MORAGA, Calif -- When a team is as big an underdog as San Jose State was against 15th-ranked Saint Mary's on Tuesday, it doesn't take much to spoil an upset bid.

The Spartans stayed with Saint Mary's through the first half and the early part of the second, but a single incident about six minutes into the second half paved the way for the Gaels' 81-64 victory at McKeon Pavilion.

Jock Landale's 24 points on 9-for-10 shooting, raising his season shooting percentage to 75 percent, obviously played a major role in the Gaels' victory. But things were sticky for Saint Mary's (4-0) until the 14:01 mark of the second half, when it was clinging to a three-point lead.

That was when Brandon Clarke, San Jose State's leading scorer this season, committed his third foul. He picked up his fourth foul seconds later when he was called for a technical foul, sending him to the bench.

The Gaels made all four resulting free throws to take a 58-51 lead, and in the next five minutes, they pushed the margin to 19 points, using a 14-0 run to end San Jose State's hopes.

"I reacted, said some words I shouldn't have said," Clarke said. "They weren't directed at the ref, but he heard it. That hurts because that was the turning point of the game. I felt I let the team down with that play."

The Spartans (1-3) probably would have lost anyway, but that sequence doomed them.

"It gave us a little cushion," Saint Mary's coach Randy Bennett said. "We couldn't get away from them until then."

"That was great for us," said Gaels guard Emmett Naar, who scored 16 points on 5-of-6 shooting, including 2-of-2 on 3-pointers. "I love free points."

Until the game-changing incident, the Spartans had no trouble matching Saint Mary's basket for basket. Ryan Welage led San Jose State with 17 points, Jaycee Hillsman added a career-high 16 points, and Clarke had 14 points.

"Nobody in the country thought we would this game," Spartans coach Dave Wojcik said. "I was very encouraged. We took steps forward today."

The Gaels credited San Jose State's attack but thought their defense was lacking, allowing the Spartans to score 40 points in the first half.

"Obviously, we didn't play our best defensive half in the first half," said Landale.

Meanwhile, the Spartans' defense had no answers for the 6-foot-11 Landale, who made his first seven field-goal attempts. He wound up hitting 6 of 7 free throws and adding seven rebounds and two blocks along with just one turnover.

"He's really good," Wojcik said. "Yeah, he scored the ball, but the passes he made to (Calvin) Hermanson. ... He has a chance to play at the next level."

Hermanson scored 16 points, and Landale improve his season scoring average to 21.3 points per game, a dramatic improvement from the 7.9 points he averaged last season as a sophomore.

Saint Mary's shot 60.7 percent from the field in the first half, when Landale scored 12 points on 4-of-4 shooting, but the Gaels held only a 43-40 lead at intermission.

Welage kept the Spartans in the game in the early going by scoring 13 points in the first nine minutes. He made his first five shots, three of which were 3-pointers.

NOTES: Saint Mary's F Dane Pineau, a preseason all-conference selection, did not play because he tweaked his back just before the game. A back problem has plagued him for several weeks. ... The Gaels' No. 15 ranking in this week's Associated Press poll is their highest AP ranking since 1959, when they were 15th in that season's final poll. ... The last time San Jose State beat a top-20 team was 1996, when the Spartans defeated No. 19 Alabama. ... The Gaels' next game is a neutral-site contest against UAB in Las Vegas on Saturday. San Jose State goes on the road for a game against Washington State on Saturday.