PHOTO COURTESY OF GOBONNIES
BY JONNY WALKER, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
AMHERST, NY — Four St. Bonaventure men’s basketball players scored double figures in the team’s first true road game of the season as Bona dominated University at Buffalo Saturday in Alumni Arena 80-65.
The Bulls (1-7, 0-0 MAC ) won the offensive-rebounding battle (13-10) — but little else. Buffalo trailed for all but 1:30 early in the first half and never led. The Bonnies (5-2, 0-0 A-10) led nearly wire-to-wire despite losing guards Kyrell Luc and Charles Pride to apparent lower-body injuries earlier in the week.
“I was pleased with our with our defensive effort,” said Bona head coach Mark Schmidt after the game. “And offensively, you know, 20 assists — I thought Chad [Venning] played terrific inside, got easy baskets for us. But we got to continue to get better.”
Sophomore forward Barry Evans started in Pride’s place, scoring seven points on 3-3 shooting while adding blank 8 rebounds and a steal. Bona forward Chad Venning led all scorers with a career-high-tying 23 points on 11-17 shooting. Starting guards Daryl Banks III and Mika Adams-Woods each scored double figures while playing all 40 minutes. And redshirt senior guard Moses Flowers added 16 points off the bench, hitting three 3-pointers.
For the Bulls, forwards Sy Chatman and Jonnivus Smith scored in double digits. Chatman led the Bulls with 20 points and recorded a game-high 11 rebounds. Smith had 14 points and missed just two of his eight attempts.
“We’ve got to put whole 40-minute games together like coach preaches, Smith said after the game. “We can’t just play hard for 25 minutes and not play [hard] all the other 15.”
Bona’s Buffalo-area road stretch continues Wednesday against Little Three rival Niagara. Tipoff is set for 7 p.m. Schmidt described Pride and Luc’s statuses for that game as day-to-day.
