ROCK ISLAND, Ill. — With just one exhibition game under their belts — and the month of November already hallway over — the Saint Mary's University men's basketball team finally kicked off its 2021-22 season on Tuesday.
 
And the Cardinals gave Augustana all it could handle in the teams' first-ever meeting.
 
Unfortunately, in the end, the Vikings proved to be rather ungracious hosts.
 
Saint Mary's put four players in double figures — and rallied from a four-point deficit with less than two minutes remaining in regulation — only to have Augustana outscore the Cardinals 13-7 in the five-minute overtime period in dealing SMU a 79-73 nonconference setback at Roy J. Carver Center.
 
Trailing by four, 64-60 with 1:52 on the clock, Saint Mary's rattled off six unanswered points — getting a three-point play from Shawn Pickford (Minneapolis, Minn.) and a field goal, a steal, and a free throw from Kareem Anthony-Bello (Chicago, Ill.) — to take a two-point, 66-64 lead 31 seconds to play. Augustana's Luke Johnson knocked down a game-tying jumper with 18 seconds remaining in regulation, and Saint Mary's 3-pointer at the buzzer missed the mark to send the game into overtime.
 
Once in the extra session, Johnson drained a jumper 43 seconds in, and the Vikings never relinquished the lead. Augustana led 74-70 with 1:14 remaining, but Hunter Phillips (Minong, Wis.)  completed a three-point play to get Saint Mary's back within one, 74-73, only to have the Vikings score the game's final five points to seal the win.
 
Anthony-Bello led the Cardinal offense, scoring a team-high 14 points — all in the second half — while Phillips chipped in a career-best 13 points, while Pickford and Noah Frechette (Lakeville, Minn.) each added 10.
 
Phillips – who entered Tuesday's season-opener having never scored more than four points in a game through his first two seasons with the Cardinals — surpassed that mark on his third field goal attempt of the first half. The junior opened the game scoring SMU's first eight points, going 3-for-3 with a pair of 3-pointers, and helping the Cardinals to an early 8-5 lead.
 
The Cardinals built their first-half lead to five-points, 14-9 on a Breyton Buysman (Inver Grove Heights, Minn.) field goal, but the Vikings stormed back with five unanswered points — knotting the game at 14-14 on a Nate Ortiz 3-pointer — and then taking advantage of a half-ending 7-3 run to grab a 30-24 lead at the break.
 
As a team, Saint Mary's shot 37.1 percent from the field against the Vikings (26-for-70), but were just 6 of 30 from behind the 3-point line. The Cardinals finished 15-for-26 from the free throw line, led by Anthony-Bello, who was 7-for-9, and Pickford, who went 6-for-7.
 
The Cardinals (0-1 overall) are back in action on Saturday, when they head to Macalester's Leonard Center in St. Paul, Minn., for a 3 p.m. conference-opening game against the Scots.