By SPENCER BATES
ST. BONAVENTURE — With just over a minute left to play, the St. Bonaventure men’s basketball team held a slim lead over its oldest rival in Duquesne.
Behind an incredibly positive second half, Bona had clawed all the way back from what was, at one point, an 18-point hole. They had shut down the airspace from beyond the 3-point arc. They had seen some tough baskets fall.
But on this Valentine’s Day affair, the Dukes ripped out the hearts of the Bonnies as two unanswered 3-pointers against the run of play with mere seconds left on the clock saw Bona suffer a 78-73 defeat.
Jimmie Williams ultimately provided the dagger for the Dukes, sinking the latter of the two late 3s from near half court. But Bona head coach Mark Schmidt did not believe that Duquesne’s answered prayer of an attempt was the main culprit for the loss.
Sure, it was the nail in the coffin, but his team’s poor first half was what had them in that situation in the first place.
“We got off to a bad start, but give the Duquesne credit, they made eight 3s in the first half, they got 14 points off turnovers in the first half, and you just cannot do that, especially against a team like Duquesne,” Schmidt said. “If they win fast break points and they win points off turnovers, you got no chance. … That last shot that Williams hit, that didn’t win the game. What won the game, what lost us the game, was the way we came out in the first 10 minutes of the first half. That’s the difference.”
The Dukes were unconscious from 3-point range in the first half, making eight of their first 11 attempts from range. That inability to close out, compounded by the eight turnovers Bona conceded that its guests turned into 14 points, was a deadly cocktail.
As for those turnovers, Frank Mitchell was responsible for four. In his own words, he described the energy the team came out with as timid and tentative. They were scared to mess up, which led to botched possessions and turnovers being the outcome on a number of plays.
“We just played tight and were scared to make a mistake, and that leads us to make a mistake,” Mitchell said. “We work in (the system) enough. It has nothing to do with the coaching staff. It has something to do with the players. We have to keep coming in here, working and being confident. At the end of the day, the coaching staff tells us what we have to do … and we just have to find a way to do it. Players make plays, and we have to just find that one player amongst each other to do that whenever it’s crunch time.”
With just over seven minutes to play before half, Duquesne had established its 18-point advantage. Bona had managed to cut that down to 12 heading into the break, a time Schmidt spent challenging his players to find some level of consistency.
“The effort has to be consistent,” Schmidt said. “It’s not like we’re not playing hard. We’re just not disciplined enough. We turn the ball over and they have 11 points off of turnovers in the first six minutes. You just can’t do that against a good team. We got good players, and we know that we’re not supposed to do that, but we’re doing that. At halftime, you just challenge them and they came out and, give them credit, they showed some character. They fought back. … It just seems every time we make a mistake, they make you pay. That’s what the league does, and that’s what good players do and that’s what’s happened.”
St. Bonaventure’s Cayden Charles (24) looks to drive from the wing against Duquesne. Charles scored 16 points for the Bonnies in their loss to the Dukes. (Derek Gumtow)
Schmidt’s call to action did, inevitably, evoke a positive response.
The Bonnies won the second half by seven points. They took their first lead of the game since it was 2-0 at 64-63. Mitchell and Darryl ‘Buddy’ Simmons II came alive, with the former recording a 20-point, 13-rebound double-double without giving up another turnover the rest of the way. Simmons finished with 11 points and five rebounds and hit a handful of important baskets down the stretch to keep the Bonnies alive. Cayden Charles and Dasonte Bowen both tallied double-figure points as well with 16 and 18, respectively. Charles also grabbed seven rebounds.
Even though the underwhelming first half was what Schmidt noted was the main culprit in the loss, he was still critical of how his side closed out the game. The Bona defense had walled up well over the course of the second half, but as the game crept into the dying minutes, it was just simply unable to get the stop it so desperately needed.
“We outscored them by 17 at one point, we just can’t get that stop when we need to get the stop,” Schmidt said. “We were right there, but our margin for error is really small. It’s not that we have to play perfect, but when the game’s on the line, you got to make those plays, and we’ve had a difficult time making them.”
The second half was more akin to how Schmidt wants his team to play, and according to him, it’s not that they changed something that forced the game to become more competitive, they just did the things they knew at a better rate.
“We ran the same stuff that we were in the first half, we just ran it better,” Schmidt said. “We ran it more aggressive, Frank was rolling harder, we just played with more of a sense of urgency. We need to do that at the beginning of games.”
The loss dropped St. Bonaventure to 3-9 in the Atlantic 10 and the team will now officially finish conference play .500 or worse for the fourth consecutive year. It will look to get back on track at home against Saint Joseph’s next time out on Feb. 18 at 7 p.m.
