By SPENCER BATES
ST. BONAVENTURE — The metaphorical monkey is off the backs of the St. Bonaventure men’s basketball team.
Through five games, the Bonnies had failed to pick up an Atlantic 10 win and sat rock bottom of the conference table as the only team without a win. It had been the program’s worst start to conference play since they started 0-6 in the 2007-08 season.
And through 20 minutes of action, it looked as though the team was on track to tie that record as they trailed Loyola Chicago 42-30 at halftime.
The deficit posed a significant problem for Bona, as the later minutes have been its ultimate downfall over its last five games.
But there’s no time quite like the present to flip the script.
Paying no mind to the struggles that have plagued them as of late, and thanks to a dominant second half performance, the Bonnies scored their first A10 win of the year, topping the Ramblers 84-70.
“In the first half I thought we played like the reason why we’ve lost five games,” Bona head coach Mark Schmidt said. “Our defense wasn’t good. We didn’t have a lot of energy. We missed a lot of open shots. Our ball screen defense wasn’t very good. But I thought in the second half, you saw the energy, the body language (was better), we were that much more active. We did a better job on the ball screens. We made some shots, that helped. … Buddy finally knocked down shots, and hopefully that gets them going.”
For Schmidt, the first few minutes coming out of the break, no matter the score, are sacred. They give you a glimpse as to how the remainder of the affair is going to go.
Fortunately for him, through just under four minutes into the half, his side had cut what was a 14-point deficit to just five.
Loyola did manage to find an answer and restore a double-figure lead, but they had no response for the storm they were about to get hit by in the middle portion of the second half.
The Bonnies, spurred on by a sizable crowd that featured a full student section for the first time in a month, engaged in a full on assault of the Ramblers basket with a 24-3 scoring run. Expanding the run even further, Bona emphatically turned the tables on its guests with a 31-9 swing.
St. Bonaventure’s Darryl ‘Buddy’ Simmons II (8) puts up a 3-pointer against Loyola Chicago. Simmons scored a game-high 26 points for the Bonnies in their win over the Ramblers. (Hunter O. Lyle)
There was a pep in the Bonnies’ step as they exuded energy and confidence. Nobody more than Darryl ‘Buddy’ Simmons II, who scored 15 of his team’s points during its 24-3 run.
In Bona’s last game, at La Salle, Simmons finished with four points on just 2-for-7 shooting and went 0-3 from beyond the arc. He entered the half against the Ramblers with just five points on 2-for-9 shooting, but in the second half, ‘Buddy Ball’ made a resounding return.
Simmons scored 21 second-half points to finish with a game-high 26 on 7-for-17 shooting and 6-for-13 from 3-point range.
“I was really trying to just let the game come to me,” Simmons said. “Basketball is a game of runs. You make and miss shots, so I just had to keep on being confident and keep on trusting my work that I’ve been doing throughout the whole year.”
Alongside Simmons, Frank Mitchell (18 points, 11 rebounds) and Cayden Charles (16 points, 10 rebounds) finished with double-doubles. But not one of those three were awarded the Bona Belt by Schmidt. The title of game MVP, instead, went to Andrew Osasuyi, who may have only scored two points, but was the figurehead of an exemplary performance from the team’s bench as he finished +15. Joe Grahovac, who played just two minutes in the team’s loss against La Salle also came up with a big performance.
The development of those two are critical for the Bonnies down the stretch, and against the Ramblers, they showed the kind of impact they can have.
“Andrew didn’t have but two points, but he was a difference maker,” Schmidt said. “And I thought Joe came off (the bench) and played defense, got a couple rebounds and made some shots and played with a lot more energy and confidence than he has in the last two or three games. That’s good to see, and hopefully that can pull him forward. Him coming off the bench, I think, is a positive for him. … He made decisive decisions. He wasn’t hesitant, he wasn’t playing on eggshells. He was aggressive, and even if he missed those shots, those are good shots, and those are shots that Joe needs to take.”
All in all, Bona won just about every single major category en route to the big win. And for as much as the offense stole the show, the team’s late-game defense did not go unnoticed by Schmidt. For a team that has struggled to close out games, the Bonnies dominated the turnover battle 16-4 and racked up 25 fast break points in the second half alone.
“The biggest part of the game is those five things: points off turnovers, points in the paint, second chance points, fast break points and bench points. And we won four out of five,” Schmidt said. “Usually when you win three, it gives you a legitimate chance to win. When you win four, you’ll probably win. When you win five, you’ll always win. We did a better job not fouling them, and a better job at the foul line. We made more foul shots than they took. And that’s another big stat.”
St. Bonaventure’s Andrew Osasuyi (33) skies for a dunk against Loyola Chicago. (Hunter O. Lyle)
In just about every practical sense, the win was massive for Bona. Not just because it was its first conference win of the season, but because it showed what this team can do when they are all pushing in the same direction. Mitchell noted that the players were sick of feeling they had after the recent losses and, come halftime, made it a goal to right the ship one way or another.
“We didn’t want to feel the way we have been feeling for the last five games,” Mitchell said. “The coaching staff had said what we needed to do over and over again and it was our hands. … The coaches can only do so much, we’re out there playing. So, we talked and said, ‘We’re not trying to go for another loss and feel the same way. Let’s come out here and let’s have some fun with it and play like you want to win.’ And that’s what we did.”
Bona is now officially off the blocks in the A10 and the race is far from over. Schmidt knows this and while he acknowledged his team is still far from its ceiling, it has to use this win as a major stepping stone to get where they want to be.
“Maybe not in the Richmond game, but we had a chance in all the other four games in the second half, and we let them slip through our fingers,” Schmidt said. “This is the time. We’ve got to go and we got to play. We’re not going to win every game, but we’re going to compete. And we’ve competed, but we just haven’t pulled it out. This was a conference builder for us.”
St. Bonaventure will look to build on the win in its next game, a gargantuan fixture against the recently ranked No. 24 Saint Louis Billikens at the Reilly Center on Jan. 23 at 5:30 p.m.
