ST. PAUL, MINN. – The Gustavus Adolphus men’s basketball team became the latest in a long list of victims of No. 2-ranked University of St. Thomas as the Gusties fell to the Tommies 64-52 on Wednesday evening at Schoenecker Arena. The win was the 12th straight for St. Thomas, which moves to 11-1 in MIAC and 16-1 overall. Meanwhile, Gustavus falls to 6-5 in the MIAC and 10-6 overall.
Although Gustavus is the only team to have defeated St. Thomas this season, the Gusties could not find the same formula they used to defeat the Tommies on Dec. 3, 2014 in St. Peter. Gustavus kept the game close early, however, beginning at the 8:36 mark in the first half, St. Thomas went on a 10-0 run to bring its lead to 14 (27-13) with 4:38 remaining. St. Thomas shot a combined 10-of-12 from the charity stripe in the first half, which accounted for 34 percent of its first half scoring.
“We put them at the free-throw line too much in the first half,” said head coach Mark Hanson. “They were also able to convert on second chance opportunities and that really hurt us.”
However, Gustavus managed to go on an 8-2 run of its own to close the half and only trailed by eight at the break (29-21). Similar to what they did in their last game against the Gusties though, the Tommies came out of halftime on fire, led by two three-pointers from senior guard Marcus Alipate and retook a 14-point advantage less than two minutes into the half. From there, the Tommie lead would not dip below 10 for the remainder of the half, and the home team led by as many as 19 (64-45) with 3:07 to play. Gustavus went on a 7-0 run to close the game, but it was too little, too late and St. Thomas secured the 12-point victory.
Gustavus was led by Peter Kruize (So., St. Peter, Minn.) who scored 11 points on 5-of-10 shooting and grabbed seven boards in just 16 minutes of game action. Isaac Tapp (Sr., Stewartville, Minn.) led all Gustie scorers with 15 points on 6-of-11 shooting and Gary Cooper (Jr., Detroit, Mich.) was also a key contributor as he notched 10 points on 3-of-7 shooting (4-of-6 on free-throws), six rebounds and dished out three assists.
For St. Thomas, Taylor Montero led all scorers with 17 points on 6-of-11 shooting, including going 3-for-6 from long range. Alipate scored all 13 of his points in the second half on 5-of-5 shooting. Ryan Saarela added 10 points, seven rebounds and three steals and Conner Nord chipped in eight points and 10 boards.
The Tommies had just nine turnovers and shot 46 percent from the floor compared to the Gusties’ 12 turnovers and 42.9 percent field goal percentage. St. Thomas also narrowly out-rebounded Gustavus 31-29.
Gustavus will return to St. Paul on Saturday when it will attempt to secure a season sweep against Hamline University in a 3 p.m. game at Hutton Arena.