OMAHA, Neb. - Coming off their impressive road win over Denver last week, the Mavericks opened the final month of the regular season with a thrilling 69-65 victory over St. Thomas at Baxter Arena. This is the program's first ever victory over St. Thomas, as well as its first this year against a team that has received Mid Major Top 25 votes.
Omaha is back to .500 overall at 12-12, while also improving to 5-4 in the Summit League, giving the team its most conference wins since the 2019-20 season. As for the Tommies, they now fall below the Mavericks in the standings at 4-4 in league play (14-9 overall).
Leaders for Omaha
Frankie Fidler led Omaha's offense by shooting 7-for-10 from the field and going 10-for-13 on free throws for 24 points. He was also tied with
Marquel Sutton for the team lead in rebounds with eight. Also scoring in double figures were
JJ White with 17 points after shooting 7-for-9, and
Nick Davis shot 7-for-9 as well and totaled 14 points.
Leaders for St. Thomas
The Tommies had three double-digit scorers too, paced by Parker Bjorklund with an even 20 points. Raheem Anthony and Drake Dobbs both posted 14 points, with the former pulling down a team-high six boards.
Team Stats
Both teams shot over 50% today on field goals, with Omaha just edging out St. Thomas 53.1% to 51.1%. Though the Tommies had the advantage on three-pointers at 36.4% to 21.4%, the Mavericks made up the difference on free throws with a superior 82.4% to 52.4%. The teams were tied with 25 rebounds each as well.
Inside the First Half
Things went back and forth through the first 10 minutes, with the Mavericks initially taking a 10-7 lead by 14:42 thanks to buckets from each of their three top scorers. Over the next five minutes or so there would be six different lead changes, culminating in a 10-0 scoring run from Omaha that saw triples from
Tony Osburn and White.
Up 25-16 with just under six minutes to play in the half, however, The Mavericks saw their lead slowly fade away as the Tommies outscored them 15-8 down the stretch, going 4-for-5 from behind the arc. Thanks to another three from Osburn and four more points from Davis, though, Omaha was able to maintain a two-point lead heading to halftime.
Inside the Second Half
The Tommies continued to whittle away at Omaha's lead for much of the second half. A strong start from Fidler that eight points off two jumpers and four from the stripe helped the Mavericks maintain a slim lead for a while, but it was not enough to fully hold of UST as they managed to tie it 48-48 with 9:32 to play.
After back-to-back threes from Dobbs gave the Tommies a six-point lead, the Mavericks pulled off a comeback of their own as four-straight points from White allowed
Jaeden Marshall to come off the bench and score the game-tying basket with 5:26 to go. From there, six more points from Fidler and another basket for White allowed Omaha to maintain a slim 66-64 lead with just 10 seconds left. With overtime looking more and more likely, however,
Ja'Sean Glover drew the biggest foul of the day as he came down with the defensive board and was promptly fouled by Brooks Allen. He would close out the game for good by making both free throws.
Game Notes
- Entering the day with 1283 career points, Fidler has officially crossed over 1300 points and is now just two away from reaching 13th all-time in program history.
- White becomes the fourth Maverick this year to top 200 points on the season as he ends the night with 201.
- Though he only scored two points tonight, that was all Sutton needed to cross the 300-point mark for the second consecutive season. He is only four points away from besting his 305 total from last year.
Up Next
This was the Mavericks' only game this week as Saturday will be an off day. They will return to action next Thursday at 7 p.m. when they open their penultimate road trip of the season at North Dakota.
Full Press Conference
