By CHUCKIE MAGGIO
St. Bonaventure was in an improbable spot, holding the ball in its possession with a shot at sending its game against VCU to overtime on Friday night.
The Bonnies hadn’t led since the 7:03 mark of the first half, trailed by as much as 12 and saw Jaren Holmes miss 14 minutes due to foul trouble. Osun Osunniyi was charged with his disqualifying fifth foul with 3:10 remaining, meaning 6-foot-5 Jalen Adaway was playing at the five-spot.
Still, Bona was a 3-pointer away from forcing overtime in unwelcoming territory and its best perimeter shooter had the ball. Dom Welch’s somewhat off-balance attempt didn’t fall, however, and VCU escaped with a 67-64 win at the Siegel Center.
The sides exchanged some trash talk on the way to their respective locker rooms, likely fueled by the Bonnies’ frustration after VCU grabbed first place.
“We had a shot to tie the game,” Bonnies coach Mark Schmidt said in a postgame interview with Olean Times Herald reporter J.P. Butler, “so the kids really fought back, made some plays. It’s a difficult place to play… but we were right there.”
The Bonnies fell victim to early foul trouble, with Holmes, Welch, Kyle Lofton and Alejandro Vasquez all picking up a second personal by the 6:18 mark of the first half; Lofton and Vasquez each had three by halftime. VCU took advantage not just with its perfect 8-of-8 foul shooting over the first 20 minutes, but also being the beneficiary of 10 Bona turnovers in the period.
The Rams held a 33-26 halftime lead. Adaway carried a struggling attack before the break, scoring 15 of SBU’s 26 points. He made six of his eight field goal attempts, while the rest of the squad was 3-of-15. Welch was the only other Bonnie to make a field goal in that period.
The Rams extended their advantage to 11 over the first four minutes of the second half. The contest threatened to become lopsided, but Bona used a 10-3 run to find its way back into contention, welcoming back its trademark balance. Six Bonnies made a second-half bucket including Osunniyi, who scored 11 points over the final 20 minutes after being shut out in the first frame.
The thorn in Bona’s comeback came on the boards. The Rams grabbed 12 of their 19 offensive rebounds in the second half, converting their work on the glass into eight second chance points. Four such baskets came in the second half, including a Corey Douglas layup that extended the lead to eight with 6:24 remaining.
The Bonnies and Rams each made 22 baskets, but VCU attempted 11 more shots with those extra opportunities.
“You’ve gotta give VCU credit,” Schmidt said. “They’re a good team, athletic and they try to take things away. That’s what they tried to do. But you look at the stats ands we shot 44 percent from the field, they shoot 36 percent. So from an offensive standpoint, we shot a higher percentage. It’s just that they got more shots because of the offensive rebounds.”
VCU’s offense didn’t fade as glaringly as it had in the teams’ first meeting at the Reilly Center, but Bona’s defense continued to give itself a chance. The Bonnies held the Rams without a field goal over the final 5:55, the lone points coming at the foul line. VCU had chances to put the game away, to regain a double-digit edge, but Adaway’s made jumper and Adrian Baldwin, Jr.’s missed layup on the other end had Bona calling a timeout down one possession with 58 seconds left.
“From a defensive standpoint, we played better defense in the second half in foul trouble,” Schmidt said. “I don’t think it had anything to do with it. We turned the ball over too much in the first half and we didn’t rebound well enough in the second half. And we missed eight foul shots.”
Possessions after timeouts are a Schmidt specialty, but Adaway’s long two-point miss was an uncharacteristic shot. Schmidt defended the play call, feeling the Bonnies got a shot they wanted.
“I thought Jalen, from an offensive standpoint he played the best and he was our guy,” Schmidt said. “And ‘Shoon fouled out so we put him at the five. He had to play those ball screens hard, so we wanted to buttonhook him to the foul line and make a play.
“He made the play to cut it to two… We just went back to a similar thing to get him the ball there. He missed.”
A quick Lofton layup and Vince Williams free throw miss put the Bonnies in position to shoot for overtime, and Welch’s look was good for the little time they had left. Regardless, the Bonnies dropped to 10-3 overall and 8-3 in the conference after missing the opportunity to sweep the now-first place Rams.
“I was proud of the effort,” Schmidt assessed. “The execution wasn’t great all the time but to be down by 10 and then come back and have a chance to tie the game at the buzzer, that says a lot about the character of the team.”
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