Down 19-2 to a team who had beaten them in 18 straight games, the Saint Martin's University (SMU) Saints delivered a shocking response Thursday against the SPU men's basketball.

Behind 33 points and seven assists from point guard Jake Linton, the Saints roared back to take a halftime lead and ultimately dismantled SPU 91-68. Linton nailed seven three-pointers and extended his Great Northwest Athletic Conference (GNAC) record for consecutive free throws made to 50 before missing with 6:45 remaining.

"They run 90 percent of their sets for him," assistant coach Brock Veltri said of Linton. "And he's hitting 28-footers, 29-footers when the shot clock's winding down. It's contagious, and they see those shots going in so that whatever they put up is going too."

The win is the first for SMU against the Falcons since a 99-94 victory during the 1999 season.

Shooting percentages proved to be game-breaking for Saint Martin's, Thursday. Led by Linton, the Saints shot 41 percent from behind the arc in the game and 50 percent from the field in the second half. The Falcons fell cold at 29 percent after the break.

"When you start off slow it's hard to come back. Luckily, we were able to do that and we used the momentum to keep going," Linton said. "It was everybody tonight. Everybody played good defense, shot well, got steals--everything."

During an 18-2 run in the second half, Linton hit four consecutive three-pointers to help blow the game open. SMU led by as many as 25 points.

Four Saints beside Linton finished in double figures, led by senior Brendan Campbell with 16 points and nine rebounds.

For the Falcons, senior JoJay Jackson had 15 points and six rebounds and senior Marques Echols added 13 points and three assists. No other Falcon reached double figures.

"We just basically didn't do much of anything well outside the first couple of minutes," sophomore Rob Diedrichs said.

The Falcons faired far better on Saturday, nipping Western Oregon University (WOU) 61-59 after Diedrichs and junior Casey Reed each hit two free throws with under a minute remaining.

After getting burned by the quickness of Linton and the Saints, the Falcons had to quickly adjust to the prodding pace of Saturday's matchup.

The return of Super Bowl-winning New York Giants tightend and Wolves alumnus Kevin Boss brought out 1,370 fans to the game, and they witnessed a tense, physical contest. The largest lead was six points, and neither team scored a single fast break point. The Falcons shot only 40 percent and the Wolves 37 percent from the field.

"Every time we got a break we got fouled pretty hard on the layups," Veltri said. "On our end, we did a nice job of not allowing transition buckets. They got down to five, four, three, two, one so many times in the shot clock that it limited the amount of possessions in the game."

When these teams met a month ago, junior Travis Kuhns scored a game-high 17 points and had a chance to win the contest with a late three-pointer but missed. On Saturday, the situation was similar with Kuhns clanging a late shot from behind the arc off the front rim.

Only this time, Diedrichs and Reed had already made it a four-point game with their free throws. A turnover by Wolves point guard Brad Krichevsky with six seconds left sealed the victory.

To counter the size of the Wolves, who feature 7-foot-3-inch Liam Hughes, SPU inserted Reed into the starting lineup. Hughes finished with 16 points and 11 rebounds, but only three points came after halftime.

"We were trying to get two guys to box him out if we could," Veltri said. "We did a nice job of allowing him not to get deep post catches."

Reed led the Falcons with 12 points, Echols added 10 and senior Rob Will had eight points and 10 rebounds.

The road split allowed SPU to improve to 17-6 on the season, 9-5 in the GNAC.

Now third place in the GNAC, the Falcons have four games remaining, including matchups with the two teams they trail in the standings: Central Washington University (11-3 GNAC) and University of Alaska, Anchorage (13-1 GNAC).

SPU sits in the thick of the Western Regional postseason race, but the Falcons must collect some victories in the closing stretch of their season to reach the Western Regional tournament.

"We think we can win all of our remaining games," Diedrichs said. "We're definitely striving for that. Realistically, probably 3-1 would get us to the tournament."

SPU has two home games remaining this week against University of Alaska, Fairbanks on Thursday and University of Alaska, Anchorage on Saturday. Both contests start at 7 p.m.

Pack the Pavilion

Two thousand seven hundred and eighty-three. That's the number of fans men's basketball coach Jeff Hironaka wants to see in Royal Brougham Saturday night, which would set a new attendance record for the gym. The first 500 fans through the door at the men's and women's games get free maroon "Pack the Pavilion 08" T-shirt, and all fans are encouraged to sport SPU gear. A tailgate party hosted by STUB precedes the festivities in the Alumni Parking Lot starting at 4:30 p.m., with free hamburgers and hotdogs for students with ID. The men's team will have its Senior Night, sending off five players in special pregame ceremonies.