Box Score

COLLEGEVILLE, Minn. – If you'd told Baiden Bean at Christmas that the Saint John's basketball team would be back in the MIAC championship game, he'd have believed you.
 
But the Johnnies junior knows not many others would have.
 
Yet that's just where SJU finds itself after Bean (Farmington, Minn.) hit four huge, second-half 3-pointers to help the second-seeded Johnnies hold off No. 4 seed Concordia 75-68 in the conference semifinals Thursday night at a boisterous Sexton Arena.
 
Freshman guard Peyton Podany (Anoka, Minn.) led the Johnnies with 24 points. Bean - who finished 5-for-7 from the 3-point line - added 19.
 
"It's just the confidence we all have in each other," said Bean, whose team lost eight of its top nine scorers from a year ago and was 4-7 going into the holiday break. "We've finally figured out our roles. It might have taken some time, but everyone's gotten so much better."
 
As a result, the Johnnies (16-10 overall) are back in the MIAC title game for the sixth time in the past seven seasons. There, they will face top-seeded Gustavus Adolphus (24-2 overall) at 7 p.m. Saturday (Feb. 28) in St. Peter with the conference's automatic bid to the NCAA Division III tournament on the line.
 
The Gusties defeated sixth-seeded Augsburg 84-62 in Thursday's other semifinal.
 
"If you'd have told us in December that we wouldn't be playing (in the quarterfinals) of the conference tournament, we'd probably have thought that's because we weren't in it," said SJU head coach Pat McKenzie '04, whose team instead went 12-3 after the start of the new year to earn the No. 2 seed and a bye into the semifinals.
 
"But our guys have played so well down the stretch, and now we're one game away from the NCAA tournament."


 
The Johnnies were firing on all cylinders early, starting 6-for-8 from the field en route to building a 14-3 lead.
 
But the Cobbers battled back, eventually jumping on top for the first time at 24-23 when freshman Alex Franson hit a jumper with 6:28 to play before halftime. From there, the momentum teetered back and forth down the stretch before Podany hit a field goal and free throw with 41 seconds to play that put SJU up 31-29 at halftime.
 
Podany – the MIAC player of the week the past two weeks running – led the way with eight first-half points for the Johnnies, who finished 3-for-13 from behind the 3-point line in the first half after starting 2-for-2.
 
"We weren't mentally locked," Bean said of his team's play. "We weren't mentally there. That was all on us. They didn't outplay us at all. But we were letting them dictate our decisions instead of dictating them ourselves."
 
The pendulum continued to swing each way in the second half with Concordia grabbing a two-point lead on two occasions, the last of which came on jump shot by sophomore Justin Courneya that made the score 39-37 with 15:26 to go.
 
From there, though, Podany and Bean began to take over. Podany had 16 of his points after halftime and Bean hit three 3-pointers in the final 8:22.
 
"We call it winning time," said Podany, who also finished with six rebounds. "In those scenarios, we know we have to buckle down on defense and get stops. I feel confident in myself, and I think my teammates have confidence in me to go get a bucket when we need one."
 
"Peyton is already one of the best, if not the best, players in this conference," added a smiling Bean, who finished with eight assists Thursday, giving him 144 total. "He's the youngest guy on our team and he makes me look bad when he gets going like that. He's really an incredible player. He makes all our jobs easier."
 
Still, the Cobbers, who finished 20-7, hung tough - cutting the gap to three on a 3-pointer by Courneya with 2:10 remaining. A lot of that had to do with the play of 6-foot-6 senior forward Jacob Cook, who ended the night with 23 points and 11 rebounds.
 
"They might have been the No. 4 seed, but they're a great team," said Bean, whose team split with Concordia during the regular season - winning 82-65 on Dec. 3 in Collegeville and falling 71-69 on Jan. 28 in Moorhead. "Those guys know how to win. Tyler Bormann is a great coach and Jacob Cook is All-American caliber. We weren't able to fully shut him down tonight, but we stopped him enough to win."
 
That they did, putting things out of reach on a dunk by junior Vincent Hillesheim (Minneapolis, Minn./Hopkins) with 38 seconds remaining. The Johnnies - who are now 88-38 against Concordia since the 1964-65 season and boast a 4-0 record against the Cobbers in the postseason - finished the night 27-for-54 (50 percent) from the field.
 
Sophomore post Charlie Theis (Cottage Grove, Minn./East Ridge) – who had played just 20 minutes in the past five games due to injury and had not scored since Jan. 24 - finished with 12 points. Hillesheim added eight points and six rebounds.
 
Now it's on to another matchup with the Gusties, ranked No. 11 in the most recent D3hoops.com men's national poll. Gustavus defeated SJU 95-80 on Dec. 10 in St. Peter and 72-61 on Feb. 4 in Collegeville.
 
"They're the No. 1 seed for a reason," Bean said. "We know we have some work to do. But I think we match up well with them compared to a lot of other teams in the conference. It's hard to beat a team three times in one season, so we're excited to get the chance to play them again."