WINONA, Minn. — Last Wednesday in their Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference game against Gustavus, the Saint Mary's University men's basketball team managed just 52 points in falling to the league-leading Gusties 64-52.

Saturday afternoon, the Cardinals nearly equaled that offensive output — in the first half.

The Cardinals erupted for 50 first-half points and held off a late Augsburg rally en route to the 88-82 victory.

SMU, which snapped a five-game losing streak with their sixth win of the season, led by as many as 23 points in the first half – holding a 46-23 advantage with 5:20 remaining in the game's opening 20 minutes — before settling for a 50-41 cushion at the break.

"That was a weird game," said SMU coach Mark Lovelace. "Our guys came out and were just hitting shots from all over. We were up 27-9 and 46-26, it was like we couldn't miss.

"The hard part about that was, when (Augsburg) cut it to 10, our guys felt like they were losing, because they had been up by so much," continued Lovelace. "I had to remind them in the locker room (at the half) that we were still up by nine and everything was going just fine."

After shooting 50 percent from the field (16 of 32) from the field in the first half, SMU made just 9 of 23 field-goal attempts (39 percent) over the final 20 minutes as Augsburg outscored the Cardinals 41-38.

Jeff Tendall (LeClaire, Iowa) led four SMU players in double figures, scoring 23 points on 5 of 10 shooting from the field — including a 5-for-6 effort from beyond the three-point line, while also going 8-for-12 from the free throw line. Steve Feller (Iron Ridge, Wis.) chipped in 12 points, while Mike O'Hara (St. Paul, Minn.) and Jimmy Wajda (Minneapolis, Minn.) each finished with 10 points.

Jonathan Gholson scored a game-high 26 points in the losing effort for Augsburg.

"That was a big win for us," said Lovelace, whose team closes out its season on Monday at home against St. John's. "It was one of those games where we finally had the hot hand. All those games this season that we shot poorly, we more than made up for it today."