PLATTEVILLE, Wis. – Sophomore guard Anders Nelson scored 27 points on 8-of-15 shooting as St. Thomas overcame a nearly eight-minute scoring drought before pushing past St. Norbert 67-60 in the first round of the Division III Men’s Basketball Championship at Bo Ryan Court Friday night.
The No. 4 Tommies (25-3) briefly trailed by one point after leading the Green Knights (23-5) 45-25 early in the second half, but junior guard Burt Hedstrom nailed a 3-pointer with three minutes remaining to give the Tommies the lead for good.
“I trust all my other teammates to take that same shot if they are in that moment,” said Hedstrom, who made four of five 3-point attempts and finished with 14 points. “I was presented in that moment and I just let it fly. Happy to see it go in.”
The Tommies sealed the game by making seven of eight free throws in the final three minutes.
Early on, everything seemed to be going the Tommies’ way. They hit six of their first eight 3-point attempts, taking a 20-6 lead seven minutes into the game.
“Obviously everybody was making shots,” Nelson, the 2019 Division III Rookie of the Year, said of his team’s early shooting. “But with the play style we have, we’re looking for our shots from our teammates and the opportunities they create for us. The shots that I was hitting and the shots that everyone else was hitting was coming off drive and kicks.”
But the Tommies then went cold, scoring only five points in the first eight minutes of the second half.
“We were still getting our looks, but we were looking to the refs at times when maybe we shouldn’t have,” Nelson said. “They definitely played tough ‘D’ on us in the second half.”
Coach John Tauer admired his team’s determination near the end of the game.
“The thing I was probably most proud of was when we got down one, I actually saw our guys get a little better look in their eye,” Tauer said. “I thought there was a stretch in the middle ten minutes where we looked a little bit sad, a little bit like things aren’t going our way. But I thought Anders, Burt and a couple other guys made big plays.”
St. Thomas, aiming for their second consecutive Sweet 16 appearance, will play Wisconsin-Platteville 7:30 p.m. Saturday at Bo Ryan Court.
Joey Swanson can be reached at swan5350@stthomas.edu.
Justin Amaker contributed to this report.