By Paul Casey Gotham
ST. BONAVENTURE, NY — Mark Schmidt’s St. Bonaventure Bonnies took care of what they expected to encounter Sunday afternoon. It was the unexpected which nearly cost the Bonnies a victory.
Demetrius Conger scored a team-high 20 points as St. Bonaventure defeated the Loyola (Md.) Greyhounds 76-66 in non-conference action at the Reilly Center.
With their leading scorer on the bench for much of the first half, Conger scored 12 as the Bonnies took a commanding 15-point lead into the break. The junior forward knocked down a three in early offense to give the Brown and White a 31-17 lead. Matthew Wright led the break on the play and found Da’Quan Cook trailing the play. Cook continued ball reversal to Conger in the left corner for the easy bucket.
After a Jordan Latham layup, Conger drove the baseline and kicked a pass to a wide open Eric Mosley at the top of the key for another trey.
Mosley followed with a hesitation dribble and layup in traffic to continue the Brown and White charge. Conger stretched the lead to 13 when Mosley led him in the lane for a layup.
Youssou Ndoye capped the scoring in a half where the Bonnies held a 19-7 rebounding advantage. The Greyhounds entered play Sunday with a rebound margin of +7.
“Going into the game and watching Loyola on tape, they are a terrific rebounding team,” said St. Bonaventure head coach, Mark Schmidt. “That was a huge emphasis for us. All week it was the backboard for us.”
The Bonnies spread it out with seven different players grabbing multiple rebounds in the first half.
“We made it an emphasis of rebounding the ball. We made it an emphasis to play defense in the half court.”
St. Bonaventure stretched its lead to 18 early in the second stanza. Conger led Wright in transition, and the sophomore guard pulled up for a three.
Chances seemed remote that the game would be in question when the final minute of play came around.
Led by Justin Drummond and a pressing defense, the Greyhounds rallied.
Drummond drew contact driving the lane. After an old-fashioned three-point play, Loyola trailed by 15. Drummond cut the lead to 13 with a pull up jumper from the left elbow.
Wright answered with a catch-and-shoot three from Charlon Kloof over Loyola’s zone.
Loyola persisted.
Shane Walker found Erik Etherly coming off a baseline flex cut for a layup. The pair connected on the next trip with Etherly finishing on a dunk.
By the time Etherly set up Drummond using a ball fake for a back door cut and dunk along the baseline, Loyola trailed by eight at 70-62.
On the next trip, Drummond tapped back Walker’s three-point attempt, and the lead was reduced to six with less than four minutes remaining.
“To be down six with four minutes to go was a great effort by our team,” commented Loyola head coach Jimmy Patsos. “They’re better than us, right now.”
Loyola connected on just one more shot during the remaining time.
The Bonas hit six free throws in the final minutes to seal the victory.
“We handled their pressure like the 1-2-1-1,” Schmidt explained. “But in the second half we didn’t do a good job when they ran at us. We didn’t circle up.”
Loyola created 20 SBU turnovers which they converted into 22 points.
Drummond led all scorers with 26 on 10-19 shooting from the field including 2-2 from behind the arc and 4-4 at the free throw line.
Despite playing just 24 minutes, Andrew Nicholson shared the game-high rebounding mark of six with Cook. Nicholson added 18 points for the Bonnies.
Cook chipped in 12 points.
Conger had a game-high five assists along with four rebounds.
The loss snapped an eight-game Loyola winning streak. The two schools added the game late into their respective schedules.
“We could have found another game,” Patsos explained. “We spoke with the kids. They wanted to play A-10. They wanted to play the Bonnies.”
SBU improves to 5-4 with the win. The Bonnies play North Carolina State at Rochester’s Blue Cross Arena. Tuesday’s tip is scheduled for 7 PM. The game marks the seventh contest SBU has played in the Flower City since 2000. Last season, the Bonnies rallied from a 13-point halftime deficit before losing in overtime to Virginia Tech.
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