By: Nick Konotopskyj
Sports Editor
The St. Bonaventure men’s basketball team dropped its second straight conference game on Tuesday night in the Reilly Center to the Dayton Flyers. The Bonnies lost by a score of 85-79 in a game that was anything but status quo.
Dayton went into the locker room with a 45-18 lead at halftime, and it only got worse from there. After a strong first four minutes by the brown and white, the Flyers were able to push its lead to 31 points with 13 minutes left in the game.
The Bonnies, thanks to a barrage of three pointers by Jaylen Adams and Marcus Posley, cut the Flyers’ lead to six in the final minute before the time eventually ran out.
Head coach Mark Schmidt described when the game started to get out of reach for his team.
“The game was lost in the last ten minutes of the first half,” Schmidt said. “We were very tentative in the first half and it showed.”
Posley led the way with 31 points including all five of his three pointers in the second half. Adams scored 23 of his 27 points in the second half and as a team, the Bonnies put up a whopping 61 points in the last 20 minutes.
“You can’t play just 20 minutes in this league and expect to win,” Schmidt said. “We can’t be off for 20 minutes. You may be able to play a ‘B level’ game and get by but you certainly can’t play a ‘D level’ game and expect to compete against these teams.”
The Flyers shot 65 percent in the first half and went on an 18-0 run in the middle of the first half to blow the game wide open. Even though they cooled off in the second half, Dayton still put up 40 points which ended up being just enough to pick up a huge road win.
The Flyers move to 5-1, which is good for second place in the A 10 while the Bonnies drop to 4-2 and fourth in the conference. Adams talked about why the Flyers were so affective on offense.
“We came out lax, and they are a very unselfish team,” Adams said. “When you run into a team like that, you can’t let dribble penetration happen, and we did. They got going early, and we had no answers.”
Dayton was led by Charles Cooke (21 points) and forward Dyshawn Pierre (20 points). The two combined for seven out of the team’s nine total three-point shots while both players shot over 50 percent from the field.
After the game, Schmidt tried looking at the positives from this game as the team moves into a tough part in the schedule.
“When we play hard and aggressive we are a really good team.” Schmidt said. “Our guys showed some character in the second half, and I’m proud of that.”
Posley believes that attacking the rim was a big difference in the second half.
“We went to the basket and put them on their heels in the second half,” Posley said. “We can compete with any team in this league when we play at our best.”
It doesn’t get any easier for the Bonnies as they travel on the road on Saturday to face the number one team in the Atlantic 10, the Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) Rams for a 2:30 tip off.
