performed well for the Gaels, who won nine games in Bennett’s first season. Eventually, Bennett asked Caporn if there were others like him back home.

That led to the Gaels signing forward Daniel Kickert, who became the school’s career scoring leader and led the team to the 2005 NCAA tournament, its first under Bennett.

Kickert helped open the door even wider for the Gaels in his homeland. His roommate during Aussie training camp for the world championships was Mills, who arrived in 2007. Mills played two seasons, leading the Gaels back to the NCAAs as a sophomore, then bolted for the NBA.

As he was leaving, Dellavedova arrived. A freshman on the 2010 Sweet 16 team, “Delly” was part of three NCAA teams in four seasons, setting school records for career points, assists and 3-pointers and leading the Gaels to a record of 108-28.

Recruiting Australia is tougher now, Bennett says, because other schools have made inroads. “We were on the cutting edge then,” he said.

But the Gaels retain an advantage with many young Australian prospects. “They all know Patty. They all know Delly,” Bennett said.

For senior point guard Emmett Naar, closing in on Dellavedova’s school record for career assists, the decision to come to Saint Mary’s was easy. “Clearly, the coaches here and the system fits for point guards to be successful,” he said. “We play pretty much an international offense.”

Landale notes that Mills and Dellavedova are just two examples of Australians whose start in Moraga has led to professional careers. “There’s heaps of other guys who have gone on to play in other parts of the world,” said the 6-foot-11 center, who certainly will find hoops employment after his college career.

The Aussie relationship included one serious bump in the road in 2013 when the NCAA found the Gaels guilty of recruiting violations and levied five years’ probation and other penalties. The NCAA said a former assistant arranged for travel to the United States and lodging with a local family for at least one recruit and that Bennett was aware of the activity.

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Whicker: Thanks to Olson, Arizona basketball success was an abso-Lute In any case, the Gaels’ dealings Down Under have been a game-changer for the program. Saint Mary’s, with minimal previous success in the sport, has averaged more than 26 victories over the past 10 seasons and played in six NCAA tournaments under Bennett.

A seventh NCAA bid is seemingly on the horizon, and it will carry the usual Aussie flavor.

Thursday night’s game is scheduled for 8 p.m. (Pacific) and will air on ESPN.