By Anthony Gannon
Sports Editor
The Bonnies began their 2012-13 season 2-0 by beating Cornell Wednesday night, 72-68. Last Friday, Bonaventure earned its first victory of the season over Bethune-Cookman 65-55. It’s the first time the Bonnies started 2-0 in a season since 2008.
“We saw good things from Bethune-Cookman,” Coach Mark Schmidt said. “But we saw things we need to work on too. And that’s good because if you’re playing your best basketball at the beginning of the year, you’re in trouble.”
After the Mansfield scrimmage coach Mark Schmidt said other players besides senior swingman Demitrius Conger were going to have to step up their scoring performances.
Against the Bethune-Cookman Wildcats, senior guard Eric Mosley dropped a Bonaventure-high 14 points, courtesy of a three-for-six night behind the arc.
Junior guard Matt Wright added 13 on five-of-eight shooting with Conger scoring 12 to lift the Bonnies to the victory.
This theme continued Wednesday night when senior swingman Chris Johnson scored a game-high 19 points with 11 of those coming in the second half to drop the Big Red to 1-1 overall for the Bonnies’ first road win of the season. Conger continued his hot start to the season with 14 points and redshirt senior Marquise Simmons threw down 14 points as well. Simmons played efficiently, shooting five-for-six from the field and draining four-of-five foul shots. Conger dished out three assists and nabbed a steal and shot five-for-11 from the free throw line.
“Any time you go on the road and win it’s a great feeling no matter how you do it,” Schmidt said. “In the first half we did well with rebounding and taking care of the ball. I thought Dion gave us a great lift in the first half, Marquise played really well and Chris Johnson was the man we relied on throughout the game.”
The close score showed how competitive the game was, but the teams only had a difference of one in their rebounding margin. The Bonnies cleaned the glass slightly better than the Big Red 38-37, and three players for the Bonnies grabbed at least six boards. Conger and Simmons grabbed six, but freshman Dion Wright took the biggest step forward Wednesday night, grabbing a team-high seven rebounds in just his second collegiate contest. Wright also scored four points in his 16 minutes.
“We got the ball and pushed,” Simmons said. “I had a couple of open looks at the basket from running hard and sprinting up and down the court, and the guards found me.”
Freshman Youssou Ndoye managed eight points, four rebounds, one block and one steal in limited action thanks to a fall in the first half limiting his game time to 20 minutes. Ndoye’s ankle twisted as he fell to the floor after blocking a Cornell layup try. However, he returned to the game and played through the pain.
“One game somebody will have a great game, the next game they won’t play so well,” Simmons said. “That’s why we need everybody on the team. Demitrius got in foul trouble, Eric got in foul trouble, Youssou got hurt. Dion stepped up, I had to step up, so we have each other’s backs.”
Matt Wright and Charlon Kloof scored seven and six points, respectively. Kloof handed out two assists, a block and steal and Wright passed around five assists and had two steals against just two turnovers. Conger and Kloof both had four turnovers, but each hit clutch free throws towards the end of the game to seal Cornell’s fate.
“This was a blue-collar team; we’ll take any game,” Johnson said. “We don’t expect them all to be pretty, so we’ll take any game we can get.”
The Bonnies shot 40 percent from the field in the first half on 12-30 shooting, including a 0-for-8 mark from beyond the three point line. They shot 11-for-18 from the free throw line and Simmons led the team with 11 points at halftime.
“In terms of the numbers, it wasn’t bad,” Schmidt said. “But they went on a stretch where they got some momentum and the positive thing about us is that we stopped the momentum and never let them take the lead.”
The Bonnies had to pick up the pace in the second half as the Big Red started attacking the Brown and White lead. Down 11 at the half, Cornell outscored the Bonnies 44-37 in the second half, but couldn’t overcome Conger’s 14 second half points.
“In the second half we were a little bit shaky,” Schmidt said. “We didn’t rebound the ball nearly as well and we missed our foul shots. If we make eight to ten of those suckers, then the game is over.”
Cornell was down 71-68 with 14 seconds left to play. With nine seconds left on the clock, the Big Red’s Josh Figini bricked a good look from beyond the arc after a screen freed him up for the shot. The Bonnies grabbed the rebound and a foul put Kloof on the line. He hit the first one to essentially end the game before the second shot rimmed out, running the rest of the time off the clock on the Cornell rebound.
The refs were on their whistles all night with 53 fouls called in the game.
“We just had to move on to the next play,” Simmons said. “But the biggest thing was we had to stay together and move on to the next play.”
