photo courtesy of gobonnies.sbu.edu
By Jeff Uveino
ST. BONAVENTURE, NY — The St. Bonaventure men’s basketball team hadn’t beaten Davidson in 1,090 days.
A driving force behind SBU’s four-game losing streak to Davidson (11-6, 6-3 A-10) had been the Wildcats’ perennially consistent 3-point shooting. On Sunday, however, the Bonnies (11-3, 9-3 A-10) used perimeter shooting to their advantage as they shot 52% beyond the arc in a 69-58 win over Davidson at the Reilly Center.
The Bonnies were 11-for-21 from 3-point range, with each of their three starting guards shooting over 50% from distance. Kyle Lofton scored a game-high 19 points while shooting 3-for-5 from beyond the arc.
Jaren Holmes was 5-for-7 from deep in an 18-point performance, while Dominick Welch shot 3-for-5 from distance on his way to nine points.
“You can go 9-for-11 sitting in the gym by yourself, but to do that in this type of environment against that type of team says a lot about our players,” Bona head coach Mark Schmidt said.
The trio of caught fire in the second half, shooting 9-for-11 (81.8%) from distance in the second stanza. The Bonnies built their first double-digit lead of the game halfway through the second half when two 3-pointers by Holmes were followed by back-to-back triples from Lofton to put the Bonnies up by 10.
“They’re a joy to coach,” Schmidt said of Holmes and Lofton. “They hit big shots. They deserve to have success because they’re always in the gym working. At times, they haven’t shot the ball well from the perimeter. They don’t stop working and they deserve to have those shots go down.”
Jalen Adaway and Osun Osunniyi each scored eight points for SBU, while Jalen Shaw added five points off the bench in the first half when Osunniyi sat for 10 minutes due to foul trouble.
Despite how well Bona shot the ball, Davidson hit more 3-pointers than SBU did, finishing at 13-for-37 (35%) from distance. Hyunjung Lee was 6-for-9 from deep to account for his 18 points, while three other Wildcats hit multiple triples in the game. Kellan Grady, the team’s leading scorer, racked up 18 points while shooting 7-for-12 from the field and 3-for-8 from the perimeter.
“Even though they made 13 threes, I thought we did a decent job defensively,” Schmidt said. “Holding that team to 58 points is a heck of a performance.”
Schmidt said that defense and rebounding were two “critical areas” of the game, and his team out-played the Wildcats in both of them. The Bonnies finished with a 39-25 rebounding advantage over the Wildcats while holding them to under 40% shooting from the field, something that Schmidt has repeatedly referred to as a goal of his each game.
“They’re going to make some shots, but you can’t give them two or three opportunities,” Schmidt said. “I always say, you’ve got to defend, you’ve got to rebound, take care of the basketball and make your foul shots. I thought we did that stuff.”
Before Sunday, SBU’s last win over Davidson came in February 2018, when Jaylen Adams, Matt Mobley and Courtney Stockard combined for 98 points to lead the Bonnies to a triple-overtime victory. The past two seasons, Davidson had out-scored SBU by a combined 56 points in three games.
“The last two years, they got us, and they got us big,” Lofton said. “As a competitor, you don’t want that to happen. The key was just to bring the energy from the start and play with confidence. We did that today.”
The Bonnies and Wildcats will meet again in just three days at Belk Arena in Davidson, North Carolina, where Schmidt’s team will look to complete a regular-season sweep of Davidson for the first time since 2015-16.
“They’re going to make some adjustments, just like we are,” Schmidt said. “They’re not going to allow us to shoot 81% from threes and hopefully we don’t allow them to hit 13 threes. In terms of the scout, it makes it easier. Our guys know them.”
Bona has three games remaining on its schedule before the start of the Atlantic 10 tournament. Schmidt’s team faces three games in six days before heading to Richmond on March 3 to begin the tournament, which was moved up a week from its originally scheduled dates (other than the final).
“Our guys have put themselves in a situation where these games are really important,” Schmidt said. “There are some teams in this country that can’t wait until the season’s over because they aren’t playing for anything. Our guys have done a great job with the pandemic… and now we’re going to try to finish it.”
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