By Jonathan Sawyer
Sports Editor
Last year was the year of the Bonnies taking close games and pulling them out. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case tonight. The Bonnies suffered their third loss of the season to the UNC-Wilmington Seahawks, 81-80.
It was with under 20 seconds left to go in the game after senior forward David Andoh jumped and blocked red-shirt senior guard Denzel Ingram, which turned the possession over to the Bonnies. After a Bonnies timeout, junior guard Jaylen Adams had the ball at the top of key. Adams makes a move to the basket and when he goes up for the lay-up he is fouled and drains the basket to tie the game at 79.
On the Seahawks next possession Ingram, who scored the Seahawks last eight points, dribbles to the corner mid range, falls back and knocks down the shot with 1.4 seconds left in the games.
Adams received the inbound pass, but could not get the shot off in time, as the Bonnies would suffer their first home loss this season.
Schmidt said Ingram made a great shot and the difference in the game was their three-point shooting.
“That was a good college basketball game. Came down to the last shot, give them credit. I thought we did whatever we could have to defend it,” Schmidt said.
Schmidt talked about his team’s final efforts of holding off the Seahawks.
“You do everything you can to try to defend them. I thought we did a decent job in that last possession, but good players make good plays,” Schmidt said.
The first half ended with Ingram doing roughly what he did to end the game, knocking down a three point shot to extend their lead to five points, 40-35. The Bonnies shot under 40 percent from the field and under 30 percent from three.
The head coach of the Seahawks, Kevin Keatts, said it was a great environment to play in.
“What a tremendous game; St. Bonaventure is an unbelievable team. He’s (Schmidt) done a great job with this program. The atmosphere is unbelievable,” Keatts said. “They’re a team, you can see obviously why they won the regular championship last and have the opportunity to do the same thing this year. We are very fortunate to get out here for a win.”
Senior forward Denzel Gregg said the team needs to just work together better on defense.
“We [have] to do a better job stopping dribble penetration. I think that’s the biggest thing, ball screen defense and play together, we don’t play together well right now,” Gregg said.
Keatts believes his team did a good job of eliminating Adams and junior guard Matt Mobley.
“I thought our guys did a great job coming into a hostile environment, staying the course. We wanted to be very aggressive on both ends,” Keatts said. “We wanted our press to get involved. Obviously when you talk about two of the best scorers in the country, with those two guards we wanted stay after those guys and wear them down.”
Keatts said Mobley and Adam’s points come from behind the three-point line.
“I thought both of those guys were very aggressive in the second half,” Keatts said. “One of the things we wanted to do is run both of those guys off the three-point line.”
The Bonnies finished the game shooting 50 percent from the field and 40 percent from beyond the arc. Adams led the way with 18 points, four rebounds, and six assists. Mobley added 16 points, seven rebounds and six assists.
Gregg had nine points, 12 rebounds, four assists and three blocks. Andoh had 15 points and five rebounds on the night. The Bonnies out rebounded the Seahawks 40-33 and had 38 points in the paint.
The Seahawks were led by Ingram, who had 19 points, three rebounds and five assists. Sophomore guard C.J. Bryce had 17 points, three assists and two steals. The Seahawks shot 45.3 percent from the field and 44.8 percent from three.
The Bonnies head to Buffalo to take on the Niagara Purple Eagles in the Big 4 Classic Saturday Dec. 17 at 1 p.m.
sawyerjp15@bonaventure.edu
