For all that had gone against it, the St. Bonaventure men’s basketball team was right there.
The Bonnies, playing perhaps the league’s hottest team on its home floor, survived an 11-point hole shortly after halftime. They endured game-long foul trouble and lost Osun Osunniyi, who’d played a much better second half, to his fifth with 3:10 remaining. They withstood a collectively off night from their backcourt.
And in the final minute, they had a chance.
Trailing by three with the ball, Bona went to its hot hand, Jalen Adaway, but his mid-range jumper near the end of the shot clock bounced out with 29 seconds remaining. Down three again after VCU made one of two free throws with four seconds left, Dominick Welch got as good a look as you’ll get going the length of the floor with no timeouts …
But his 3-pointer clanked right.
And instead of a gutsy win and what would have been a monumental season sweep of the Rams and another key victory for its postseason resume, Bona left the floor with a hard-luck, and heartbreaking, loss, falling 67-64 in its rematch with VCU Friday inside the Siegel Center.
With that, it relinquished first place in the Atlantic 10 standings to the Rams, losing its hold on the No. 1 spot for the first time since Jan. 14.
“WE HAD a shot to tie the game,” Bona coach Mark Schmidt reiterated. “The kids really fought back, we made some plays. It’s a tough place to play, but we were right there. We’ve got to fix some stuff, especially the block outs. We’re not doing a good job there, but they’re really athletic.
“I was proud of the effort. (The) execution wasn’t great all the time, but to be down (11) and then come and have a chance to tie the game at the buzzer says a lot about the character of this team.”
Bona (10-3, 8-3), which trailed by seven at halftime and 11 (39-28) less than two minutes into the second half, rallied to within two (53-51) with 9:17 remaining. Osunniyi came alive after a scoreless first frame to finish with 11 points, eight rebounds and five blocks before fouling out.
Adaway, who at times was the best player on the floor and almost single-handedly kept his team in the game throughout, racked up 23 points — one off his career-high — on 9-of-13 shooting and eight rebounds.
The Bonnies, though, never did manage to get all the way back. And with all the momentum on their side — they had just cut it to three (62-59) on an Adaway jumper and had the ball in their hands following a missed VCU layup with 58 seconds remaining — they couldn’t quite capitalize.
BUT Schmidt, no matter how it ended, it largely came back to two factors:
Bona committed 15 turnovers, including 10 in the first half, that gave the Rams an 18-11 advantage in points off giveaways. And it surrendered 19 offensive rebounds, which VCU used to remain slightly ahead, particularly in the second half.
“We didn’t cover down when ‘Shoon went for the block,” Schmidt pointed out. “They got penetration, we didn’t cover down and do a good job blocking them out. Even so, they only 34 percent (after halftime). It wasn’t our defense, it was more … 19 offensive rebounds. How many shots did they get off those 19 offensive rebounds where they put it back?”
He added: “We did a much better job of taking care of the ball in the second half. It was the second chance points (16-10). I thought that was the difference.”
Adaway scored his team’s first nine points in giving the Bonnies an early 9-4 lead. He was his lethal self along the baseline and just as effective at the elbow. But for too many stretches, he didn’t have enough help.
While the junior forward went 6-of-8 in the first half, his teammates were a combined 3-for-15. And though Bona shot a respectable 44 percent for the game, those not named Adaway combined to shoot 35 percent (13-of-37).
In the end, Welch finished with 10 points on 3-for-11 shooting and A.J. Vasquez added eight off the bench, including a big three-point play with 16 seconds left to pull Bona back to within two.
THEN, too, Bona was hampered all night by foul trouble; Jaren Holmes was forced to sit with two quick fouls and had a tough time making an impact after returning. Its guards played in and out of sticky situations all night.
To Schmidt, that had no bearing on his team’s performance.
“If you look at it … we played better defense in the second half in foul trouble,” he maintained. “So I don’t think that had anything to do with it. We just turned the ball over too much in the first half and we didn’t rebound well enough in the second half … and we missed eight foul shots (17-of-25).”
In losing, the Bonnies actually slipped to fourth in the A-10 standings, behind a trio of teams (VCU, Richmond, UMass) with two league losses. But despite all that had happened, the game was there for the taking.
Of those final two key possessions, Schmidt said:
“(Jalen) was the hot guy, and ‘Shoon fouled out, so we put him at the ‘5,’ they played those ball screens hard, so we wanted to button hook him to the foul line and make a play. He made the play to cut it to three and we just went back to a similar thing to get him the ball there, and he missed.
“At the end of the game, you’re just trying to get a look. And we did that. We had a shot and the ball hit the rim. We had a chance.”
