With another dominant defensive start, the St. Bonaventure men’s basketball team returned home with a second win on its road swing and the Franciscan Cup in hand.
Bona retained the Br. Ed Coughlin Franciscan Cup with a second straight victory over Siena College, shutting down the Saints in a 65-48 win Tuesday night at MVP Arena in Albany.
Winning its fifth straight overall, Bona (11-1) emphatically avoided any notion of a “trap game” or looking ahead to the holidays or conference play.
“We’ve got to continue to get better, we’re not nearly where we need to be,” Bona coach Mark Schmidt refrained, “but it was a good victory. Especially coming off of Providence and the high that they had. A mature team takes care of business and I thought we did a good job.”
In his second straight game at full-time point guard with Dasonte Bowen sidelined, Melvin Council Jr. ran the show and filled a balanced stat sheet. Council scored 14 points, grabbed five rebounds, dished out four assists and swiped seven steals.
“He is the alpha,” Schmidt affirmed of the co-captain guard. “He’s the personality. Brings enthusiasm, brings courage. He loves to play, as you can see. He’s just a basketball player, and he just plays fast. He’s learning the system a little bit better every day we practice. But when Melvin plays, we’re a pretty good team.”
But while Council shined again, it was Chance Moore who earned the team’s new piece of hardware: the Bonnies’ WWE belt. Moore scored a game-high 23 points (9-of-14 field goals), his 11th double-digit scoring game in 11 as a Bonnie, for his third double-double of the year (10 rebounds).
“He’s just athletic,” Schmidt said of Moore. “When he’s in tune, he’s as good as they get. Really long, athletic, when he’s attacking the basket, going to the offensive glass. That’s when you know he’s involved in the game. And when he plays like he did today, him and Melvin, we’re a pretty good team.”
The Bonnies gave up a 3-pointer on the game’s opening possession but held the Saints scoreless for the next eight-plus minutes, pulling away with a 15-0 run including a thunderous steal-and-slam by Lajae Jones. Bona limited Siena to just two field goals through nearly 14 minutes, leading 22-5, forcing new Saints coach Gerry McNamara to call two timeouts within the first 10 minutes.
Moore’s step-back 3-pointer took a fortuitous bounce for the Bonnies and capped a mostly one-sided first half, giving Bona a 34-17 lead.
Defense led to offense for Schmidt’s team, which he observed as “heavy-legged” in the early going despite the lead.
“The first three or four minutes I thought we were heavy-legged a little bit,” Schmidt said. “We didn’t have any flow, but as the first half went on I thought our defense was the reason why we got the lead. As you see, our offense isn’t great. When we get out in the open court we have a chance, (but) in the halfcourt it’s still a little bit stagnant.”
Moore scored 13 points in the opening 20 minutes. The Bonnies shot 48.3% from the field in the half while holding Siena to just 25% (6-for-24).
“It’s our identity,” Schmidt said of Bona’s defense. “The guys have really bought into it. We’re not a great offensive team, we don’t shoot the ball great, but we play hard. Playing hard overcomes a lot of deficiencies. Defense, in the first half, we couldn’t have played better. I thought the last two minutes we got a little bit lackadaisical, but I thought for the most part, we guarded the ball, did a good job getting to the 3-point shooters. And when we guard, it gives us a chance.”
While the final score matched the Bonnies’ 17-point halftime lead, they led by as many as 30 in the second half: 61-31 after a Jones 3-pointer with 7:25 remaining.
Schmidt highlighted the first five minutes of the second half, a frequent focus for the Bonnies. With a 17-point lead, it could shrink down to five, or rise to 28, he said.
“I thought our guys … we played very well in the first five minutes of the second half, better than we did the first five minutes of the game,” he said. “We got some easy baskets, we got defense off of offense. It was a good showing.”
Noel Brown added 10 points. His top backup center, freshman Xander Wedlow, scored seven points, a career-high for the young Bonnie, in 11 minutes.
Freshman Noah Bolanga, the first-option guard off the bench now amid two injuries, played a career-high 22 minutes, tallying two assists.
“Games like this (are) where they can get some confidence,” Schmidt said of bench players like Wedlow and Bolanga. “I thought Noah came off the bench and didn’t play very well against Providence but he played better today. These are the guys that we need to come in and … not play 25 minutes a game, but be productive when they come in and I thought both of them did a really good job.”
For the game, Siena shot just 32.1% to Bona’s 44.1%. The Bonnies held Siena (5-6) without a double-digit scorer with Major Freeman (the Saints’ leading scorer at 14.9 per game) and Devin Bradford each tallying nine points.
Bowen and Jaxon Edwards were inactive again with injuries; Edwards missed his seventh game, Bowen his second.
The win brings Bona to 34-12 all-time over Siena and 9-5 since starting the Franciscan Cup series in 2010. After staying in Albany since Saturday’s win over Providence, the Bonnies return home, looking to close out the non-conference schedule at 12-1 as they face Niagara on Saturday.
