By SPENCER BATES
FORT MYERS, FL — While the St. Bonaventure men’s basketball team suffered its first defeat of the season, it was not due to a lack of effort.
The Bonnies, eventually falling 85-70, were faced with the tall task of taking on No. 16 North Carolina in their first game of the Fort Myers Tip-Off, and to their credit, they did not roll over for the Tarheels.
“I’m really proud of our guys, I thought we handled some adversity,” Bona head coach Mark Schmidt said. “We didn’t get off to a great start, they had us by 10, maybe even a little bit more than that, and I thought we really dealt with adversity, came back, and had a chance to take the lead with the last play of the first half. But then to begin in the second half, we came out a little bit tentative. Give Carolina credit, in the second half we had a hard time rebounding the ball. … But I thought we hung in there. We had 36 points to their 36 points in the paint, and we didn’t turn the ball over. I thought we did a decent job against a really talented, well-coached team.”
Hubert Davis’ UNC team showed exactly who they were in the opening minutes of the game, extending their advantage to as many as 11 points through big buckets from Henri Veesaar, Caleb Wilson and Luka Bogavac. But the initial blow was not enough to knock Bona out. In fact, much in part thanks to a spark from the bench and an increased defensive intensity, the Bonnies roared back into contention.
After its stunted start on offense, the first three off the bench for Schmidt were Daniel Egbuniwe, Ilia Ermakov and Amar’e Marshall. It was that trio that managed to right the ship and pull Bona back into the affair.
“The bench is really important, we have good numbers coming off the bench, and they got to continue to do that,” Schmidt said. “They were a spark, that’s one of the reasons why we came back in the first half. Hopefully they gained some experience, especially Ilia. It’s a positive.”
That group also played a major role in the seven steals and three blocks Bona had in the first half. In total, the Tarheels finished the first 20 minutes of action with 11 turnovers, which the Bonnies exchanged for 10 points.
“(North Carolina) missed some shots, I thought we executed better on offense, we got some offense off of our defense and we made some shots, that always helps,” Schmidt said. “But I thought we got some stops. I just thought we dealt with adversity. We didn’t splinter. The timeouts, the huddles were really positive. It’s something that we can grow from.”
St. Bonaventure’s Darryl ‘Buddy’ Simmons II (8) pulls up from mid-range against North Carolina. Simmons recorded a team-high 22 points against the Tarheels. (Hunter O. Lyle)
The Bonnies had the lead with as little as 5:52 left in the first half, and frankly the advantage they held could have been more. On a number of occasions, the ball just couldn’t be roped in and thanks to the size and strength UNC possesses, it still got the occasional bucket so as to not let the game completely slip away.
Schmidt was happy with the resiliency his side showed. But, in the same breath, he admitted that the loss still hurt because this game was in no way one his team took lightly.
“We had so many opportunities where we could have got the ball and it fell out of our hands and give Carolina credit,” Schmidt said. “But from a defensive standpoint, they’re big and we had a hard time getting over the screens, and that seam pass was hurting us a little bit. But overall, I thought we hung in there. But as I told our team, we weren’t here for moral victory. We were here to win. It’s disappointing to come up short, it’s our first loss, but now we’ll see how we can bounce back.”
The second half was when UNC really pulled ahead, this time leaving no room for a Bona resurgence.
Veesaar, after scoring just eight points in the first half, ultimately finished with a double-double of 24 points and 13 rebounds — both of which were career-high marks. Wilson recorded a double-double as well, getting to the free throw line effectively while amassing 20 points and 12 rebounds. Kyan Evans (11 points) and Bogavac (10 points) rounded out UNC’s double-figure scorers.
The main contributors for Bona were Darryl ‘Buddy’ Simmons II, who finished with a team-high 22 points and three assists, and Frank Mitchell, who had 18 points and a joint-team-high six rebounds.
Mitchell’s matchup on the night was Veesaar and with both players scoring as many as they did, respectively, it paints an accurate picture of how physical and important the battle under the basket was to this game.
“That was just two bigs playing basketball,” Mitchell said. “I don’t think anyone bullied anyone. We just came out here and played basketball, played the right way. Credit goes to him, he’s a hell of a player. … At the end of the game the result is the result and that’s it.”
Mitchell shared the team-high in rebounds with Cayden Charles, who had a season-low six points against UNC. In every game this season up to this point, Charles had finished with double-figures in the scoring department, which is why stopping him was high up on the priority list of Davis going into the game.
“One of the things that Cayden is really good at is getting offensive rebounds and he only got two offensive rebounds (tonight), that’s huge,” Davis said. “Coming into the game, I think they were sixth in the country in offensive rebounding percentage, so it was a big key for us to limit them to one shot every possession. They still got 11 offensive rebounds, but it wasn’t where they had been in their previous five games. In regards to Cayden, he’s a really good driver and a really good offensive rebounder, and we did a good job of boxing him out.”
St. Bonaventure’s Andrew Osasuyi (33) gets up to swat a layup from North Carolina’s Caleb Wilson (8). (Hunter O. Lyle)
For the Bonnies, the matchup with the Tarheels was far and away its toughest challenge of the early season. And while a 15-point loss is not what any team wants at any point of the season, it could have been by 20 or more if their heads had dropped. That willingness to fight is ultimately what Schmidt was most pleased with.
“I thought our guys got their feet underneath them and really responded,” Schmidt said. “That’s something that we can take away from here. You never want to lose, and this is the first time we’ve lost. But I thought we handled the crowd, we handled the adversity the way I wanted us to. Hopefully we can grow from here.”
St. Bonaventure is set to play its second and final game of the Fort Myers Tip-Off on Nov. 27 at 12 p.m. against East Carolina.
