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Well, there were exceptions made for Tom Bennett, the father of Saint Mary’s coach Randy Bennett and legendary former coach at Mesa Community College, who used to sit and watch them.

But that was about it. And Randy Bennett never understood why.

“You should be able to have fans at these games,� Bennett said. “Why wouldn’t you want to have the opportunity to make money on these games?

“I understand that if you play in a closed gym that everybody can’t watch (so you’re freer to experiment), but you’d rather them watch. It’s more a real game, and you have the pressure of fans. You want to simulate the real game as much as possible.�

Until an NCAA rule change this season that will allow Saint Mary’s to face the Wildcats in a full-on exhibition before McKale Center fans on Saturday, such a thing wasn’t possible. Division I teams could play up to two exhibition opportunities, but public exhibitions previously could only be against non-Division I teams unless held for charity.

If Division I teams wanted to test themselves against other Division I teams, they usually had to do so without fans. They weren’t allowed to publicize what were commonly called “secret scrimmages� beforehand, though they could afterward.

That was fine with former UA coach Sean Miller, whose Wildcats played closed scrimmages at Saint Mary’s before the 2013-14 and 2015-16 seasons while hosting the Gaels in 2014-15.

Though the Wildcats struggled at times in all three of those matchups — Bennett said the often-close scores were typically reset after halves — Miller usually said little about them and declined to comment at all about the 2015-16 scrimmage.

However, Miller did acknowledge that a rough scrimmage in 2013-14 ultimately helped. After all, the Wildcats went on to win their first 21 games and reached the Elite Eight that season.

“It wasn’t that the scrimmage was a disaster,� Miller said before the next season. “It was what you want to get out of a scrimmage. Obviously, we played against a really good team, a well-coached team, and took our team out of their comfort zone of McKale and Tucson. We learned a lot about our team.�

Secret scrimmages had other benefits, at least for the coaches. They could stop games at any point to give instruction, or to have officials explain at length a call that might have been a result of a new officiating emphasis that season. Bennett said teams also sometimes played three halves, allowing them to try out even more lineups and schemes.

“You had the opportunity to play more guys,� Bennett said. “There’s no fans, and that shouldn’t matter, but it just felt like you’re going to be more free about substitution patterns.�

Miller’s Wildcats also faced the Gaels in Phoenix before the 2019-20 season, for a total of four secret scrimmages against them during his UA tenure, while also coincidentally beating them 69-60 in the second round of the 2017 NCAA Tournament.

Then Tommy Lloyd took over the Wildcats in 2021 and agreed to continue the relationship. As a longtime Gonzaga assistant coach, Lloyd had already faced Saint Mary’s 52 times in WCC competition, so he knew what kind of test Bennett’s teams could provide every preseason.

Under Bennett, the Gaels are known to develop players over the long haul, with experience and savvy often amplifying talent, all on a foundation that usually includes a slower tempo and sound defense.

In short, they can drive you nuts.

“We have a mutual respect,� Lloyd said of Bennett in 2021. “I’ve played against Saint Mary’s probably more than any other team in my career, and vice versa, so right when I got the job, Randy and I talked and it totally made sense to continue to do it. I didn’t even give it a second thought.�

Neither did Bennett, whose Gaels have long been that sort of scary, often Top 25-ish opponent that high-major teams don’t want to schedule — especially at Saint Mary’s — for fear of losing.

Playing Saint Mary’s behind closed doors, in a matchup that won’t go into the win-loss column, carried no risk.

Bennett saw benefits in facing Arizona, too. So Saint Mary’s kept playing Arizona under Lloyd, doing so at the Coyote Center in 2021-22 and 2022-23 before the Wildcats needed to play two public exhibitions against non-D-I teams the past two seasons in to meet their school-imposed minimum of 18 home appearances.

“Both (Miller and Lloyd) are good coaches, and it’s a really good program for us to play,� Bennett said. “It’s hard for us to get those games, and I don’t care if we travel, if we play at our place or neutral. We just want to play those caliber of teams. So that’s what it is. It gives us a chance to see our deficiencies in time to fix them before our first game.�

Bennett’s bracing for plenty of issues to be exposed Saturday at McKale.

While the Gaels return former Arizona forward Paulius Murauskas, who became the WCC’s Newcomer of the Year last season after transferring from the Wildcats, they lost four standout players: WCC Player of the Year Augustas Marciulionis, WCC Defensive Player of the Year Mitchell Saxen and starters Luke Barrett and Jordan Ross.

Marciulionis, Saxon and Barrett ran out of eligibility while Ross transferred to Georgia. Typical of Bennett’s continuity-based program, the Gaels still have 10 returning players, but many of them will be asked to do much more this season.

Saturday’s exhibition will help them see how far along they are in that process.

“What are we? Let’s see who we are,� Bennett said. “We need to see somebody else. We need to see a good team like Arizona. We’ll have a better idea on if we’re good or not.

“I like our team. I think we have a chance, but we have a lot of new guys going into bigger roles. So it’s how long is that gonna take? Can they make the adjustment? Can they replace the three seniors we had who were really good ones?�

All questions a secret scrimmage might help answer. Except now, fans will get to learn the same answers that Lloyd and Bennett will, since the NCAA relaxed its exhibition rules to allow D-I vs. D-I exhibitions starting this year.

Bennett took advantage of the rule change by not only scheduling Arizona but also agreeing to play at Ole Miss on Oct. 26 for another exhibition. Then the Gaels will be stuck mostly facing mid-major teams during the regular season.

Bennett said he didn’t think Arizona would want to start a regular-season series and Lloyd hasn’t been available for comment so far this week.

But, for now, as they were for years behind closed doors, Bennett indicated the UA exhibitions are working for him. Especially when they’re in Arizona, where both Bennett and assistant Mickey McConnell are natives, and at McKale.

“We can continue to play them every year, every other year, in exhibitions, whenever it works for them,� Bennett said. “We’d welcome it. It’s a great game (at McKale with) one of the toughest crowds in the West. Kind of a fun place for us to go.