BY WILL POLADIAN, MANAGING EDITOR
On a sunny afternoon, the Reilly Center had a storm full of threes as the St. Bonaventure men’s basketball team defeated Miami (OH) 90-60 on Saturday.
Unlike the last game, the Bonnies came out the gate on a 7-3 run started by a redshirt senior guard Daryl Banks III 3-pointer and two turnovers forced by the Bonnies defense.
“I had a lot of clear shots, little rhythm shots that helped me out, but I came in the game just focusing on my defense and let the game come to me,” said Banks III.
Bonaventure shot 66.7% from the field and behind the arc in the first five minutes to give them a 14-8 lead.
The scoring continued for the Bonnies going on a 9-1 run to make the score 23-9 with 11:05 left in the half.
The RedHawks scoring slump ended as they went on a 7-0 run headed by freshman forward Jackson Kotecki to cut the lead to 10 with 7:31 left.
Redshirt junior forward Noel Brown made his presence felt, scoring half of the Bonaventure points on an 8-0 run and blocking a shot to put the Bonnies up 36-18 with 2:53 left.
“[He’s a] great teammate,” said head coach Mark Schmidt. “He’s enthusiastic, brings energy. He’s done a really good job coming off the bench. Today was his best game in terms of numbers, but he’s somebody that’s a big body that can defend rebound and make guys around them better. He’s been a great addition.”
Bonaventure ended the half on an 18-0 run, giving the Bonnies the 46-18 halftime lead. The most points scored in a half for the Bonnies this season.
The Bonnies shot 56% from the field in the first half while shooting 46.2% from beyond the arc.
Miami (OH) shot 26% from the field and 16.7% from 3-point range while being outrebounded 24-11.
Brown and graduate guard Charles Pride led the Bonnies in scoring for the half with 11 and 10 respectfully. Pride had six rebounds while other graduate guard Mika Adams-Woods had five assists in the half.
Graduate wing Darweshi Hunter led Miami (OH) in scoring with 10 on the half.
Like in the first half, Banks III hit a baseline jumper, then would hit two 3-pointers to increase his total to 16 points and the Bonaventure lead to 31.
“I came in with the mindset of just playing defense,” said Banks III. “I got a couple blocks and stuff like that it got me going gave me energy I just felt good after that.”
A Pride layup would increase the lead to 36, their largest of the contest, before the two sophomore guard Ryan Mabrey 3-pointers would bring it back to within 31 with 13:28 left.
The aerial assault continued with 3-pointers from Pride and Adams-Woods to make the score 80-45 with 7:16 left.
A sophomore forward Barry Evans transition dunk sealed a would-be Bonaventure victory.
“We shared the ball, shot the ball and defended,” said Schmidt. “That’s how we have to continue to play. We got to get better there are a ton of things that we got to work on but I thought we took a step in the right direction today.”
The Bonnies shot 58.3% from the field and 50% from 3-point range while outrebounding Miami (OH) 39-17.
“If you can control the paint offensively and defensively that’s where the game is won and that’s what we did today,” said Schmidt.
Pride led the Bonnies in scoring with 18 while Brown and Banks III had 16. Banks had three blocks while Pride had seven rebounds and Adams-Woods had eight assists.
Bonaventure travels to Buffalo, New York to play the University of Buffalo on Saturday at 2 p.m. It can be seen on ESPN+.
“My favorite thing about these guys is that we work and like I don’t think we’re close to our full potential, but we’ve come a long way from where we started,” said Brown. I think its a great fit and I think it will be a better fit if you asked me in two weeks, three weeks.”
poladianwj20@bonaventure.edu
