Saint John's basketball travels to face Macalester – a rematch of the 2022 MIAC Playoff Championship game – at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 7, in St. Paul. – Listen Live (WBHR-660 AM) | Live Stats | Live Video

A LOOK AT THE JOHNNIES: Saint John's (5-2, 3-1 MIAC) collected 27 assists on 35 made field goals and shot 59.3 percent (35-for-59) from the floor in a 78-50 win over Augsburg last Saturday (Dec. 3) in Sexton Arena.

The Johnnies broke open a one-point lead (11-10) with 12:31 left in the opening half with a 24-5 run and never looked back. SJU led 41-22 at the break and opened the second half with nine straight points. 

SJU scored 20 points off 13 Augsburg turnovers and led by as much as 34. The home team outrebounded the Auggies 31-25 and posted a 54-24 scoring advantage in the paint.

Junior wing Ryan Thissen (Rosemount, Minn./Eastview) led all scorers with 24 points, on 11 of 18 shooting, and was in contention for a triple-double with a game-high eight rebounds and a career-best seven assists.

Sophomore wing Griffin Rushin (Baxter, Minn./Brainerd) followed with a career-high 13 points off the bench, including back-to-back three-pointers in the Johnnies' large, first-half run. Senior post Mitchell Plombon (St. Cloud, Minn./Cathedral) was the other Johnnie in double figures with 12 points. 

Bradley Winter led AUG, which shot 37.5 percent (18-for-48) from the field, with 11 points.

QUITE THE STAT LINE: Thissen played a season-low 26:28 but nearly became the first Johnnie since Aaron Burtzel '11, who accomplished the feat twice during the 2009-10 season, to record a triple-double. Thissen currently leads the MIAC in assist/turnover ratio (3.0) and is second in minutes played (35.9 mpg.).

BIG WIN: Saturday's 28-point victory was the largest winning differential for SJU over Augsburg since Jan. 27, 1969 (a 104-76 victory in Collegeville). The Johnnies defeated Augsburg by 30 points or more a week apart – Jan. 20 (54-20) in Minneapolis and Jan. 27 (58-23) in Collegeville – in 1945.

STAT COMPARISONS: The Johnnies hold statistical advantages over the Scots in four of the six main categories.

Scoring Offense
-MAC: 75.4 ppg.
-SJU: 72.1 ppg.

Scoring Defense
-SJU: 63.1 ppg.
-MAC: 65.3 ppg.

Shooting Percentage
-SJU: 47.8 percent (192-402)
-MAC: 43.3 percent (200-462)

Three-Point Percentage
-SJU: 36.4 percent (47-129)
-MAC: 34.0 percent (64-188)

Free-Throw Percentage
-SJU: 71.8 percent (74-103)
-MAC: 64.0 percent (64-100)

Rebounding
-MAC: 40.3 rpg.
-SJU: 35.1 rpg.

A LOOK AT THE SCOTS: Macalester (6-1, 3-0 MIAC) bounced back from its first loss of the season – 64-61 at Crown on Wednesday night (Nov. 30 – with a 75-70 road win Saturday (Dec. 3) at Gustavus Adolphus. The Scots started the game on a 9-0 run and never looked back. Macalester shot 45.9 percent (28-for-61) from the field and 35.4 percent (10-for-29) from three-point range. MAC scored 26 points off 19 Gustavus turnovers and held Gustavus to just 25 percent (4-for-16) from behind the arc. Sophomore (6-foot-2) guard Coby Gold led all scorers with a career-high 27 points, including six treys, while sophomore (6-foot-7) forward Badou Ba and junior (6-foot-2) guard Caleb Williams added 13 points each. Ba is currently sixth in NCAA Division III in blocked shots (25). Williams leads the team in scoring (18.9 ppg.) and assists (23), while Gold is next at 16.7 ppg. with 21 three-pointers (38.9 percent, 21-for-54).

LAST SEASON: The Johnnies won all three meetings against the Scots last season.

Saint John's 85, at Macalester 62 (Dec. 11)
SJU shot 72.7 percent (16-for-22) from the field in the first half, including a perfect 9-for-9 from three-point range, in an 85-62 win at Macalester. The Johnnies finished the game at 60 percent (30-for-50) overall and 68.4 percent (13-for-19) from behind the arc for their sixth consecutive victory. The NCAA Division III record for consecutive three-pointers made in a game is 12 (Oglethorpe vs. Berry on Dec. 3, 2016).
 
