By CHUCKIE MAGGIO
WASHINGTON — Jalen Adaway stayed in place, expressionless but not emotionless, and watched the celebration unfold at the Saint Louis end of Capital One Arena.
“Probably a million different things running through my head,” Adaway remarked. “Playing great players and a great coach in Saint Louis, it sucks for us to not win, so there’s just a million things running through my head.”
St. Bonaventure clawed its way back from a 10-point deficit with 10:57 remaining, possessing the basketball with 13 seconds remaining and a dormant shot clock. The Bonnies could hold until the final shot, requiring just a point to tie the game and two to punch their ticket to Saturday’s semifinal round.
Jaren Holmes missed a close-range opportunity but Kyle Lofton corralled the offensive rebound and was fouled with 1.8 seconds remaining. The 82.6 percent free throw shooter missed both.
Lofton grabbed one more offensive rebound on the second miss, but missed the putback attempt. Saint Louis prevailed 57-56, ending Bonaventure’s hopes for a return trip to the NCAA Tournament.
Bona struggled to score all afternoon, making just 38 percent of its field goal attempts. Holmes missed 11 of his 13 shot attempts, while even Adaway missed 10 shots. Saint Louis outrebounded and outscored the Bonnies in the paint, while sharpshooter Gibson Jimerson made six 3-pointers.
Many fans will remember, however, that SBU shot four free throws in the final minute and missed them all. Osun Osunniyi, who put the Bonnies ahead on his first field goal attempt of the contest with 1:24 remaining, missed both of his attempts at the line with minute left and a chance to extend Bonaventure’s lead to three.
“It stings,” Osunniyi commented. “It hurts. I had two shots to possibly put the game away and Kyle had a chance to win the game or tie the game. Both of us have been in the gym for hours every single day working on that. It just didn’t go our way today. It hurts a lot more in this situation, how we lost… it could possibly be our last game together. All the emotions you can imagine are going through our heads right now.”
The Bonnies made just one of their first 12 field goal attempts, setting the tone for an anemic day offensively. Saint Louis honed in on Osunniyi, who totaled 33 points in the two regular season games against the Billikens, and effectively removed him from Bona’s offense. Osunniyi did not attempt a shot from the floor until his traditional three-point play with 2:02 to play.
“‘Shoon’s not a back-to-the-basket guy,” Schmidt noted. “All the stuff he gets is on rolls and dunks, offensive rebounding. They did a good job of getting the ball deep against them; we had a much easier time in game one and game two. We didn’t get those lobs that we got in game one and two. He’s not a guy that we can throw the ball into… he’s not that type of player. But they did a good job on ball-screen defense and made it a little bit more difficult for us.”
The Bonnies instead relied heavily on midrange jumpers and 3-point baskets, missing 15 of their 20 attempts from beyond the 3-point arc. They attempted just eight free throws and made just three. Just 16 of their points were tallied on dunks or layups.
Lofton scored Bona’s first six points of the second half on pull-up jumpers, tying the game at 28 after trailing 26-22 at halftime. The point guard displayed an aggressive mindset, aggressiveness hampered by a fourth personal foul on a charge call with 5:05 remaining. The Bonnies changed Lofton’s defensive assignment after the call, placing him on the perimeter-bound Jimerson rather than slashing point guard Yuri Collins. Collins recorded the next three points and assisted both of Jimerson’s go-ahead field goals in the last 1:43.
Neither team made a field goal for over two minutes before Dominick Welch scored three of his 14 points on a 3-pointer that cut Bona’s deficit to one with 2:40 left. Jimerson and Osunniyi then swapped baskets, as Jimerson answered Osunniyi’s three-point play with an open 3-point make, Osunniyi put back Lofton’s missed layup for two points and Jimerson drilled the eventual game-winner with 17 seconds left.
Lofton was not made available to the media after the game to address the ending, but his coach and teammates acknowledged that they would not have earned a top-four seed without their floor general.
“One play doesn’t define you,” Schmidt noted. “He’s been everything to our program, to me as the head coach. He epitomizes everything that we want in a player: a good student; keeps his nose clean socially; is a hard worker. He’s a captain for four years, named captain as a freshman. And it hurts; it stings. It’d be one thing if he didn’t put the time in. He lives in the gym, and he’s one guy that deserves to make those foul shots…
“I told him he has nothing to apologize for. We’re here, a big reason is because of what he’s done for us.”
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