By PAUL GOTHAM
BROOKLYN — Bob McKillop understood the irony.
Little more than a year after Marcus Posley burned his Davidson Wildcats with a shot at the buzzer, the St. Bonaventure guard had another chance. Davidson, though, reversed the result this time.
Peyton Aldridge sunk three free throws in the final seconds of regulation, and Davidson outlasted Bona in overtime 90-86 to advance to Saturday’s Atlantic 10 semi-final.
After trailing for the entire second half by as many as 12 points, Aldridge calmly tied the game with 10.9 seconds remaining, and the Wildcats defense forced extra time when Posley’s runner in the lane missed the mark.
“We called his number on that play,” McKillop said of Davidson’s final play in regulation. “It was a double curl, and he flames out and Dion Wright went after him. Of course, ironically, we ran that play on the opposite side last year at home against St. Bonaventure and Peyton made the shot with four seconds to go to put us up by one, and then Posley went down the other end and made a shot at the buzzer to beat us as the buzzer sounded, so we’ve been in these kind of games with St. Bonaventure and know that experience.”
Aldridge and Davidson scored on nine of their final possessions in regulation and 15 of their 17 trips down the floor, overall.
“Just stepped up there and just tried to focus,” Aldridge said. “Just three free throws, one at a time, knock them down. We say automatic to make free throws, and everybody just gave me even more confidence to step up to the line, and I just stepped up there, took them one at a time like we were back in the gym, and thankfully, thank God I knocked them down.”
The sophomore forward hit a one-hander off the glass on the first possession of overtime, and Brian Sullivan followed with one of his two 3-pointers in the extra period. Jordan Watkins pushed the lead to six at 83-77 with another triple.
“Both teams emptied their tank,” McKillop said. “Both teams made big plays at big times, and it just so happened that we made the big ones in the latter stages of the game. Whether it was regulation or overtime I thought our guys made some big, big plays, so just thrilled to have this opportunity to continue.”
Bona had a chance to tie the game at 88 but could not convert. Idris Taqqee made it a two-point game with a free throw, but Davidson’s Jack Gibbs sealed the victory hitting a pair of charity tosses.
Posley gave Bona its largest lead of the game at 44-32 with a triple at the 18:22 mark of the second half.
Jack Gibbs scored five of his team-high 29 points to cut the deficit to three before the Bonnies regained a double-digit advantage.
“That was just a collective thought of we’ve been here before, we’ve been down, and just take it one play at a time, one shot at a time and obviously get defensive stops,” Gibbs said. “Everybody on the team believed that we could get back in the game, and we fought as hard as we could, and I think we did a very good job with that.”
Posley’s scoop shot in traffic gave SBU a 65-54 lead with 9:59 to go.
Davidson scored on eight straight possessions to cut the lead to one.
“They felt they could get back in,” McKillop said of his team. “It was exhilarating for me to hear their conversation on the bench. We came here to play for 40 minutes, and then when it went to overtime, they said, they gave us five more minutes. We’ve got five more minutes on the clock, that’s great. So there was a positive confidence that permeated every player on that bench.
Jordan Barham finished a three-point play, and Aldridge banked in a three from the top of the key to ignite the Davidson comeback.
“Give Davidson credit,” St. Bonaventure head coach Mark Schmidt said. “They made the plays at the end, big shots, stuff that I thought we did a decent job of guarding, but they made the plays, and we’ve been making those plays throughout the year. But give them credit. They made the plays at the end when they needed to.”
Posley and Wright scored 32 points apiece to lead Bona.
“We didn’t have that third and fourth guy like we usually do, and so the load went really on Dion and Marcus,” Schmidt added. “If we could have got a third or fourth guy, that would have helped. But again, we were right there. We had the shot to win the game. You can say all you want to say, but we were right there. It was just — we just didn’t make the play when we needed to and they did.”
Davidson will play VCU in Saturday’s semi-final.
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