WINONA, Minn. — The Saint Mary's University men's basketball team had enjoyed a string of good luck over the past week, escaping with a 61-58 win over St. Olaf last weekend, then getting a gift technical foul with 0.7 seconds left in a 71-69 win over Bethel last Wednesday.

"You make your own luck," SMU coach Mark Lovelace said after last Wednesday's thrilling win — the Cardinals' third straight. "Did we get a big break (when Bethel's John Jacobs called for a timeout the Royals didn't have, resulting in a technical foul and SMU's two game-winning free throws)? Sure we did. But it was the work that we did over the 15 minutes before that that made the difference.

"Hard work got us to that point, but it never hurts to have a little luck on your side, too."

Last Saturday afternoon against St. Thomas, however, Lady Luck decided to take a vacation — and took the Cardinals' three-game wining streak with her — as St. Thomas used an 18-2 second-half run to get past the Cardinals 79-61 in a Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference game at the SMU Gym.

"I thought our guys played really hard," said Lovelace. "But we weren't quite clicking the way we needed to. Give St. Thomas a lot of credit, they played very well. It was one of those games where both teams played hard, but St. Thomas was just able to make more big plays when they needed them."

The Cardinals, who trailed by double digits for most of the first half, including an 11-point, 38-27 halftime deficit, finally got their offense in gear early in the second half, using a 22-11 run to start the half to tie the game 49-49 with 10:08 to play.

From there, however, it was all St. Thomas, as the Tommies scored 18 of the next 20 points to take a commanding 67-51 advantage en route to their third straight victory.

"I think part of our problem was, our guys worked so hard to get back in the game, that they had nothing left for down the stretch," said Lovelace. "The effort was there, we just weren't fortunate enough to get the same resutls we had (in their last three games)."

Jeff Tendall (LeClaire, Iowa) scored a team-high 15 points for the Cardinals (4-10 MIAC, 5-14 overall), who saw their losing streak to the Tommies climb to 33 straight. Jimmy Wajda (Minneapolis, Minn.) — who sank both free throws in SMU's last-second victory over Bethel on Wednesday — added 14 points for SMU, while Nick Schader and Joey Shimek each tallied 17 for the Tommies (6-7 MIAC, 8-10 overall).