By Paul Casey Gotham
ST. BONAVENTURE, NY — All streaks are meant to end. On Wednesday night, that was a good thing for the St. Bonaventure Bonnies.
Andrew Nicholson notched a double-double as the Brown and White knocked off an undermanned University of Dayton Flyers squad, 81-73 in Atlantic 10 conference action at the Reilly Center.
Nicholson scored 18 of his game-high 30 in the second half as the Bonnies erased three-point halftime deficit.
“It was a good win,” Nicholson said. “I wanted to beat them a lot because we haven’t beaten them since I’ve been here.”
Nicholson drained a pair of one-and-one free throws to put SBU ahead, 64-62. A lead the Bonnies never relinquished.
The senior forward scored seven straight as Bona stretched their lead late in the game..
“Andrew Nicholson is one of the best big players I have seen in the last three or four years,” commented UD head coach Archie Miller. “He’s a terrific player. I thought he made some tough ones off the lane. We tried everything we could. We just weren’t good enough.
Nicholson caught the ball in the paint, split a double team and laid the ball over the rim. On the next trip, he used a yo-yo dribble along the baseline and hit a pull up jumper late in the clock. He gave Bona a four-point lead with a catch-and shoot jumper from 18 feet and finally hit one of two from the free throw line for a 73-68 advantage.
“When he plays like that, we can compete with anybody,” Bona head coach Mark Schmidt commented.
The pre-season all-conference player of the year connected on all four of his attempts from the charity stripe in the contest’s final minute.
Nicholson went 10-for-20 from the field and 10-for-11 at the stripe. A year ago, Nicholson scored 35 on 15-of-23 shooting from the field in a losing effort at at the UD Arena.
“Obviously, he really likes Dayton,” Miller continued. “When he sees the Flyer uniform, he gets ecstatic. When he figured he was coming home off that bus from Pittsburgh (after Saturday’s game against Duquesne) last week, his mouth started to drool he was so excited to see us.”
The Bonnies defense stiffened in the second half. After hitting 9-of-17 from behind the arc, the Flyers connected just once in their next 11 attempts.
“At halftime we challenged them,” Schmidt said. “I thought they did a great job. We mixed a little bit of zone to try and keep them off balance. Ultimately, it was the players out there that did a better job of contesting. They’re a good shooting team, but it’s hard to shoot 50 percent from threes. You just got to keep on working, keep on contesting and hopefully they’ll start missing.”
Da’Quan Cook proved a perfect complement to Nicholson in the paint. The redshirt senior added 14 on 3-6 shooting from the field and 8-9 at the line. None better the drop step in the paint to split two defenders for a traditional three-point play.
“Da’Quan Cook was a big, big factor in the game,” Schmidt noted. “He had some big plays.”
Cook’s offensive rebound with little more than a minute remaining all but secured the win.
“I just try to play my best off Andrew,” Cook explained. “The guards did a great job finding me getting position.”
Luke Fabrizius and Nicholson dueled to the first media timeout as the teams sat deadlocked at 10.
Nicholson dribbled out of the post and pulled up from the right side to open the scoring.
Fabrizius answered with a three from Kevin Dillard.
Nicholson used an upfake from the top of the key, drew contact and finished a pair from the free throw line. His baseline step back jumper gave the Bonnies an 8-5 edge.
Devin Oliver curled off a screen and finished at the rim. Then Oliver found Paul Williams fora catch and shoot jumper.
After Charlon Kloof drove across the lane for a layup, Fabrizius knocked down a three from the right corner.
Williams hit back-to-back 3s to give the Flyers a 21-16 advantage.
SBU answered. Demitrius Conger connected from behind the arc. Matthew Wright set up a back door on the baseline, and Conger fed for the tear drop. By the time Chris Johnson followed his own miss with a basket, the game was tied at 23.
Matt Kavanaugh kept the Flyers close late in the game. The junior forward scored six straight and eight of ten. Dillard connected with Kavanaugh on back-to-back trips for layups.
Dayton’s bench outscored Bonaventure’s, 31-5. The Flyers held advantages in the paint (32-30), point off turnovers (13-12) and fast break points (11-7).
The Bonnies outscored the Flyers at the line 24-6 and second-chance points, 13-12.
Dillard had a game-high eight dimes to go with 10 points.
Kavanaugh chipped in 10 as did Alex Gavrilovic.
Josh Parker led UD with 19.
Demitrius Conger and Kloof added 14 and 12 respectively for the Brown and White.
Nicholson’s double-double was the 20th of his career but first in more than a month. He has played limited minutes due to foul trouble over that span.
“I guess they let me play tonight,” Nicholson joked. “That makes a difference.”
He added six blocks to reach the 200 plateau. His 30 points increased his career total 1,724 and places him eighth on the all-time SBU list.
Dayton played without Josh Benson and Chris Johnson. Benson suffered a season-ending knee injury in UD’s 62-50 victory over Ole Miss on December 30th. Johnson, who averages more than 10 points and five rebounds per game, was held out for precautionary reasons after bumping his head during practice.
Miller dismissed any suggestion that the injuries led to the loss: “I don’t care who is on our team. When we show up, we have to be ready to battle. We have to be ready to play and compete. We had enough offense tonight. We did not have enough toughness.”
The victory was SBU’s first over UD since February, 2002.
UD falls to 2-1 in the A-10 and 12-5 overall and will play La Salle on Saturday.
SBU improves to 2-1 in conference play and 9-6 overall. Bona has won seven of 10 and travel to Cincinnati for a Saturday tilt with Xavier.
Leave a Reply