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Game Summary / GameDay Online

MOORHEAD, Minn. — It's been the same story over and over — all season long …

Close, but not close enough.

The Saint Mary's University men's basketball team came up just short — again — in its season finale Saturday afternoon, as Concordia held off a furious SMU second-half comeback to beat the Cardinals 84-77 in the regular-season finale for both team.

"I give our guys a lot of credit, they never gave up — not today, and not at any point this season," said SMU coach Mike Trewick, whose team dropped its last three games in finishing 2-23 overall. "We fell down big at the half and this team easily could have just packed it in. Instead, they kept scratching and clawing and fighting there way back — that says a lot about the character of this team.

"It's just too bad we didn't have another minute — that's all we needed, just one more minute."

After falling behind by as many as 18 in the first half, SMU settled for a 14-point, 38-24 deficit at the break. The Cobbers continued to dominate early in the second half, building their lead as big as 19 points twice, including a 45-26 cushion with 16:51 remaining.

Then the Cardinals got to work.

SMU whittled the Cobber lead to 10, 70-60 with 1:17 remaining — and the fun was just beginning. That final 1:17 took nearly an hour to play, as the two teams combined for 31 points, including a combined 14 points from the Cardinals' one-two punch of Lukas Holland (La Crosse, Wis.) and Will Wright (Chicago, Ill.).

With Holland pouring in eight of his game- and career-high 30 points in the final 1:17 and Wright adding six of his 21 points, SMU cut the lead to five, 82-77, only to have Eric Burroughs' (St. Paul, Minn.) 3-pointer go in-and-out, and allow the Clobbers to hang on for the win.

"It's a tough way to end — Eric had a good look at that three, which would of cut the lead to two, and it just wouldn't stay down," said Trewick. "It's kind of been the story of our season — we play a team close, but then something always seems to not go our way. It's too bad, because these guys played their hearts out out there.

"We've got a young squad that gained a lot of valuable experience this year," Trewick added. "Hopefully we can get things rolling in the right direction right from the start next year."