By SPENCER BATES
ST. BONAVENTURE — For the first time this season, the St. Bonaventure men’s basketball team has fallen in consecutive games, dropping an 83-82 OT heartbreaker to La Salle.
After having fallen in its most recent game, a road fixture at Saint Louis, the Bonnies had the opportunity to respond just three days later. However, according to Bona coach Mark Schmidt, the little things fell by the wayside when they welcomed La Salle into the Reilly Center for its first home game of the 2025 calendar year.
“You can’t regress,” Schmidt said. “As I say all the time, teams and players never stay the same. Either you get better or you get worse, and if you don’t continue to work at it, then you’re not going to improve. We got to get back to the drawing board and make sure that we’re doing what we’re supposed to do individually, especially on the defensive end, to stop people.”
Bona and La Salle battled with neither side extending the lead beyond three possessions. The hosts, briefly after coming out of the halftime interval, compiled a nine-point lead which was the largest by either team over the course of the game. However, sloppy plays on defense allowed the visitors to reassert themselves with back-to-back 3-pointers immediately afterward.
In the dying moments of regulation, Bona drew fouls and kept the offense chugging along with six consecutively drained free throws between Noel Brown and Melvin Council Jr., leading to a 71-69 lead with just under a minute left. But, once again, the Explorers conjured a response and put themselves up three with just 46 seconds remaining. It took a driving and-1 layup from Council to knot things up once more.
La Salle had an opportunity for a game-winner in regulation but several tip-ins rimmed out. But, it did not let the opportunity go begging a second time.
Once again, the Bonnies held a two-point lead late in overtime and were nearing the finish line before Deuce Jones drained a deep 3-pointer moving through the air on the left wing with 0.3 seconds remaining.
And as Bona’s hail mary attempt at a winner slipped through the hands of Chance Moore, so too did the response Schmidt was in search of after their previous loss.
“Everybody will talk about the last shot going in … but it shouldn’t ever come down to that,” Schmidt said. “It’s the attention to details. When you give up 27 points off of turnovers and you get six … it’s amazing that the game was that close. Again, we make 11 3s, but they make 13. … Every time we made a mistake, it just seemed like they made us pay.”
St. Bonaventure center Noel Brown (24) rises up for a hook shot. (Hunter O. Lyle)
This, Schmidt noted, was, in a way, a taste of their own medicine as winning the points off turnovers category has been one of the most prominent calling cards of the Bonnies offense this season.
“We played hard, we just didn’t play smart, and we got to get back to the attention to detail (and) doing the little things,” Schmidt said. “I thought that’s what hurt us in the end, points off turnovers, you can’t lose by 21. Usually, that’s what we’ve been doing to teams, and that’s why we’ve had some success. But today, they got us.”
And while the stars of La Salle made their mark on the game, it was a handful of the role players that caused the biggest issues for Bona — a similar problem to what Schmidt saw in the team’s loss at SLU.
Corey McKeithan, Eric Acker, Daeshon Shepherd and Jahlil White were the four players that entered the game for the Explorers averaging double-figure points. The Bonnies were able to hold McKeithan and Acker to nine points apiece, White to five and Shepherd to 14. But it was Demetrius Lilley and Deuce Jones (who came into the game averaging 7.9 and 9.3 points per game respectively) that carried the offense with 16 points apiece.
“McKeithan is a really good player, and we did a decent job on him,” Schmidt said. “But it’s those role guys. Shepherd always hurts us, but Jones and Lilley … really hurt us. But those guys played well and give them credit. … Now we got to go back and correct things and work on things and get better.”
Bona’s co-captain Brown echoed the sentiment of his coach.
“It just sucks to lose, no one wants to lose, we don’t want to lose a game, but you have to take these on the chin, you have to learn from them, you have to move, you have to correct it as soon as you can,” Brown said. “Life is a pivoting thing, you can’t do anything to change the (outcome of the) game. But you can learn what you did wrong and then move forward as a team together.”
A bright spot for Bona against La Salle was Lajae Jones, who was one missed field goal away from a perfect stat line. He finished 8-for-9 from the field, 4-for-4 from deep and 4-for-4 from the charity stripe for a game-high 24 points to go along with a team-high eight rebounds. And while Schmidt was satisfied with how reliable Lajae has become, the most important thing is that the rest of the team finds that consistency.
“From an offensive standpoint, he played well,” Schmidt said of Lajae Jones. “You know, you score 82 points, you should win. But we’re not doing the little things.”
Bona will have its chance to right the ship and get back to winning ways in its next outing, a home game against Richmond on Jan. 15. Tip-off for that game is slated for 7 p.m.
