ST. PAUL—Sunday's 2015 MIAC Men's Basketball Championship game gave fans everything they wanted, except a win for Bethel. The capacity crowd of over 1,300 people at Schoenecker Arena that was overpowered by navy and vegas had drama up until the final second, when despite an outstanding effort, Bridgeport Tusler saw his game-tying 3-pointer rim in and out as the buzzer sounded. As a result, the Royals fell to the No. 6-ranked Tommies by a score of 63-66.



Coming into today, Bethel had already defeated St. Thomas on the road back on February 18. During that regular-season matchup BU came back from a 15-point deficit in the second half, which proved to be critical experience. The Royals had to put forth the same effort during Sunday's matinee, as they trailed by 10 with 7:34 remaining in the game.

A 9-0 run over the next three minutes quickly put Bethel back in the game, but St. Thomas pushed its lead back to seven and hung on for the three-point victory.

The upset-minded Royals shot 42 percent throughout the afternoon and made 7-of-18 from outside the 3-point arc. Despite hitting just 10-of-15 from the charity stripe, Bethel destroyed St. Thomas on the glass 36-24. UST recorded just two offensive boards, while BU corralled 12. That was highly beneficial in the Royals 13-3 advantage in second-chance points.

BU led by eight with 7:49 left in the first half and a large part of that due to Brycen Wojta, who scored 13 points in the opening frame and dished out three assists. Wojta finished the afternoon affair with a game-high 21 points and four assists in 40 minutes played. Kyle Zimmermann also had a great performance in likely his swan song here at Bethel. In 36 minutes—easily his most in a single game this season—Zim put up 14 points, grabbed 11 boards, and thieved three steals. Bridgeport Tusler also added 14 himself, alongside five rebounds and two assists.

And to think that the Royals did all of this after playing 120 minutes of basketball against the conference's No. 5, No. 2, and No.1 team in the last four days.

Bethel was ranked No. 7 in the most recent NCAA West Region rankings, which gives BU an outside chance of making the national tournament. The Royals at 19-9 on the season would need a lot of help, however, in order to be selected by the national committee.

No matter what the results of Monday's selection show, 19 wins still goes down as the most victories recorded since the 2008-09 season and ties the win total from 2004-05 and 2003-04. The Royals' two postseason wins is also the first since 2001-02.