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Saint Mary's stays perfect at home

Feb 9, 2008 - 6:42 AM MORAGA, California (Ticker) -- Saint Mary's continued its perfect run at home.

Yusef Smith led a balanced attack with 15 points, sparking the 23rd-ranked Gaels to a 76-51 rout of San Francisco in a West Coast Conference matchup Friday night.

Omar Samhan added 12 points and nine rebounds and Tron Smith had 12 points for Saint Mary's (20-3, 7-1 WCC), which improved to 14-0 at home and posted the fourth 20-win season in school history.

By completing a season sweep of the overmatched Dons (6-17, 2-6), the Gaels took over first place in the conference by one-half game over Gonzaga and San Diego.

Patrick Mills and Diamon Simpson each scored 10 points for St. Mary's, which registered a season-high 15 steals.

Mills had five of the steals as the Gaels harassed San Francisco into 20 turnovers that led to 28 points.

Saint Mary's pulled away from a 16-13 lead with a 23-9 run to go up 39-22 with 3:04 left in the half. Yusef Smith had seven points in the surge.

The hot-shooting Gaels connected on 59 percent (17-of-29) of their shots en route to taking a 44-29 halftime lead before breaking the game open at the outset of the second half.

Saint Mary's scored the first 12 points after the intermission, including back-to-back 3-pointers by Todd Golden and Ian O'Leary, to build a 56-29 cushion.

San Francisco, which fell to 2-9 under interim coach Eddie Sutton, was held scoreless for the first 6:12 of the second half.

Sophomore forward Dior Lowhorn was one of the few bright spots for the Dons, scoring 22 points on 10-of-20 shooting and grabbing 11 rebounds.

Manny Quezada, San Francisco's second-leading scorer at 15.0 points per game, was limited to just four points on 2-of-10 shooting.