By CHUCKIE MAGGIO
The St. Bonaventure men’s basketball team did not make Atlantic 10 Tournament seeding easier on itself on Saturday afternoon.
The Bonnies, visiting Philadelphia on La Salle’s Senior Day, trailed by as much as 19 and saw a furious comeback attempt in the last eight minutes prove unsatisfactory in a 73-65 defeat.
Despite entering with six more Atlantic 10 wins, and the Explorers losing top rebounder and second-leading scorer Ed Croswell on Friday, Bonaventure led for just 1:44. The Bonnies fell to 18-11, 10-6 in the A-10 and may lose sole possession of fourth place by Sunday night.
Takeaways from a puzzling Philly trip:
Player of the Game: Isiah Deas, La Salle. Deas took control of the game, scoring a team-leading 16 points in 27 minutes. Fourteen of those points were scored in the opening half, including three three-pointers. On his Senior Day, it was his first win over St. Bonaventure.
Honorable mention: Sherif Kenney produced 14 points on 5-of-9 shooting in just 22 minutes of action. Jared Kimbrough had nine points and nine rebound while also dishing two assists.
Stats of the Game: La Salle won the rebounding battle 37-35, dropping the Bonnies’ record to 2-8 when they get outrebounded. Bona’s bench got outscored 25-6 and SBU committed nine first-half turnovers.
Stretch of the Game: The Explorers outscored the Bonnies 15-4 over the first nine minutes of the second half to stretch the lead to 19. Bona made just one of its first 10 field goals in that span and turned the ball over three times. The Bonnies could not replicate the strong second half starts they had against St. Joseph’s and Duquesne.
Quote of the Game: “We were stagnant. We had no energy,” Mark Schmidt told Gary Nease on the WPIG postgame. “You can’t win at this level if you don’t play with energy and with effort. The last eight minutes we played, but we got desperate.”
Around the A-10: St. Joseph’s (6-23, 2-14 A-10) defeated Fordham (7-21, 1-15 A-10) 73-69.
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