BILLINGS, Mont. - Behind a monster night from Evan Coulter the Saint Martin's University men's basketball team put themselves right back in the hunt for a berth in the GNAC Tournament with a 83-70 win at Montana State-Billings.

The win pushes the Saints into a three-way tie for sixth-place, six teams make the GNAC Tournament, with MSUB and Western Oregon.

Once again SMU used a big first half, 40-29, and held on for the win despite seeing a drop in its field goal percentage and an improvement by the Yellowjackets. The Saints shot 51.9 percent in the first while hitting on 8-of-15 three pointers (53.3) while MSUB shot just 37 percent. In the second, MSU-Billings shot over 50 percent while SMU dropped to 34.6 and made just 3-of-8 three-point attempts.

The Saints led from the get go and a 12-3 run that began with a Matt Dodson layup at 7:46 and finished up with a Ryan Rogers layup at 2:42 extended SMU's lead to 16 points with under three to go in the first half.

MSUB chipped away at the Saints lead in the opening seven minutes of the second eventually cutting it to five points at 11:11. But SMU turned away any threat of a comeback by going on a 24-8 run over the next five-plus minutes taking its biggest lead of the game, 21 points, on Tyler Copp's three pointer with 5:45 remaining in the game.

SMU got hot from long range once again hitting 11 three pointers in the game while also getting to the free throw line making 26-of-35 from the charity stripe bolstered by a 22-of-30 performance alone in the second half.

Coulter finished with 35 points on the night the most by a SMU player in a game since Jeremy Green scored 32 during the 2011-12 season. He finished the game 10-of-14 from the field, 5-of-7 from behind the arc and 10-of-11 from the free throw line while adding seven boards and four steals.

Rogers added 13 points and 11 rebounds for his first double double of the season adding three assists and two steals. Dodson finished with 10 points (6-of-7 FT) and six rebounds.

The Saints (7-12, 4-7 GNAC) will be back at Marcus Pavilion next week hosting Northwest Nazarene on Thursday, Feb. 6th and Central Washington on Saturday, Feb. 8th. Both games are at 7:30 pm.