St. Thomas men’s basketball senior guard Ben Nau celebrates a teammate’s three-pointer. The Tommies overcame Omaha 95-84 Saturday at Schoenecker Arena. (Adam Mueller/The Crest) 
Coach Johnny Tauer’s squad earned the lone spot atop the Summit League in front of generations of Tommie basketball alumni. (Adam Mueller/The Crest) 
The Tommies shot 13-29 from three-point range and 28-55 from the field. (Adam Mueller/The Crest) 
First-year guard Nolan Minnesale was one of four guards to score in the double digits, along with seniors Miles Barnstable and Drake Cobbs, and junior Kendall Blue. (Adam Mueller/The Crest)
When senior guard Ben Nau sank a three with twelve minutes left in St. Thomas men’s basketball’s 95-84 win over the University of Nebraska Omaha Saturday, no one in Schoenecker Arena was surprised.
By the sound of nearly 2,000 Tommie fans cheering, they were definitely happy. They just weren’t surprised.
It was the quintessential Nau play: moving off-ball into a catch-and-shoot from a couple feet behind the arc.
“I don’t know if I’ve quite played with someone like him, and it’s not a bad thing to say,” graduate guard Drake Dobbs said, “He brings so much energy and shooting.”
Twenty-seven games into the season, now in first place in the Summit League, fans have grown to expect certain things from each Tommie.
Every player that took the court had their moments: Junior guard Kendall Blue had active hands on defense and nabbed three steals. First-year guard Nolan Minessale and senior guard Miles Barnstable each scored at all three levels and ended with 15 and 17 points respectively. Sophomore forward Carter Bjerke stretched the floor by scoring inside and out.
Dobbs scored 23 points on just nine shots and tied his career-high, and even that isn’t a surprise anymore.
“If you’ve been watching, Drake just knows what he’s doing out there. Everybody’s got trust in him when we’re out there and that doesn’t surprise me at all,” Barnstable said, “You look at the past few games, he’s been playing great.”
Saturday night was Dobbs’ third game in a row scoring 20-plus points, but his first time doing it in front of a home crowd this season.
“Our fans feed off our energy plays and our culture is awesome. Once it gets loud in there, you can feel it for sure,” Dobbs said.
Coach Johnny Tauer said he was most impressed with Dobbs’ efficiency, and not just shooting. The guard dished out three assists and had zero turnovers. On the season, he has a 3.48 assist-turnover ratio, better than his program Division I record of 3.28 he set last season.
“To have a guy like that who leads us and does it in a way which is relatively unassuming … I don’t think most people who watched him today would know he had 23 points,” Tauer said.
The four players that came off the bench scored 23 points on 8-13 shooting. That included Nau, graduate forward Rich Byhre, redshirt first-year guard Ben Oosterbaan and senior guard Ryan Dufault.
“(Dufault) comes in and he does what he does –which is hard to describe– but he’s like a bowling ball out there and he just causes chaos,” Tauer said, “(Nau) is sprinting around like crazy and Miles is high-fiving him when he comes in and (Oosterbaan) comes in –whether it’s at the power forward or center, and he’s just going to make stuff happen.”
Omaha stayed knocking at the door all night despite its star senior guard JJ White leaving after under fourteen minutes of playing time and zero points.
Maverick leading scorer Marquel Sutton dropped 20 points and grabbed eight rebounds, slightly better than his averages of 18 and 7.5.
“You’re not going to stop Marquel Sutton. I mean, quite honestly, you’re trying to make it difficult … he’s going to score, he’s going to impact the game,” Tauer said.
Juniors guard Ja’sean Glover, guard Tony Osburn and forward Kamryn Thomas combined for 45 points.
The win over the Mavericks put the Tommies squarely at first place in the Summit League standings, with Omaha in second place. In the conference’s preseason poll, St. Thomas was picked fourth with no first-place votes, while Omaha was pegged at eighth out of nine teams.
Tauer says he encourages his team to pay little attention to the standings, and to take every game as its own new challenge.
“We just embrace every opportunity. We talk about 31 Super Bowls, and then the Summit League Tournament,” Tauer said.
Dobbs echoed his coach’s statement.
“We got a little bit of media attention going into the game but honestly, it didn’t feel different for me. The season’s not over yet,” Dobbs said,”So obviously it’s a big game for standing purposes but it’s a cliche statement to make, but you take it game by game.”
St. Thomas also tied its D-I era win record of 20 on Saturday. With four games left in the regular season, Tauer says he hopes to keep piling them on.
The Tommies look for their 21st win against South Dakota at the Sanford Coyote Sports Center. They’re also hunting their first regular season win in the state of South Dakota during the D-I era.
“You don’t go into a season saying, ‘let’s get to 20,’ because what if you get to 20? I sure hope we’d like to get to 21 at some point too,” Tauer said.
Adam Mueller can be reached at muel7541@stthomas.edu.
