ST. BONAVENTURE, N.Y. — On Saturday against Duquesne, Jaylen Adams had a performance that almost certainly wasn’t going to be topped.
The senior point guard himself acknowledged that he didn’t envision eclipsing his 40-point, eight-3-pointer, seven-assist night against the Dukes. And then, a mere four days later, he did just that.
In one three-minute segment, Adams turned another great night into perhaps the greatest shooting performance in St. Bonaventure basketball history.
The reigning Atlantic 10 first team all-conference selection and now the frontrunner for Player of the Year drained a deep 3 at the 11:28 mark of the second half and another with 10:13 remaining. He then buried a 28-footer with a hand in his face to beat the shot clock at 9:13 and hit one from a foot off the halfcourt logo at 8:20.
The stretch was positively Jordan-Blazers-eque. None of those shots even grazed the rim. The last one sent a half-empty Reilly Center into a frenzy normally reserved for a Saturday game against a ranked opponent.
By the end, Adams had scored 44 points on 14-of-18 shooting, made 10-of-13 from 3-point range and added six assists and four rebounds for good measure. Here is the multitude of ways in which the 6-foot-2 guard etched his way into the Bona record books:
Adams’ 44 points are tied for the ninth-most in a single game in school history and tied for third-most in the Reilly Center, behind Bob Lanier’s 51 against Seton Hall in 1969 and Greg Sanders’ 46 vs. Detroit in 1977 (and tied with Andrew Nicholson, who had 44 against Ohio in 2010).
The Baltimore native is just the third player in Bona history to record back-to-back 40-point games, joining Lanier, who did it in February of 1969 and Tom Stith, who achieved it in December of ‘59.
Adams set a school record with 10 3s, beating teammate Matt Mobley’s mark of nine set last year against VCU. “I didn’t actually,” he said, when asked if he knew he’d set the record. “I’m going to probably go talk to him about that.”
Adams’ output is tied for the sixth-highest scoring night by a Division I player this season.
Mark Schmidt coached Nicholson, so he was present for the 6-foot-9 forward’s 44-point game against the Bobcats. In that one, however, Nicholson needed two halves and four overtimes to achieve that number. Adams needed 18 shots and 39 minutes.
Was the latter the greatest individual performance Schmidt has seen in the Reilly Center?
“Andrew’s was terrific too, but Andrew was a little bit different, where a lot of it’s dunks and so forth,” the 11th-year coach said. “Jay was under a lot of pressure, guys are getting into him. For him to be able to score that amount of points and only miss four shots – that speaks volumes.
“It’s not like he took 40 shots to score 44 points. He was very efficient. For guard, it was better than (Marcus Posley’s 47-point outing in Rochester), whoever else.”
Wednesday continued an eerie trend of great games and individual performances taking place in the RC on Feb. 7. On that date in 2015, Posley made a buzzer-beating layup to lift the Bonnies to a 73-71 win over No. 18 VCU. On. Feb. 7, 2016, Adams, then a sophomore, sank a buzzer-beating 3 to beat Saint Louis and continue Bona’s push to the NCAA Tournament.
In 2018, it was Adams’ record-setting night, also against the Billikens.
Mobley was held in check by Saint Louis, finishing with four points on 1-for-8 shooting, but the senior guard did reach a big milestone.
With his lone field goal midway through the first half, Mobley reached 1,000 points in only his two years at Bona, a total of 55 games. The Worcester, Mass., native is the second Bona player in three years to achieve that feat, joining Posley.
Adams also moved up the career scoring chart at Bona, breaking into the top 10 all-time. Needing 32 points but hitting 44, Adams (1,717 points) surpassed Mark Jones (1,704) for 10th place, and now sits just 15 points behind J.R. Bremer for ninth and 17 behind Marques Green for eighth, which would also make him the highest-scoring guard in school history.
Amadi Ikpeze had one of his best games of the conference season, finishing with eight points on 4-for-7 shooting in 24 minutes. It was the most he’s played since logging 25 minutes against Maryland-Eastern Shore in November. Little-used reserve Tshiefu Ngalakulondi added a layup just before the halftime buzzer to give Bona a 36-28 lead at the break.
“I thought Amadi gave us a big lift inside with some tough baskets,” Schmidt said.
Starting forward LaDarien Griffin limped off the court with 6:18 remaining in the first half after tripping over a Saint Louis player under the basket, and never returned. He was described after the game as having a sprained right ankle.
Outside of Adams, the Bonnies shot just 13-of-40 against the Billikens, for 32.5 percent. Including his assists, the senior guard accounted for 74 percent of Bona’s scoring.
Bona has now won seven in a row against the Billikens dating back to 2013-14, when it knocked off nationally ranked and top-seeded Saint Louis in the Atlantic 10 Tournament. It moved to 10-4 against SLU under Schmidt and took an 11-10 lead in the all-time series.
