SAINT PETER, Minn. – The Gustavus men’s basketball team Monday night couldn’t overcome a 27-point halftime deficit and fell to the Auggies of Augsburg 92-78. With the loss the Gusties fall to 5-8 overall and 2-6 in the MIAC while the Auggies move to 9-3 and 5-2 in conference play.
“You have to talk about the slow start whether it be mental or physical preparation and them being in a position we ask them to to,” said head coach Mark Hanson. “We made some mistakes and we were chasing them too much. Offensively I think we were pretty solid in the first 10 minutes from an efficiency standpoint and then we started playing the scoreboard and it indicated that we needed to score quickly and then we took some poor shots. The second half is a little harder to judge and we turned it over the first possessions and that made it a little tougher on us to catch up.”
The Auggies got off to a hot start in the first half and didn’t look back. They started the game up 13-0 and kept adding on as they led the Gusties 56-29 after one half of play. Augsburg was 20-for-29 from the field and 9-of-15 from beyond the arc in the first half.
The second half started out in the Auggies favor as they stretched their 27 point lead to 34 with 11:41 to play but the Gusties mounted a run and got the game within striking distance late. The Gusties went on a 10-0 run and then a 17-7 run a few minutes later to pull the game to within 16. That was the closest they would get it though until the last possesion when they made a layup as time was expiring to get it to 14.
Riley Sharbono (Sr., Marshall, Minn.) led all Gusties with 15 points on the night on 5-of-7 shooting. Vannis Smith (Jr., Crystal Lake, Ill.) and Charlie Krambeer (Sr., Rushford, Minn.) made solid contributions off the bench scoring 14 and 12 points respectively.
The Gusties will next be in action on Wednesday when they travel to Collegeville, Minn. to take on No. 11 Saint John’s in a 7 p.m. contest.
About the Johnnies coach Hanson said, “We just tell our guys it’s one possession at a time. They are still human beings and they will make mistakes and won’t make every shot. We have to play possession by possession and if we win enough of them we’ll be successful.”