WINONA, Minn. — Saint Mary's University men's basketball coach Todd Landrum won't go so far as to say Wednesday's performance against Hamline was perfect — but it was awfully close.
98 points, 50 percent shooting from the field, 32-for-35 from the free throw line ... It was a near-perfect performance.
The Cardinals, who had been beaten by the Pipers 93-57 in their first Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference meeting on Jan. 6, stepped on the SMU Gym floor with a chip on their shoulder Wednesday evening.
And when the final horn sounded, they had extracted a bit of revenge, hammering the Pipers 98-77.
“(Hamline) beat us pretty good up there (in early January) — they looked like the Harlem Globetrotters and we looked like the Washington Generals,” said Landrum. “Today the guys came out with a bit of a chip on their shoulders — they had something to prove, and I think they did that.
“(Hamline) knows who we are now.”
Speaking of getting to know someone, the Pipers also got their first introduction to Landrum's “secret weapon” —
Gary Seifert (Prescott, Wis.)
Seifert, who had played in just nine of the Cardinals' first 21 games — scoring 10 points — proved to be a one-man wrecking crew against the Pipers, scoring a career-high 17 points, while also adding five rebounds in 15 minutes of action.
“There are two things you take out of game like this,” Landrum said. “No. 1 is 'team.' I know it's a cliché, but when you've got balanced scoring, eight guys playing hard on defense, sharing the ball, doing your assignments — when you do all those things, you are going to be successful.
“And No. 2 is, always be ready. Seifert came off the bench, he had been playing JV basketball and earning his minutes (on varsity) and came through with 17 big points. You never know when your time comes, so you've always got to be ready.”
It appeared like the Pipers were the ones who were ready early, as Hamline jumped out to a 21-17 advantage through the game's opening nine minutes.
From there, however, it was all SMU.
Seifert scored six straight points to complete a 10-0 run that gave the Cardinals a 27-21 lead — and ignite a 15-0 run have push the Cardinals' lead to 11, 32-21, with 7:05 remaining in the first half.
And the Cardinals were just getting warmed up, as SMU pushed their lead to as many as 20, 49-29, on a pair of free throws by
Chris Palmer (Faribault, Minn.), before settling for a 16-oint, 52-36 halftime advantage.
Hamline would cut the gap to nine on two separate occasions in the second half, but the Cardinals held the high-scoring Pipers at bay en route to their eight win of the season.
Lukas Holland (La Crosse, Wis.) scored a team-high 22 points for the Cardinals — who shot 50 percent from the field (17-for-35), while also knocking down 32 of 35 free throws. Palmer chipped in 19 points and 12 boards for his sixth double-double of the season, with Seifert adding 17 points, and
Will Wright (Chicago, Ill.) and
Thomas Sims (Eagan, Minn.) added 11 and 10 points, respectively.
Ray Brown scored a game-high 33 points for the Pipers (11-7 MIAC, 15-8 overall), while Noah Aguirre and Carl Hipp finished with 14 and 10 points, respectively.
The Cardinals (6-11 MIAC, 8-14 overall) are back in action on Saturday, when they play host to Concordia in a 3 p.m. conference game at the SMU Gym.
