WINONA, Minn. – The Saint Mary's University men's basketball team needed every second of its nonconference game against North Park to pull out the thrilling one-point win — getting a 3-pointer from Raheem Anthony (Chicago, Ill.) with 1.5 seconds remaining in SMU's 83-82 win last Friday.
 
Monday afternoon, the Cardinals needed just 10 minutes to determine the outcome of their nonconference matchup against Finlandia.
 
Saint Mary's scored 26 of the game's first 33 points for a commanding 26-7 advantage, and the Cardinals never took their foot off the accelerator, rolling to a historic 102-68 victory over the Lions at the Saint Mary's Gym.
 
The Cardinals hit plenty of milestones in the lopsided victory — including Anthony becoming the 28th player in program history to reach the 1,000-careeer-point scorer, a career-high 27-point performance by Mason Klett (Apple Valley, Minn.), and Saint Mary's eclipsing the 100-point mark for just the 10th time in program history.
 
The Cardinals set the tone from the opening tip, scoring the game's first seven points, and used a 12-0 run to push that advantage to 19, 23-4, just seven minutes into the first half. Klett completed a four-point play with 8:58 remaining until halftime to extend the SMU lead to 24, 37-13.
 
And Klett wasn't finished, adding five more points in the Cardinals' half-ending 18-14 run to give the junior 17 points — and give SMU a lopsided 55-27 lead at the break.
 
It was a steady dose of Anthony and Klett in the second half as well, as Klett added 10 more points to his halftime effort en route to his career-best outing, while Anthony netted 14 of his 21 points after the intermission — including a jumper with 5:48 to play that capped the senior's climb to career-point No. 1,000.
 
With Klett and Anthony leading the way, Saint Mary's pushed its lead to as many as 49, 90-41 on a Klett 3-pointer, and cruised to their third straight win.
 
The Cardinals — whose 102-point showing was their highest single-game effort since netting 103 in a 103-97 overtime win over Luther on Nov. 30, 2019, and just eight points shy of the program record — boasted four double-figure scorers and got point production from 10 different players.
 
Along with Klett (27) and Anthony (21), SMU also got 15 points from Owen Ziegler and 11 by Breyton Buysman (Inver Grove Heights, Minn.).
 
SMU, which shot 50 percent from the field (41-for-82) and was 6 of 8 from the free throw line, tied the single-game program record with 14 3-pointers — including six from Klett and five from Ziegler — and outrebounded the Lions 52-48.
 
Saint Mary's (5-5 overall) returns to Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference play on Wednesday, welcoming Hamline to the Saint Mary's Gym for a 7 p.m. showdown.
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