Quick Hitters: La Salle

By Chuckie Maggio @chuckiemaggio

The La Salle Explorers defeated the St. Bonaventure Bonnies 66-56 on Saturday night. Here are some quick hitters from the game:

Bonnies continue offensive struggles: Bona shot just 33.9 percent (20-59) from the floor, an even lower mark than its 35.3 percent output against Rhode Island last Sunday. The main reason for the offensive downfall was the lack of production from their perimeter players. Marcus Posley, the A-10’s leading scorer, started on the bench for the first time this season after being late for a shootaround and scored just four points on 2-12 shooting, with an 0-7 clip from three. Andell Cumberbatch scored five points on 2-8 shooting, and Jay Adams scored five with a 1-9 performance.

Outrebounded again: The Bonnies were outrebounded 34-33, making it the second straight game they saw a deficit on the glass. Dion Wright and Youssou Ndoye combined for 13 boards, while the rest of the team had just 11.

Tale of two halves: La Salle entered the first half locker room up just two points (29-27) after shooting 37.5 percent from the floor. In the second, they shot 57.9 percent and were 4-6 from three, helping them outscore Bonaventure 37-29 in the final 20 minutes.

Price and Roberts take over for Explorers: Jordan Price scored 24 points on 7-19 shooting to lead the Explorers, grabbing five boards as well. Cleon Roberts added 20 on 6-12 shooting. They made four three-pointers each, while Bonaventure made just two as a team.

Tough one to drop: With games at Davidson and against VCU upcoming, this La Salle loss is going to be a very difficult one to swallow for the Brown and White.

Explorers beat Bonnies from beyond the arc

By Jeff Fasoldt

The La Salle Explorers upset the St. Bonaventure Bonnies at a packed Reilly Center Saturday night, improving La Salle’s record to 12-9, and dropping the Bonnies to 11-8 on the year.

In what was Bonaventure’s final Saturday night game of the year in front of their home crowd, not capitalizing on turnovers and plenty of missed shots doomed them from the beginning as they only shot 2-18 from beyond the arc.

Marcus Posley, the leading scorer in the Atlantic-10 Conference, didn’t start for the first time all season due to showing up late to shootaround. And even though he came in just a few minutes into the game, he did not look comfortable coming off the bench as the sixth man, going 2-12 from the field and 0-7 from three point land.

“We thought it was going to be a terrific challenge, and I was glad we were up to the challenge,” said La Salle head coach John Giannini. “We watched more video on Posley than anybody in the conference, but we didn’t change the way we defended against him. We defend the same way against everybody”

On the other side, La Salle’s Jordan Price and Cleon Roberts came up huge for the Explorers. Roberts, who came into the game at 42 percent from beyond the arc, continued to stroke it — going 6-12 from the floor, 4-9 from deep and scoring 20 total. Price picked up his offensive game again after struggling in his last two outings; he had a team-high 22, going 4-11 from beyond the arc.

“I felt like my teammates got me open a lot off of screens,” said Price.

While the Bonnies doubled the Explorers offensive rebounds 15-7, they couldn’t capitalize on second-chance points, and also forced 11 turnovers compared to La Salle’s five, but could not gain an advantage off of those either.

A couple bright spots for the Bonnies in this loss would be both of their big-men. Youssou Ndoye had 17, going 5-11 from the field and also grabbing six boards. Dion Wright had a monster game playing 39 of the 40 minutes, and doing everything he could for his team in this one, scoring a team-high 21, going 8-11 from the field and grabbing 7 rebounds.

“We tried to go inside more, we only shot eight threes in the second half but at the same time you have to hit shots from beyond the arc if you want to win in this league,” said Bonnies head coach, Mark Schmidt.

You have to give La Salle some credit, they came into this game as one of the best defensive teams in the conference and continued to prove they can match up defensively with anybody.

“I felt like we were taking good shots, we just couldn’t make (anything),” said Wright.

St. Bonaventure’s next game will be at Davidson on Wednesday.

Women’s basketball: Defense, sophomore duo take down La Salle

By Joseph Phelan, @JPhelan13

So far the Bonnies have a .500 record in Atlantic 10 play. Home wins against La Salle and Richmond and away losses against Duquesne and Dayton.

In last night’s win against La Salle, the Bonnies completely shut down the Explorers offense.

The takeaway from a team aspect of the game could be found in one number: 20.4.

La Salle shot 20.4 percent from the field Wednesday night.

Although the Explorers missed open shots, the Bonnies did a great job at contesting La Salle’s shots.

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