Gaels defeat Nicholls State, 84-63

NSU Sports Information Desk

St. Mary’s got ahead early and never looked back in defeating the Nicholls State basketball team, 84-63, Saturday in the McKeon Pavilion to end the Colonels three-game non-conference schedule in California.

Both teams dressed and played a combined eight Australians in the game, with Nicholls playing all five on its roster and St. Mary’s having three participate.

Sophomore Michael Czepil led all Australians with 13 points, followed by the Gaels’ Patrick Mills and Nicholls true freshman Anatoly Bose with 11 each.

Mills, who scored 37 points in the Gaels win over No. 11 Oregon on Tuesday, had five assists, a steal and three turnovers in the game.

Leading all scorers in the game was St. Mary’s Ian O’Leary and Diamon Simpson with 15 each. O’Leary had four rebounds and an assist, while Simpson had six rebounds, three steals and four turnovers.

Tied with Czepil for the Colonels team-high in points was senior Adonis Gray with 13. Of Gray’s 13 points, nine of them came from the free-throw line.

Freshman Dominic Friend also had a productive game with six points, four rebounds, three steals, two blocks and an assist.

The Gaels (5-0) started out the game on a 23-5 run and the Colonels (1-5) did not score in double figures as a team until sophomore Chris Paige scored on a put-back at the 9:02 mark of the first half to make the score 29-11.

The largest lead the Gaels had in the first was by 21 points at 10:14 mark.

As both teams exited the court at half time, St. Mary’s led 38-25.

For the half, St. Mary’s shot 50 percent (12-of-24) and 45.5 percent (5-of-11) from three-point range.

The Gaels also shot 90 percent (9-of-10) from the free-throw line.

Nicholls went into the locker room at the half shooting 42.9 percent (9-of-21) from field goal range, 20 percent (1-of-5) from three-point land.

In the second half, the Gaels started to pull away as they extended their lead to 25 points at the 4:03 mark, which was their biggest of the game.

The game ended 84-63 in favor of St. Mary’s. The Gaels’ hot-hand shooting never did cool off as they finished the game with a 54.2 field goal percentage (26-of-48) and 50 percent (10-of-20) from behind the arc.

The Colonels will be back in action on Wednesday Nov. 28 at LSU.

Game time is set for 7 p.m. in the Pete Maravich Assembly Center in Baton Rouge.