By CHUCKIE MAGGIO
ST. BONAVENTURE — The final score, Mark Schmidt knows, was the most important aspect of St. Bonaventure’s victory over Loyola Maryland on Wednesday night.
“The bottom line in the business is winning,” Bona’s head coach acknowledged. “That’s the bottom line, alright? So we’re winning, and we’re 8-1, and that’s terrific.”
Schmidt and his players, specifically Jalen Adaway and Jaren Holmes at the postgame podium, also admitted, however, that the team did not meet its defensive goals. The Greyhounds tagged the Bonnies for 41 first-half points and SBU’s sixth halftime deficit in nine games, draining eight 3-pointers over the opening 20 minutes and holding a 14-10 advantage in the paint.
Bonaventure’s defense regrouped in the second half, holding Loyola to 4-of-14 3-point shooting, as it pulled away in an 84-71 victory. That didn’t erase the fact that since SBU’s Charleston Classic win, it has allowed 20 more points per game (77 ppg) than it was giving up after the Marquette game on Nov. 21 (57 ppg).
“We’ve gotta get better in all areas,” Schmidt assessed. “Not just defense: offense, shot selection, getting to the foul line, we’re not a finished product. We’ve got a long way to go. When we play without a lot of energy, we’re just an average team, and we’ve gotta bring it all the time. And not just from a defensive perspective- overall.”
The Bonnies shot 72.4 percent from the field in the second half, displaying, as they did against Coppin State, that they can outscore opponents when necessary. Adaway and Holmes contributed 22 points apiece, combining to shoot 18-of-26, while Dominick Welch hit four 3-pointers. Quadry Adams tallied 12 points in his first double-figure effort since his collegiate debut for Wake Forest on Nov. 25, 2020, while Osun Osunniyi scored all eight of his points in the second half.
Loyola was still within three points when Schmidt called a timeout with 10:28 remaining, but produced just nine points for the remainder of the contest. Jaylin Andrews was held to six points after a 14-point first half, while Cam Spencer committed a season-high three turnovers after turning the ball over just twice over the Greyhounds’ four-game win streak. Bona employed a zone that dropped Loyola’s shooting percentage, which registered as high as 61 percent, to 50 percent at the final buzzer.
Schmidt reinforced the need for his team to display that intensity for a full 40-minute game as opposed to a 10-minute spurt. The goal, he explained, was to keep the Greyhounds under seven 3-point makes for the game. “We failed in that area,” he said, bluntly.
“You can make all the excuses: came off a big win; we’ve got a big game coming up on Saturday. You can make all those excuses,” Schmidt added. “What do they call them, trap games? But when you have a mature team, that shouldn’t happen. … I tell the team all the time, ‘You only have so many opportunities to put that uniform on. You work your tails off all summer, all fall to play these games. Why cheat yourself out of a game or a half when you’re not bringing it?’
“It’s a learning… these guys are still 22, 23. I was talking to someone the other day who tells me all the time, the male brain does not fully develop until he’s 25. These guys aren’t 25, so that may be a reason.”
Northern Iowa was the only other team to shoot over 50 percent against Bonaventure thus far this season. The fact that both of those games occurred at home, which Schmidt emphasized the importance of protecting in his pregame media availability, and that both occurred against teams with less-than-stellar résumés, wasn’t lost on the 2,720 observers who expected a more dominant performance from their team.
“We need to be more connected together,” Holmes commented. “There are some things I’m doing that I shouldn’t be doing, that I wasn’t doing last year. And I think everybody in that locker room has been doing some things that we know we need to get better at. That’s not how we play defense; we don’t give up 71 points. We don’t normally score 84, so in order for us to get back to the top of where we need to be, and for us to be that top-tier team, we’re gonna have to defend much better.
“We can’t give teams 71 points. Credit to Loyola, like coach said, but we can’t give teams 71 points or 77 points, because one of those times we’re gonna reach to come back and it’s not gonna be there. It’s just not gonna be there; that’s just how basketball is, overall.”
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