Game Summary

EAU CLAIRE, Wis. — If Friday's performance against Northland is any indication, it appears like the Saint Mary's University men's basketball team has finally learned its lesson.

Finally.

After giving up the first seven points of each half in falling to UW-Eau Claire 76-66 in Thursday's opening-round game of the UW-Eau Claire Tournament, the Cardinals weren't about to dig themselves out of another hole against the Lumberjacks.

And the Cardinals found the view from out front a lot more satisfying.

Terrence Smith (Broadview, Ill.) scored a game-high 19 points and led six SMU players in double figures as the Cardinals broke out of a two-game losing skids with an 87-81 victory Friday.

"It was good to see us come out and play well tonight," said SMU coach Mike Trewick. "We battled hard in the first half and came out and really took control at the start of the second half."

Unlike Thursday's game, the Cardinals scored the game's first basket against Northland and held on for a 44-43 halftime advantage. The see-saw affair continued in the second half, as the Cardinals held leads as big as 13 — 72-59 with 8:30 remaining — then held on down the stretch en route to the six-point win.

Along with Smith's game-high 19-point effort, SMU also got 12 points from Brensley Haywood (Joliet, Ill.) and Michael Batterman (Fond du Lac, Wis.), 11 from Dan Cormier (Blaine, Minn.) and Michael Rohr (Bloomingdale, Ill.) and 10 from John Gencius (Chicago, Ill.).

Haywood was named to the All-Tournament team, as well as earning the tournament's Playmaker Award, while Smith picked up the tournament's Fireman Award.

"We've still got a lot of things to work on, but we certainly can take a lot of positives from this game," said Trewick, whose team returns to conference play on Monday at home against Bethel. "The bottom line is, we were able to come away with the win — now we've got to turn all of our attention to Bethel."