St. Bonaventure Women’s basketball (7-3, 2-5 Atlantic 10) went down to the wire in a 75-68 loss against the Davidson Wildcats at the Reilly Center. Davidson would would shoot 46.7% from the field and would make 10-18 three pointers.
Junior guard Kianna Speight, who before this game only averaged 4.9 points per game this season, would drop a season high 27 points on 9-14 shooting from the field.
“Give Davidson credit they outplayed and outcoached us today,” said Fleming. “The inability to adjust to a hot player who only averages four points a game and has 27 on us, and continually not closing out correctly, was disappointing.”
At the start of the first quarter, Bonas would go on an 8-0 run in the first three minutes. Davidson would claw back in the game by going on a 15-1 run.
Fleming said giving up that lead was disappointing. He said the team was celebrating, relaxed, and had no idea why they did.
“Davidson just keeps coming at you,” said Fleming. “All week we’ve been talking about how they didn’t score in the first quarter at George Washington University and how they were able to come back and lead by five in the fourth quarter.” For us to just not be locked in defensively was disappointing.”
Fleming added that defense has been the tail end of the team’s struggles. He said it’s schematically on him to figure it out.
The Bonnies would keep it interesting though. They were able to come back and be down by four at the end of the first half. The Bonnies would continue to trade baskets with the wildcats and would end up trimming the lead to three at the end of the third quarter.
Davidson would call a 30 second timeout at the 9:30 mark of the fourth quarter leading 53-51. They would adjust after the timeout and would score six unanswered points resulting in a Bonnies timeout with 8:12 left. Bonas would answer back by cutting the lead to four at the 6:47 mark of fourth quarter.
The Wildcats would look to finish the game by going on a seven nothing run. With the score 68-57 at the 5:10 mark, both teams would have a lid on both hoops until the 2:19 left. Freshman guard Katie Turner would make a three-point dagger with two minutes left to play to give Davidson a 71-59 lead.
Fleming said near the end of the game that they were settling for too many three’s. He believed since Davidson is a pressure team, they could rip, drive, get open shots at the rim.
“We did get some open shots but the frustrating part was we were drawing a bunch of fouls and yet we settled,” said Fleming. “My message the team after the game was we don’t settle, we don’t embrace the time in the game where we are going out out-execute a team.”
Davidson would hold onto the lead and finish off the Bonnies. Senior Guard Mariah Ruff would struggle to score this game. She tallied nine points on three of ten shooting from the field in 33 minutes. At the three-minute mark, Fleming would pull Ruff out when down 11.
“I just didn’t think the ball was moving when she was on the floor,” said Fleming. “It’s nothing against her and you can knock me off for taking her out, but I liked the lineup we had out there.”
St. Bonas will now travel to Rose Hill Gym to square off against the University of Fordham Rams on Thursday, Jan 25, at 7 p.m. Fleming said that Fordham is the best defensive team in the conference. He believes that if you’re not going to move the ball against them, you’re not going to work to get open, and get the ball swung, then they will just have every single shot contested.
“We will watch this tape and show all the times were the ball just wasn’t moving,” said Fleming. “If you want to have any chance against Fordham you got to execute your offense, you got to set good screens, you got to set things up, I think those are some of the things that we will focus on.
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