COLLEGEVILLE, Minn. – The St. Olaf College men's basketball team cut a 12-point second-half deficit to one with just under eight minutes remaining but could not complete the comeback in a 75-72 loss to Saint John's University on Monday evening at Sexton Arena.

Saint John's (10-2, 8-0 MIAC) led 39-29 at halftime and scored the first basket of the second half to open up a 12-point lead before St. Olaf (7-6, 3-5 MIAC) fought back to get within a point on three-pointer by senior Dominic Bledsoe with 7:56 remaining. The Johnnies responded by scoring the next seven points to push their lead back to eight and hit 7-of-8 free throws down the stretch to remain unbeaten in Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (MIAC) play this season.

After being held scoreless in a road loss to Bethel two days prior, Bledsoe scored 25 points on 8-for-17 shooting from the field, including going 3-for-7 from behind the arc, and 6-for-6 from the free-throw line. Sophomore Connor Martin was in double figures in scoring for the sixth-straight game with 14 points on 5-for-9 shooting, while junior Michael Meriggioli came off the bench to provide 13 points and seven rebounds.

Ryan Thissen led Saint John's with 25 points on 7-for-15 from the field and 10-for-12 at the charity stripe while also pulling down nine rebounds and handing out four assists. Colton Codute hit four three-pointers over the first five-plus minutes on his way to 14 points, while Zach Longueville had 11 points and Mitchell Plombon added 10 for the Johnnies, who shot an even 50.0 percent (25-for-50) for the game.

Codute sank his first four three-point shots over the first 5:41 of the game to lead Saint John's to a 14-8 advantage early on. The Johnnies pushed their lead to 21-10 with a 7-0 run shortly after Codute's fourth three-pointer and led by as many as 13 with 3:50 remaining in the half.

St. Olaf trimmed its deficit to seven, 36-29, on a three-pointer by Bledsoe with 1:27 to go in the half, but Thissen scored the final three points of the half to send Saint John's into the locker room with a 39-29 lead. The Johnnies were 7-for-12 (58.3 percent) from three-point range in the opening 20 minutes, while Martin kept the Oles in the game with 10 first-half points.

Baskets from Thissen in the paint on either side of a layup by senior Carter Uphus gave Saint John's a pair of 12-point leads inside the first two minutes of the second half. The Johnnies maintained a 10-point lead with 14:03 remaining before the Oles went on a 7-0 run to get within three on a layup by Bledsoe with 9:40 to go.

St. Olaf extended its run to 12-3 to make it a 53-52 game with 7:56 remaining on a Bledsoe three-pointer only for Saint John's to score the next seven points to go up by eight. Meriggioli had a pair of layups to get the Oles within four, 62-58, with 3:22 remaining, but the Johnnies made enough free throws down the stretch to hold off the second-half rally by St. Olaf.

The Oles begin a stretch of three-straight home games by hosting the College of St. Scholastica in the first-evet matchup between the two programs on Wednesday, Jan. 12 at 7 p.m.