By PAUL GOTHAM
When Courtney Stockard arrived at St. Bonaventure University from Allen Community College, opposing junior college coaches talked about the athletic forward’s ability to get to the basket off the dribble. They mentioned that the 6-foot-5 guard/forward possessed the potential to be an elite scorer if he could develop consistency from the perimeter.
That was the fall of 2015. Stockard missed all of the 2015-16 season with a broken bone in his right foot. The St. Louis, Missouri native re-injured the foot and missed the entirety of the following season.
Tuesday night, Stockard poured in a game-high 26 points, and St. Bonaventure won its first NCAA Tournament game in 48 years.
“For two years he didn’t play one second of basketball and for him to come back and have a day like today, it’s a credit to him, but he’s the reason why we won,” St. Bonaventure coach Mark Schmidt said after the Bonnies beat UCLA, 65-58 in NCAA Tournament’s First Four played at University of Dayton Arena. “He scored the ball. Jay (Adams) and Matt (Mobley), UCLA did a real good job on those guys. They freed up Courtney. And we thought going into the game with the size at UCLA, we thought Courtney could do stuff off the bounce. Courtney made some plays and got some stuff in the open court.”
Stockard finished 9 of 26 from the floor for the night. None bigger than a 3-pointer he nailed with 7:27 remaining in the game to ignite a decisive 12-0 run as the Bonnies erased a five-point deficit.
“Without this guy next to me it wouldn’t even have been possible,” Stockard said referring to Adams. “They kind of keyed in on him early in the game. We really knew they would. I got some good looks early. Jay did a good job of finding me and I’m thankful for that.”
Stockard, who averaged 12. 9 points per game during the season, scored better than 23 over the Bonnies final three regular season games and their win over Richmond in the Atlantic 10 quarter-finals. But he was sidelined with a hamstring injury and did not play in SBU’s loss to Davidson one day later in the A-10 tournament.
Tuesday, he scored 13 first-half points to pace the Bonnies to a 28-23 lead going into the locker room. He finished the night with four steals and four rebounds.
“I think it goes back to me sitting out the Davidson game,” Stockard said. “I was really disappointed with the injury that I came down with. And coming out today I wanted to be aggressive, especially knowing they were going to key in on Jay and Matt. And doing that I helped us get a win. Shoutout to my teammates.”
On the night, Bona outscored UCLA in the paint 30-20 and converted 20 UCLA turnovers into a 30-3 advantage on points off those miscues.
“We played the same defense all year,” Stockard said. “UCLA is a good offensive team, high-scoring team. But the guys, I think we did a good job taking away their knowns, making them take contested shots and just a credit to the rest of the team.”
Bona held UCLA to 21-of-50 (42 percent) shooting from the floor including 10 of 30 (33 percent) behind the arc.
“Going into the game you’re always concerned,” Schmidt noted. “They were so fast, they advanced the ball, they’re big, they have great skill. But our zone, you know going into the game you have your game plan, but you just don’t know how effective the zone is going to be. It was effective.”
The win in the NCAA Tournament was the first for the Bonaventure program since 1970, the year the Bonnies advanced to the Final Four. An injury to eventual NBA Hall-of-Famer Bob Lanier cost that Bonnies’ team a chance to play against UCLA in the National Championship game.
“You know we’ve got great tradition at Bonaventure,” Schmidt said. “We heard all week — and when I got the job here 11 years ago, we hear the stories about 1970 and how disappointing it was that Lanier got hurt and they didn’t have a chance to have a full team and going to play Jacksonville. And everybody talks about if Lanier was healthy they would have taken on UCLA.
“And this victory is for those guys. They didn’t get an opportunity to show their talent. Just really proud of our guys.”
Averaging more 39 points per game during the season, Adams and Mobley were limited to a combined 22 points. Adams managed just three points for the first 38 minutes of the game.
“It just shows what kind of team we could beat,” Adams said. “We understood that the game would be won on the defensive end. Credit UCLA defense. I couldn’t hit shots early. I couldn’t get into a rhythm. A lot of nerves going out there in the first game, and I’m glad we could get them out of the way.”
Bona advances to play No. 6 seed Florida on Thursday. A 9:57 PM tip off is scheduled from American Airlines Arena in Dallas.
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