Sophomore John Nance (20 points) and senior Brady Ervin (16 points) had career-high scoring days to lead No. 9-ranked St. Thomas to an 83-77 win over visiting Gustavus in Sunday afternoon's MIAC men's basketball playoff championship game at UST's Schoenecker Arena.
The Tommies (24-3) claimed the automatic berth into the NCAA playoffs -- their sixth consecutive NCAA playoff appearance and 12th in 31 seasons under Coach Steve Fritz. They will learn their playoff pairings on Monday at noon when the 61-team bracket is announced.
UST shot 54% from the floor, had only six turnovers and used a 38-15 margin in bench scoring to fend off Gustavus (15-13).
The Toms made 8-of-8 foul shots in the last 40 seconds and 16-of-21 on the day to improve to 13-1 on their home court this season.
St. Thomas became the first conference team to win 10 MIAC basketball playoff championships. The victory was No. 100 for the current senior class (100-13) and UST's win No. 1,500 all-time in 102 varsity seasons. UST finished 7-1 in February, including a 6-0 run over the last 16 days that produced four wins over Gustavus and Hamline.
The Gusties, looking to win their third road playoff game in five days, got a game-high 28 points from Seth Anderson and 23 points from Phil Wirtjes in their season-ending loss. Bobby Johnson had a game-high nine rebounds. Gustavus shot 52% in the first half and 48% on the game and had only nine turnovers.
St. Thomas used an 11-3 run to close the first half with a 47-33 lead. The Gusties stomed back to pull within 55-51 with 12:21 remaining on Johnson's inside basket. But Tyler Nicolai hit back to back 3-pointers to push the lead back to 10 points.
Gustavus made another late charge capped by a steal and layup by Dan Schmidtknect with 1:14 to go that cut the lead to 75-72. After a missed Tommie shot, Teddy Archer soared high and grabbed the offensive board for UST with the clock at 40 seconds.
Three times facing 1-and-1 free-throw situations, Ervin or Nance made both ends. Tommy Hannon hit two foul shots with :09 to go to extend the lead.
Nicolai finished with 18 points; Archer and Anders Halvorsen had eight points each; and Hannon added seven points and seven boards; Alex Healy had six assists and ran his streak of consecutive free throws made to 30.
Click here for box score: http://www.tommiesports.com/mbb/stats/2-27-mbb.htm