Livonia, Michigan — The Aquinas men's basketball team hung around and nearly took a slim lead to halftime, but (RV) Madonna had other ideas on the final day of the regular season.

The Crusaders (21-7, 14-6 WHAC) prevented the Saints (12-15, 8-12 WHAC) from leading at the break on Saturday afternoon (Feb. 18) with a pair of layups to go up 26-25 and then cruised to a 82-51 victory by outscoring AQ by 30 points in the second half.

Madonna secured the No. 3 seed in the upcoming WHAC Tournament, while Aquinas gets in as the No. 8 seed.

All 13 Crusaders that played on Saturday ended up scoring, led by Mark Mettie (20 points) — who splashed a 3-pointer to open the scoring 15 seconds into the contest — Henry Speight (15 points) and Blake Banks (11 points).

Gabe Overway paced the Saints with 22 points on 9-for-15 shooting and six rebounds. It's Overway's fourth straight game with 20-plus points to up his season average to 16 points per game.

The rest of the Saints scored 29 points getting key contributions from Menalito McGee (seven points), Ryan Weir (six) and Nick Henry (five). 

AQ shot 37.5% from the floor after shooting 42.3% in the first half.

Madonna used a 19-2 run in roughly the first seven minutes of the second half to put the game out of reach. The Saints' deficit only climbed from there and expanded out to 30 points despite both teams emptying out their benches in the final minutes.

The Crusaders shot 72.4% in the second half, going 8-for-14 from behind the arc.

Madonna also edged AQ in bench points (53-16), the rebounding battle (37-24), points in the paint (42-30) and points off turnovers (18-4).

Aquinas looks to regroup in a hurry as the Saints will have to face the WHAC regular season champions, No. 6 Indiana Tech, in the first round of the WHAC Tournament. The quarterfinal contest will played at Indiana Tech on Thursday (Feb. 23), game time yet to be released.