SJU held a slim 26-24 lead over Macalester with 10 minutes left in the first half, but the visitors posted an 11-0 run. The Scots cut the deficit to eight (40-32), but the Johnnies responded with a 9-3 run to gain a 49-35 halftime lead. SJU led by as much as 25, and as little as 12, the rest of the way.
 
Sophomore guard Kooper Vaughn (St. Charles, Minn.) led SJU with a then-career-high 20 points on a perfect afternoon from the floor, 7-for-7 overall and 6-for-6 from behind the arc, and also grabbed a team-high five rebounds.
 
Thissen and post Zach Hanson '21 totaled 11 and 10 points, respectively.
 
SJU was without point guard Colton Codute '21 for the second straight game, due to injury, but welcomed back Plombon. Plombon made his first appearance since the season's second game (Nov. 6 at Wisconsin-Superior) and finished with nine points in 10 minutes off the bench.
 
Gabriel Ramos led MAC, which shot 44 percent (22-for-50) for the game and 54.5 percent (12-for-22) in the first half, with 23 points.

at Saint John's 59, Macalester 45 (Feb. 5)
Hanson finished with 13 points and six rebounds as his team used a second-half surge to down Macalester 59-45 in Sexton Arena.
  
Thissen was the only other Johnnie in double figures with 11. He also grabbed 11 rebounds for his first collegiate double-double. Caleb Williams led the Scots with 12.
 
SJU led by one point (25-24) at halftime and fell behind 27-25 when Williams drained a 3-pointer to start the second half. The Scots then extended that margin to four when Shane Anderson hit a layup with 16:54 remaining.
 
But Vaughn followed with a three-pointer, drew the foul and converted the free throw to put the Johnnies back on top, 31-29. Junior guard Blake Berg (West Fargo, N.D./Sheyenne) followed with a three-pointer that just beat the shot clock, then added another trey two minutes later to help SJU pull away.
 
Vaughn and Codute finished with nine points each. The Johnnies owned a 40-31 edge in rebounds and finished 7-for-10 from the free-throw line.
 
The Johnnies entered Saturday's game No. 2 in NCAA Division III in three-point percentage (.406) and fifth in overall shooting percentage (.509) but finished at 39.0 percent (23-for-59) overall and 35.3 percent (6-for-17) from behind the arc. SJU, however, scored 13 points off nine Mac turnovers and 10 second-chance points, while holding the Scots to 33.3 percent (18-for-54) from the field and 25 percent (6-for-24) from long range.

at Saint John's 75, Macalester 71 (Feb. 27, MIAC Championship)
Senior post Carson Schoeller (Prior Lake, Minn.) finished with 16 points – including four huge 3-pointers – as SJU rallied to defeat Macalester 75-71 in the championship game of the MIAC men's basketball tournament on Feb. 27, before a crowd of 1,712 in a rowdy Sexton Arena.

Berg finished with a career-high 15 points. Thirteen of that total came in the second half, including seven in an over one-minute-plus span down the stretch that included a steal and dunk. Hanson finished with 12 points and 14 rebounds to lead the SJU starters. It was his 10th career double-double. 
 
Despite cutting the gap to one at halftime, the Johnnies again fell behind by as much as seven – 53-46 with 13:53 to play. But a basket by Berg and another big 3-pointer by Schoeller helped key the SJU rally.

The Scots – who were making their first MIAC championship game appearance since 2004 and just their second overall - finished 16-for-26 (61.5 percent) from the field and 3-for-5 from 3-point range in the first half. They finished the game 28-for-53 (52.8 percent).
 
The Johnnies finished 17-for-51 (52.9 percent). That included a 14-for-25 (56 percent) performance in a second half in which they got 31 points from the bench.

For SJU, it marked the program's third-straight MIAC Tournament title (no tournament was played during the COVID-19 shortened 2020-21 season).

SERIES HISTORY: SJU is 87-30 against Mac since the 1964-65 season, including a 40-18 record in St. Paul. The Johnnies have won 32 of the last 34 meetings overall.