By Jeff Fasoldt, @Jeff_Fasoldt
The St. Bonaventure University Bonnies defeated the University at Buffalo Bulls 72-63 to clean sweep the “Big 4” for the first time since the 2011-2012 season with wins over Canisius, Niagara and Buffalo.
Content with running the court and feeding the ball to their big men inside the Bonnies dominated the paint, outscoring the Bulls 42-28.
Youssou Ndoye led the Bonnies in rebounding with 13 and scored 17 inside while and Dion Wright led Bonaventure in scoring with 19 and grabbed eight boards for himself.
“Ndoye is definitely a big presence,” said Shannon Evans, Buffalo’s leading scorer (21). He made some big shots early and got them going tonight.”
In the first half an impressive defensive effort by the brown and white held the Bulls to just 22 percent shooting and just 18 points.
Justin Moss, who coming into this matchup was the only player in the MAC Conference that is top-five in rebounding (9.2 per game) and scoring (17.6) had a team-high 14 rebounds but was held to just eight points.
The Bulls, who trailed the entire game, made a run in the second half off some three-pointers from Shannon Evans and Will Regan to cut the Bonnies lead to seven, but ultimately fell short as the Bonnies defense was just too much for them to handle.
The Bonnies, who’ve been shooting around 75 percent from the free throw line lately, managed only a 13-26 performance tonight (50 percent), but it proved not to matter as an excellent night from the field (27-58) lifted the Bonnies to victory.
Turnovers went the Bonnies way as they forced 15 Buffalo turnovers and scored 18 off of them.
“I thought our length really bothered them,” said Bonnies coach Mark Schmidt.
The Bonnies will go on the road now to take on the Ohio Bobcats Saturday.
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