ANCHORAGE, Alaska – For the first time since the GNAC Championships a year ago, the Saints returned to the Alaska Airlines Center in Anchorage. The Saints, last year, came up some of their most important wins in program history. This season, the 69-53 road win marked capped off a sweep of the Alaska schools to put SMU back into sole possession of first place of the GNAC.
BJ Standley, who started the road trip with 30 points against Fairbanks on Thursday, followed it up with a 17-point, five assist, three steal performance.
Luke Chavez, and
EJ Boyce, who had struggled to find their rhythm in previous games, tied for the scoring lead with 19 points each, and combined for 8-for-11 3-point shooting. The three guards totaled 59 of the Saints' 69 points and outscored UAA on their own.
Tavian Henderson and
Jordan Kitchen scored the remaining 10 points, with six and four respectively.
"The guys came out ready to play today," stated head coach
Alex Pribble. "They were really focused and put together a great 40 minutes of basketball. Getting the road sweep in Alaska is really tough, and I'm proud of the effort these guys brought against a really tough and well coached Anchorage squad. Luke and EJ shot the ball great tonight, and BJ continued to do a nice job attacking the rim and making plays for himself and his teammates."
Chavez and Boyce connected on 3-pointers early to give the Saints a quick 9-2 lead, a lead SMU never gave up. Alaska Anchorage managed to trim the lead all the way down to just one point, 17-16, using a 10-3 run.
With 9:05 left in the game, five straight points by Standley, along with back-to-back baskets by Henderson lifted the lead back to five. Chavez began to single-handily extend the lead, scoring three straight layups, then highlighted the scoring streak with a 3-pointer with just seconds left. At the break, the Saints held a 32-26 lead over Alaska Anchorage.
Alaska Anchorage managed to once again cut into the score and force a one possession game just four minutes into the second half. The Saints needed an answer and they turned to their two leading scorers. Chavez and Standley proceeded to score in the next two possessions with jumper and 3-pointer respectively.
Saint Martin's continued to slowly grow their lead over the next few minutes of the game, before exploding on a 14-4 run. The Saints knocked down back-to-back-to-back 3-pointers, in the order of Boyce, Chavez, and back to Boyce to fuel a majority of the run. Not only did the Saints' offense come back to life, the defense limited UAA to only two made field goals over the course of 7:22 minutes.
The run gave the Saints their largest lead of the game at 69-50 with only 1:12 left to go. The Saints completed a grueling road trip to Alaska with the 69-53 victory over UAA. In the Saints' two wins over Alaska and Alaska Anchorage at home, earlier this season, they won by a combined nine points, including an overtime game against Alaska. However, on the road, the Saints won the two games by a combined 34 points.
"I feel like we found a good rhythm on both ends tonight," said Pribble. "Our goal from day one has been to be playing our best basketball in March, and we will stick with that simple plan. Learn and improve, step by step. This is a great weekend for us to build on moving forward."
As a team, Saint Martin's shot the ball well, going 26-for-54 (48.1 percent) from the floor, 11-for-24 (45.8 percent) beyond the arc, and 6-for-12 at the free throw line. The Saints grabbed 28 rebounds on the night to go along with their 17 assists on 14 turnovers, seven steals, and two blocks.
Saint Martin's returns home next week to host Concordia on Thursday before Western Oregon on Saturday, both set to begin at 7:00 p.m. Live stats and video of the games will be available, along with an internet radio broadcast by the Bryant and Clark Sports Connection on smusaints.com.
