By CHUCKIE MAGGIO
The notion that Osun Osunniyi’s role in Friday night’s game against Richmond was to extend beyond the postgame senior ceremony appeared far-fetched just six days prior.
Osunniyi playing 35 minutes, scoring 16 points and blocking three shots less than a week after he sat with his mother and grandmother at the Hagan Arena trainer’s table looked even more unrealistic.
But Osunniyi was healthy enough to man the paint, to influence a near-must-win contest after his team dearly missed him down in Richmond on Tuesday. And St. Bonaventure’s star center informed the entire Reilly Center he had returned after finishing a hook shot through contact before the penultimate media timeout.
“I’m back!” Osunniyi yelled to each corner of the arena before heading to the bench. “I’m back!”
The 6-foot-10 senior may not have been 100 percent healthy after his ankle injury against Saint Joseph’s last Saturday, but the reigning Atlantic 10 Defensive Player of the Year’s contributions resembled his normal self. He made eight of his 12 field goal attempts, grabbed three offensive rebounds and also came up with two steals. He also broke Caswell Cyrus’s program career steals record with his 290th swat.
The Bonnies defeated the Spiders 72-65 in front of 4,860 observers, earning their 20th win of the season and clinching the No. 4 seed in next week’s A-10 Tournament in Washington.
“I hate sitting; I hate being hurt; I hate not playing,” Osunniyi remarked. “So just for me, after sitting and watching what happened at VCU, I had so much built-up anger. I just wanted to play basketball, so I was glad to be back.”
Osunniyi’s performance exceeded point guard Kyle Lofton’s expectations.
“In practice, he was missing layups, scared to land,” Lofton said, “and then he comes out and starts dunks and blocks. I didn’t expect that, but ‘Shoon is ‘Shoon so you never know.”
Richmond challenged Bonaventure again, with the game producing 15 ties and 14 lead changes including a halftime tie. Spiders star Tyler Burton matched Jalen Adaway’s 21-point game high, while the teams each tallied 32 points in the paint.
The Bonnies and Spiders each made 15 field goals in the first half, a stalemate Bona committed to ending over the final 20 minutes. After a back-and-forth start to the second half saw Richmond leading by a point with 8:33 remaining, Bonaventure conducted a 10-0 run, highlighted by Osunniyi’s and-one declaration, over the next 3:45.
The Spiders went over six minutes without a successful field goal, missing five of seven shots and committing a turnover in that span. While Richmond missed 16 of its 26 shots down the stretch (38.5 percent), Bona shot 60 percent in the second stanza. The Bonnies also rebounded better that period, cutting the amount of offensive boards they surrendered in half (6-3).
“At halftime, that was what we said, like, ‘We’re just trading back and forth.’ I think they shot 48 percent,” Lofton recalled. “We were like, ‘We’ve eventually gotta get stops.’ Then they came out, like the first 10 minutes, it was the same thing. So in a huddle, in a timeout, we’re like, ‘Alright, we’ve gotta get stops. We’ve gotta win this game. So we all just came together.”
Richmond made just four field goals over the last 10 minutes, one being a Nick Sherod 3-pointer with a second left and the game long decided.
“The first half, they were attacking,” Bona coach Mark Schmidt noted. “They had 24 points in the paint; we had 12. They were playing downhill; we weren’t. I thought the second half we did a better job in the post, where we didn’t have to double as much. And we got the ball downhill… we were much more aggressive.”
The postgame ceremony included flashbacks to the seniors as rookies, whether freshmen or transfers, as well as video tributes from family and friends. The crowd serenaded the “Ironman 5” with chants of, “One more year,” encouraging them to use their extra year of eligibility brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Those decisions, along with this season’s result, are yet to be decided. For now, the seniors celebrated their first 20-win season together along with another double-bye to the A-10 Tournament quarterfinal round.
“20 wins is like the magical number,” Schmidt acknowledged. “We wanted to do that, and we didn’t want to sneak in and go in the back door (for the double-bye); we wanted to win it ourselves.
“That’s what the point was before the game and for the last two days: to win and win it our way. Win it the right way.”
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