Men's Basketball 12/8/08 -- St. Thomas 86, Augsburg 58

ST. PAUL, Minn. (12/8/08) -- The Augsburg College men's basketball team dropped its first conference game of the season to Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference rival St. Thomas 86-58 at Schoenecker Arena on Monday night. With the win, the Tommies, ranked No. 6 in the latest D3hoops.com Division III national poll, move to 6-0 (3-0 MIAC) on the season, while the Auggies fall to 3-3 overall (1-1 MIAC).

Augsburg was led by the trio of Jon Cassens (JR, Prior Lake, Minn.), Nate Alm (SR, Eden Prairie, Minn.) and Andy Grzesiak-Grimm (FY, Wyoming, Minn./St. Francis HS). Cassens led all scorers with 16 points, while also dishing out five assists and collecting two rebounds.  Alm and Grzesiak-Grimm both posted 12 points, while Alm led all players with eight rebounds.

St. Thomas used a balanced offensive attack, with 13 players scoring in the contest. Leading the way was Alex Healy with 14 points on a 6-for-8 shooting performance from the field, including 2-for-2 from the three-point line. Also scoring in double figures for the Tommies was B.J. Viau and Joe Scott, with 12 and 10 points, respectively.

The Auggies scored the first five points off the game off a jumper by Alm and a three-pointer by Cassens. This would prove to be the last lead of the night for the Auggies as St. Thomas cruised to an 86-58 victory. The Tommies used a 28-6 first-half run and an 18-7 second-half run to pull away. St. Thomas shot 65 percent (39-of-60) from the field, compared to 47.6 percent for the Auggies (20-of-42). The difference in the game came down to points in the paint and bench scoring. The Auggies were outscored 48-8 in points in the paint and 47-8 in bench points.

Augsburg will return to action on Wednesday (12/10) at 7:30 p.m. when it travels to face Gustavus Adolphus College at Gus Young Court in St. Peter, Minn.