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Cardinals will need their best performance of season to beat Knights
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GameDay Program
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WINONA, Minn. — When Mike Trewick looked at the calendar, and saw the week that faced his Saint Mary's University men's basketball team, he figured it would be a good time to put an end to a few long-standing losing streaks.
First there was the 36-gamer at St. John's. Then, after hopefully completing their season sweep of Hamline two days later, the Cardinals could distinguish their 34-game slide against St. Thomas.
So much for figuring.
The Johnnies sent SMU home with its 37th-straight loss on SJU's home floor last Monday, Hamline squashed any hopes the Cardinals had of a season sweep vs. the Pipers on Wednesday, and St. Thomas made it 35 in a row last Saturday, getting a game-high 18 points from Sean Sweeney in a 77-53 St. Thomas win.
To make matters worse, not only couldn't SMU put an end to its extended streaks vs. SJU and UST, but the Cardinals' 0-3 week left them in the midst of a six-game losing string.
"It was a tough week from a won-lost standpoint, but I'm seeing improvement from these guys on a daily basis, and that's encouraging," said Trewick. "This is such a young team, and they continue to make young-player mistakes — the problem is, when you are playing the top teams in the conference, those mistakes come back to haunt you."
SMU struggled from start to finish vs. the Tommies, as the Cardinals shot just 34 percent from the field in the first half (10-for-29) in falling behind 39-24. UST jumped out to leads of 17-4 and 37-17, before settling for their 15-point halftime advantage. It was more of the same in the second half, as SMU was again held to 10 field goals as St. Thomas built its lead to as many as 30, 70-40, with 7:17 to play.
Michael Rohr (Bloomingdale, Ill.) finished with 10 points for the Cardinals.
"We're looking at this last week as our own conference tournament," said Trewick, whose team closes out its season with a home game vs. Carleton on Wednesday, and then a road tilt at St. Olaf on Saturday. "Our goal is to get this program into the conference tournament, and when you make it there, you have to win two games in a week — so that's what we are going to set out to do this week.
"Can we do that? I think we can — but it's going to take our best efforts of the season."
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