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WINONA, Minn. — The last time the Saint Mary's University men's basketball team squared off against Bethel, the Royals shot 82 percent from the field in the first half, missing just five of their 28 first-half  field goal attempts en route to a 63-39 halftime advantage and a 98-79 Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference victory.

Saturday afternoon in the team's rematch at the SMU Gym, the Royals didn't reach 63 points Tyler Brown scored off an offensive rebound with 6:58 remaining in regulation.

Unfortunately for the Cardinals, SMU didn't reach the 63-point plateau at all, managing just 61 points in falling to the Royals 78-61.

"It's not that we played all that poorly," said SMU coach Mike Trewick, whose Cardinals came into the game having snapped a season-high 11-game losing streak with a 77-60 victory over Hamline on Monday. "We got some good looks and didn't knock down the shots, and we weren't able to make the stops when we needed it.

"If you can't do those two things, it makes for a tough afternoon."

Will Wright (Chicago, Ill.) poured in a team-high 17 points — including a 4-for-7 effort from behind the 3-point line — while Eric Lear (Antioch, Ill.) made 5 of 6 free throws and dished out a pair of assists en route to his 12-point outing, and Lukas Holland (La Crosse, Wis.) chipped in 10 points.

Tim Madson scored a game-high 23 points for the Royals, who made just 8 of 23 3-pointers, but still shot 51 percent from the field (31-for-60) in snapping a three-game losing streak.

The Royals jumped out to a 35-27 lead at the half, then built leads as big as 17 in outscoring the Cardinals 43-34 over the game's final 20 minutes to secure the win.

"We knew coming in that (Bethel) was going to put up a lot of shots," said Trewick. "Our job was to try and hang with them as best we could, get some stops when we needed them and hopefully put ourselves in position to win it down the stretch. Unfortunately, we weren't quite able to do that."

The Cardinals (2-16 MIAC, 2-21 overall) close out the home portion of their schedule on Wednesday, playing host to Augsburg, before closing out their season at Concordia next Saturday.