By SPENCER BATES
ST. BONAVENTURE — The St. Bonaventure men’s basketball team suffered yet another heart-wrenching loss late against Saint Joseph’s on Feb. 18.
It was another addition to the unfortunate trend the team has had since Atlantic 10 play began of not being able to close out games.
The Bonnies had put together a 14-2 run to give them the lead late after a poor start to the second half saw their grip on the game slip. But over the final 5.5 minutes of action, they saw just one shot from the field fall through the hoop.
In the meantime, St. Joe’s took advantage and swung the game right back in their favor, just like they did in the reverse fixture.
Now, it’s easy to sit idly by and wonder why the team has been unable to find itself on the winning end of at least some of these close games. According to head coach Mark Schmidt, it is not that easy. Not only is it about making the right plays in the clutch, but now, it’s also about breaking a habit.
“You learn how to win by winning. You learn how to lose by losing,” Schmidt said. “I told the team, if we had pulled out half of the games that we were leading with three, four minutes left, we’d be 20-6. But we’ve lost them all. … You learn to win by putting yourself in those situations and coming out on top. You learn to lose, and you lose confidence when it’s (the opposite). … That’s the thing that you struggle with, especially now, with NIL and the portal. You only have guys for seven months. So it’s not like you can build on top of it next year and get better. Next year we’re going to have another 10 new guys. The hope is that we learn to win early.”
All that being said, there was a silver lining in the most recent St. Joe’s game.
Andrew Osasuyi came one block shy of tying the program record for the most blocks in a single game with a career-high tally of eight. His presence in the paint alone is making teams rethink their offense when he’s on the floor. Look no further than the point differential of DeJour Reaves in Bona’s first and second games against Fordham this season. He went from 31 points on 9-for-17 shooting in game one to 12 points on 3-for-7 shooting in game two — Osasuyi played 11 minutes in game one and 30 minutes in game two.
“His defense is so far ahead of his offense,” Schmidt said. “He’s a rim protector, like (Osun Osunniyi) or Andrew Nicholson. When guys go in there and there’s nobody that they’re fearful of it’s like 1-on-0, but having somebody that can protect and can make up for mistakes, it’s critical.”
It was a no fly zone when Osasuyi was in against the Hawks, but while he did inject energy into the game and elicited significant roars from the Bona faithful, he tallied just 17 minutes. Schmidt noted that due to his offense being significantly behind his defense, he can cause the offense to sputter at times when he isn’t open for an emphatic lob dunk.
“Sometimes it’s hard to play him, he’s not in the best shape, that was the struggle early,” Schmidt said. “With him and Frank in there, there’s not a lot of spacing, so it creates some problems offensively. I wish it was like hockey or lacrosse, when we go on offense we can make changes.”
Another Bona player that has struggled with his offense recently is Daniel Egbuniwe. Since his 19-point outburst at LaSalle back on Jan. 17, he has hit double figures in the score column just once. And in his last three games has combined for six points. Schmidt had previously spoken about how Egbuniwe needed to step up his impact on the boards — something he has done as of late. But what can’t be lost in his dedication to rebounding is his scoring, especially with the limited numbers the team has.
“He needs to put the ball in the basket when he has open shots and he can’t turn the ball over,” Schmidt said. “He’s got to guard his position, he needs to rebound like he did the other day (against St. Joe’s), but he’s got to hit open shots. He’s capable of doing that, but he hasn’t done it in a while, and we need him to do that.”
Where Osasuyi needs to step up on the offensive end is, frankly, in the words of Schmidt, everywhere except at the rim. Being mainly a lob threat on offense leaves him too one-dimensional and going against a defense like the Bonnies will against Richmond on Feb. 21, that space near the rim won’t be there as often.
“What Andrew can do now is just roll and dunk,” Schmidt said. “He’s got to be able to shoot that 16, 17-footer. He’s got to be able to hold his position so we can go inside and we can do some high-low stuff with him. … His strengths right now are running the court, defense and the lob stuff. But a lot of times the lobs are taken away, like Richmond plays back, so the lobs are taken away.”
Bona fell 89-80 to Richmond in the first meeting between the sides this season, back on Jan. 7. In that game, Will Johnston scored a game-high 24 points, all in the second half, as the Bonnies’ defense could not find an answer for him. They also lost the free throw and fast break point categories by significant margins.
But after starting the A10 portion of the calendar 3-2, the Spiders have won just one of their last nine games and Schmidt sees similarities between his team and the one led by the only other coach with a longer tenure than him in the conference in Chris Mooney.
“If you have a hard time finishing, then you can’t win, because every game is going to come down to the last two or three minutes, it’s been like that since I’ve been the coach here,” Schmidt said. “(Richmond have) struggled in that regard, similar to us. In game one, they shot 30 foul shots. They were plus-15 on the foul line, plus-23 in fast break points. So I believe that’s like a plus-38. It’s amazing that we were in the game. We can’t lose the fast break game by that many points. We can’t lose the foul shot game by that many points if we’re going to have a chance to win.”
AJ Lopez leads Richmond with a team-high 12.9 points per game. Freshman Aiden Argabright is the only other player that averages double figures for the Spiders with 10.8 points per game alongside 2.3 assists per contest.
St. Bonaventure will tip-off at Richmond on Feb. 21 at 6 p.m.
