By Paul Gotham
BROOKLYN — Halil Kanacevic sparked a 17-4 run out of the locker room, and the Saint Joseph’s Hawks went on to defeat St. Bonaventure’s Bonnies 67-48 in the semi-finals of the Atlantic 10 Championship in front of 10,133 at the Barclays Center Saturday afternoon.
Kanacevic scored six of his game-high 26 as St. Joseph’s turned a halftime tie into a double-digit lead and never looked back.
“We were all chaotic in the first half, turnovers all over the board, and for myself, everybody,” the senior forward said. “But everybody did a good job of getting me some good shots, and we got a better rhythm in the second half.”
Kancevic fed Langston Galloway with a redirection pass from the foul line for a 3-pointer to start the half. He followed with a spin move on the block to get to the basket for two and completed a three on two advantage with a layup on the next St. Joseph’s possession.
The Hawks led 38-32.
Kanacevic hit 8 of 12 from the floor to go with game-highs of 17 rebounds and four rebounds.
“I don’t care about points,” Kanacevic stated. “I definitely look at rebounds, but that’s the only thing I care about, rebounds, and not so many rebounds I get, it’s how many offensive rebounds the other team gets. That’s my main concern is. It’s my floor game for the team. Scoring, I don’t really care about it. I just want to win, and I think these guys feel the same way.”
At the same time, St. Joseph’s defense held Saint Bonaventure to just 16.7 percent (4 of 24) after the break.
“We played defense,” Saint Joseph’s coach Phil Martelli said. “I’m not taking anything away from my team but they played three games in three days, and ironically, I spoke to my team last night. I’ve been asked questions all year about depth, depth, depth, depth, depth, but then I looked at their minutes and their guys played heavy minutes. But when you’re being run off your plays, that ball’s heavy. That ball’s heavy. Like I said, we were able to take advantage of the fact that they were playing with tired legs.”
The Hawks recovered from an early deficit.
One day after knocking off No. 1 seed Saint Louis in dramatic fashion, the Bonnies jumped to a nine-point lead in the first nine minutes.
Dion Wright scored on a runner in the lane. Chris Dees used a drop step to get to the rim for two, and Charlon Kloof drilled a trey for a 19-10 Bona lead at the 11:07 mark of the first half.
“In the first half, we played well defensively,” Saint Bonaventure coach Mark Schmidt said. “We struggled offensively throughout the game and some of it had to do with St. Joe’s defense, and some of it had to do ‑‑ I think we went ran out of a little bit of steam.”
Saint Joseph’s quickly responded.
Kanacevic found the net with a jump hook in the lane. DeAndre Bembry took an inside-out feed from Ronald Roberts Jr. and nailed a three. Kanacevic converted a pair of one-and-one free throws. Galloway knotted the score at 21 when he took a Kanacevic lead and finished with a dunk.
“Our ball skills came in question in the first half,” Martelli stated. “It really wasn’t coaching. It was more them being great teammates and trusting each other, and we just wore them down.”
The Hawks, in particular Bembry, held Bona’s leading scorer, Matthew Wright, in check.
“His defense on Matthew Wright was at a very, very high level,” Martelli said of the 6-6 freshman.
Wright came in averaging more than 17 a game and scored 22 in SBU’s 71-68 upset of Saint Louis in Friday’s quarter-finals.
“Give him the credit,” Wright said. “Bembry’s a taller, longer defender, (makes it tough) just to raise up above him and shoot. He played very good defense on me. It was frustrating. I forced a lot of uncharacteristic shots in an effort to get going.”
The loss ends St. Bonaventure’s hopes of advancing to a second NCAA Tournament in three years. Pegged in the pre-season to finish at the bottom of the conference the Bonnies won three in mid-February to improve to 6-6 in conference play. Bona faltered from there dropping four straight to end the regular season. The Brown and White opened the A-10 Tournament with a victory over La Salle on Thursday.
“People thought that we weren’t going to be able to do anything,” Schmidt said. “We always emphasize over‑achieving, and I thought we over‑achieved. You never want to be a part of a team that under‑achieves and I think we have a bunch of guys that got the most out of their ability.”
Kloof led Bona with 10 points.
Galloway added 18 for the Hawks while Roberts chipped in 12.
SJU held a 42-36 edge on the boards. The Hawks outscored SBU on second-chance points, 8-6 and points in the paint 26-20.
Bona scored 12 points off turnovers to SJU’s 8. The Bona bench outscored their counterparts 11-3.
St. Joseph’s moves on to Sunday’s final against No. 2 seed VCU. A 1 pm tip time is scheduled at the Barclays Center. The game will be broadcast on CBS.
“I’m happy for these guys,” Martelli said. “I just told them that we’ll go back and we’ll rest and tomorrow we’re coming over here for rings and nets. That’s what we want to get tomorrow, rings and nets.”
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