St. Thomas men’s basketball team takes the Summit League lead with victory over Omaha

A funny thing happened to the St. Thomas men’s basketball team on the way to not making the NCAA tournament this season.

The Tommies won their 20th game with four regular-season games left and moved into sole possession of first place in the Summit League with Saturday night’s 95-84 home victory over Omaha.

The two teams arrived at Schoenecker Arena competing for first place as well as conference tournament seeding at regular season’s end.

The Tommies are ineligible to play in the NCAA tournament until 2026 because of a probationary period that is part of the process of moving from Division III to Division I, which they did in 2021.

“Honestly, we don’t look at the standings very much,” Tommies coach Johnny Tauer said. “It’s nice we’re in first place. But we look at this as an unbelievable opportunity. We have really good veterans who understand the things we can control. You get 31 games a year.

“We knew what the NCAA rules were when we made this jump. We don’t talk about it much because we can’t change it. We talk about 31 Super Bowls and then the Summit League tournament. Being in first place is nice, but we won’t talk about it.”

St. Thomas (20-7) is now 10-2 in conference play. Omaha fell to 10-3 in conference play and 16-12 overall.

“It’s a good milestone, and it’s awesome we hit 20 again, but the season is not over yet,” said Tommies graduate-school guard Drake Dobbs, who led his team with 23 points. “We still have a lot of work to do.”

BOXSCORE: St. Thomas 95, Omaha 84

Summit League basketball standings

St. Thomas lost 89-78 at Omaha in mid-January in the first meeting between the teams this season. The Tommies took a double-digit lead midway through Saturday’s first half and nurtured it the rest of the night.

Omaha pulled within five points six minutes into the second half but got no closer before the Tommies pushed their lead back to double digits with 12 minutes left.

Dobbs made sure the Mavericks didn’t pull off a comeback. He sank a pair of three-point shots that pushed Omaha back with six minutes left. The closest the Mavericks came at the end was 86-80 with 43 seconds remaining.

Dobbs went 4-for-4 on three-pointers for the night.

The last time the Tommies played at home, they sold out Schoenecker Arena and thumped North Dakota State 79-62 in a Sunday afternoon game two weeks ago that also drew CBS Sports Network and Timberwolves coach Chris Finch and GM Tim Connelly.

On Saturday, they sold the place out to the rafters again, after fans lined up outside to get in. The game was sold out by Thursday.

Tauer praised his team’s toughness and competitiveness and credited a bye last week that allowed him to get his team ready.

He also commended the crowd for an atmosphere he called “electric.”

“I’ve never seen that before, as long as I’ve coached,” Tauer said

The Tommies prevailed late in the regular season on Alumni Night at Schoenecker, the arena that opened in 2010. They will bid farewell and move into a new 5,500-seat multipurpose arena nearby come next fall.

A collection of former players approaching 50 — and dating to the 1960s — was honored at halftime by a program that dominated Division III for many years and won two national titles at that level, in 2011 and 2016.

“What a night,” Tauer said. “It’s one of the special things about this program, how they built it. The pride those guys have in the way these guys play is really special.”