Box Score

COLLEGEVILLE, Minn. – Senior wing Ryan Thissen (Rosemount, Minn./Eastview), senior post Connor Schwob (Waconia, Minn.) and senior guard Luke Healy (Hudson, Wis.) led a balanced score sheet, senior guard Kooper Vaughn (St. Charles, Minn.) made history and the 10th-ranked Saint John's University basketball team wrapped up the MIAC playoff title.

Those were the salient headlines from the Johnnies' 74-59 victory over Carleton before a loud and packed house of 2,521 in Sexton Arena Saturday night (March 1).

SJU - which shared the conference regular-season title with Gustavus Adolphus but was the No. 2 seed in the postseason - improved to 24-3 overall and earned the MIAC's automatic bid to the NCAA Division III tournament. 

The Johnnies find out who and where they will be playing when the 64-team tournament field is announced at 11 a.m. (CST) Monday. It will mark the team's first NCAA appearance since the 2021-22 season.

"We wanted this more than anything" said Thissen, one of three players (Schwob and Blake Berg are the others) who took advantage of the extra year of eligibility the NCAA granted all student-athletes impacted by COVID-19 and returned for another season.

"It's the main reason we all came back. This was it. We wanted to win the conference and get back to the NCAAs. So it feels great to accomplish that."

Thissen, Schwob and Healy each finished the night with 12 points. Schwob added 10 rebounds for his second career double-double and first this season. Senior wing Griffin Rushin (Baxter, Minn./Brainerd) added 10 points to join the trio in double figures.

In all, eight Johnnies scored points and seven finished with eight or more.

"Our depth has been the biggest strength for this team all year," said SJU coach Pat McKenzie '04, who picked up his 198th career victory. "We feel like on any given night, any one of those guys can have a big game. They've been doing it all season."



The Johnnies finished 25-for-57 (43.9 percent) from the field and hit eight 3-pointers. Three of those came from Vaughn, who entered the night needing just two to surpass David Stokman's school record of 266. 

He got the second with 7:23 to go before halftime and now has 268 during his time in Collegeville.

"It's a pretty awesome feeling," said Vaughn, who finished with nine points. "I know the rest of the guys on that (career 3-point) list are Johnnie legends. Just being mentioned in the same conversation with them is really cool."

Vaughn's record-breaking 3-pointer was part of a 14-2 first-half run that put the Knights - the tournament's No. 4 seed - in a hole too deep to climb out of. Carleton (18-10 overall) finished the first half 6-for-23 (26.1 percent) from the field and were outrebounded 21-12 as the Johnnies took a 35-19 lead into the break.

"We weren't doing anything crazy," Thissen said. "We were just locked in on our defensive principals. They have a lot of great scorers on that team, so to hold them to 19 points in the first half was a big deal."

Carleton pulled as close as 13 when guard Luke Harris - who led his team with 22 points (but had only one before halftime) - hit a 3-pointer with 14:38 to play. But that was as close as the Knights could get.

"In the second half, they kind of got things going a little bit, but by and large, I thought we were really good defensively," McKenzie said. "Especially in that first half. I was happy with the way our guys played."

Now it's on to the NCAA tournament for the first time in three years and for the fifth time since McKenzie took over as head coach in 2015. In all, it will mark the Johnnies' 22nd national postseason berth and their 13th in the NCAA ranks.

"We know every team we see from here on out is going to be good," Thissen said. "But we feel like we have the talent to play with anybody we face. This is a great feeling, but we're not done yet. There's still more we want to accomplish."