ST. BONAVENTURE, N.Y. — Amid a four-game losing streak, a 10-game layoff before Atlantic 10 play may have been just what the St. Bonaventure men’s basketball team needed.
The Bonnies put those mid-December doldrums behind them Saturday afternoon on New Year’s Eve, turning their A-10 opener against Massachusetts into a one-sided affair with an 83-64 victory, led by Daryl Banks III’s 31-point explosion on 9-of-17 shooting (6-of-12 on 3-pointers).
It was the second 30-point game of Banks’ first season as a Bonnie after three years at Saint Peter’s.
“I was just in the gym all this week before the game, leading up to it and then when I got to (today), I let it slowly come to me,” the redshirt junior said. “I didn’t try to force anything. When shots started to fall, I just got in rhythm.”
Bona held a 22-7 advantage in points off turnovers and 22-20 on points in the paint.
“I thought Daryl got us off to a great start in the first half,” Bona coach Mark Schmidt said. “We’ve been preaching to the guys for the last three or four days now that UMass was a tough, physical team, they’re going to deny stuff, who’s going to try to bully us inside. I thought our guys stepped up and met the challenge.”
Bona’s 10-day break included a chance for players to travel home for Christmas, then return last week focused and energized.
“At first it was like a reset,” Banks said. “We got to go home for Christmas, everybody after the losing streak got to reset their minds and everything. But right when we came back, it was right back to work. Everybody was in the gym this week, we worked hard in practice, we came out and executed.”
With the losing streak in the rear view, Schmidt noted, “We have good guys, we have competitive guys and they knew that we didn’t play well in those four games.”
He added, “We had chances, we played well at times, our consistency in effort, our consistency in execution wasn’t there. And we worked on it and the kids did a really good job of executing. We missed a lot of shots in the first half, some really open shots. But we executed just as well in the second half and that’s what it takes. It’s never going to be pretty, but you’ve got to outwork the team and I thought we played harder than UMass tonight.”
Banks scored 15 in the first half as Bona led 43-28. The Bonnies (7-7, 1-0) got 21 points off the bench, all in the first half thanks to Moses Flowers (9), Anouar Mellouk (7) and Brett Rumpel (5). Flowers also made a team-high seven assists.
“Moses gave us a big lift in the first half, he’s playing much better, playing with much more confidence. And we need scoring off the bench,” Schmidt said. “Anouar did a good job. It doesn’t necessarily always have to be scoring, it’s being productive: defending, rebounding, getting some loose balls, setting good screens. I thought those two guys in particular did a good job. Brett did really well, that was his best game in terms of his aggressiveness, his productivity and we need that coming off the bench from all three of those guys. All four if you throw Max (Amadasun) in there; not from an offensive standpoint, although Max got a loose ball and kicked it to (Daryl) in the corner who hit a 3. Those are the types of plays that we need.”
After a scoreless first half, Yann Farell poured in 22 points in the second half and finished with a double-double (10 rebounds) to help the Bonnies ice the game, growing their lead as large as 26 points.
“Some guys, especially freshmen, in the second half, you’re 0-for-5, you’re not even looking at the rim,” Schmidt said. “But I thought he did a great job in the second half and hit some big, big shots and had a double-double.”
Former South Carolina and Kansas State coach Frank Martin put the blame for his first A-10 loss coaching UMass on himself.
“Credit to Schmidty, he had his team ready to go and obviously I did not,” Martin said. “Schmidty is one of the real good coaches in this country that nobody talks about. You folks around here know it, I know it and he did a much better job than I did as far as getting our guys ready to play today.”
UMass only led once in the first minute of the game. During St. Bonaventure’s 22-7 run to take control in the first half, officials called two technical fouls on UMass in a span of 10 seconds: one on senior guard Noah Fernandes and then on Martin himself. Citing a $25,000 fine from the SEC in his Gamecocks tenure, Martin didn’t question either call.
“That involves officiating so I don’t know if I want to get into a conversation about that,” Martin said. “I was told (Fernandes) was talking to their bench and if that’s what he did, that’s what he deserved.”
The Minutemen (9-4, 0-1) lost 17 turnovers and shot just 38.8% from the field and 25.0% on 3-pointers.
“St. Bonaventure plays different than most of the teams we played in non-conference play,” Martin said. “They play the old-fashioned basketball: they actually screen people away from the ball and they cut, they use screens and move and throw it in the post. They stressed our defense and our inability to guard them impacted our discipline on offense. And we just broke off, we never executed anything that we were trying to call from the bench. We just gave in to the emotion of the moment and you can’t do that and be any good.
“St. Bonaventure just executing and coming after us broke the spirit that we’ve got to have to play well on offense. You don’t play well when you play individual basketball, offense or defense and that’s what we did today.”
