PHOTO COURTESY OF GOBONNIES
BY JONNY WALKER, ADVISORY EDITOR
ST. BONAVENTURE, N.Y. — Despite trailing by as many as 20 Tuesday night in the Reilly Center, the St. Bonaventure men’s basketball team prevailed over Virginia Commonwealth, 67-62, in a game that featured six lead changes in the final five minutes.
The Bonnies’ (13-7, 4-5 A-10) first lead didn’t come until a Daryl Banks III 3-pointer with 4:27 remaining in the second half. The Rams (13-8, 5-3 A-10), who led for nearly 35 of 40 possible minutes, had a chance to tie the score at 65 with under three seconds to play. But guard Jordan Nelson missed a wide-open 3-pointer from the top of the key following a long rebound, sealing the Rams’ loss.
“It’s great to come back,” said Bona head coach Mark Schmidt after the game. “It just shows that we’re never out of a game … We have some tough-minded guys, and we kept on fighting.”
The Bonnies, often late closing out on 3-point shooters, ended the first half down by 13. They allowed VCU to sink 10 3-pointers in that half alone, five of which came from senior guard Max Shulga. However, the Rams went cold from the field (7-27) and from deep (1-14) in the second half.
“We didn’t play very well in the first half,” said Schmidt. “VCU had a lot to do with it — they shot the heck out of it … I thought we did a great job in the second half — they make one three, shoot 25%.”
After Bona opened its conference schedule with a road win over VCU nearly a month ago, Schmidt said his team won “the 3-point shooting contest.” The same couldn’t be said this time around — but it didn’t matter.
“You need to win in different ways,” said Schmidt. “But as I tell the team all the time, you win with defense, defensive rebounding — that’s why I was proud of the guys in how we won today. Sometimes it’s easy when you make 12 threes to play defense and feel good about yourself. But when you’re struggling offensively, to be able to defend and rebound the way we did says a lot about our guys.”
The Bonnies’ first made 3-pointer didn’t come until the 1:06 mark in the first half. They finished 5-22 from three and shot 35.6% overall. And for most of the first half, they struggled to manufacture points away from the free-throw line.
Then, Bona found a combined 32 points off second-chance opportunities and turnovers. Bona nearly doubled VCU’s points in the paint despite its big man, Chad Venning, being held without a field goal in the first half. And after giving up 39 points in the first half, Bona held the Rams to 23 in the second — and well-under their season scoring average for the game.
“That’s how you win,” said Schmidt. “It’s not always pretty, but it’s productive.”
VCU’s Shulga finished with a game-high 25 points and six made 3-pointers. His ability to hit contested threes and create open looks from deep when needed carried VCU to one of its highest-scoring halves in conference play this season. But as the Rams watched their double-digit lead slip away in the second half, Shulga only managed two made field goals — neither coming inside the 12-minute mark.
“He [Shulga] hit some tough shots, got it going [in the first half],” said Schmidt. “Second half, our guys did a better job of keeping him in front [of us].”
Four Bonnies scored in double figures. Despite coming off the bench, redshirt senior guard Daryl Banks III had a team-high 15 points and played a team-high-tying 33 minutes.
“It’s my fifth year,” said Banks, a team captain. “I’ve had a couple instances … that we’re down 20, and we actually come back and win. So, I just keep my guys in it, just knowing that we have to keep chipping away [at the lead].”
The Bonnies’ season continues Friday night against No. 21 Dayton in UD Arena. Tipoff is set for 7 p.m. and will stream live on ESPN.
walkerjc20@bonaventure.edu
