By SPENCER BATES
ST. BONAVENTURE — For a team that has been labeled “not a shooting team” over the course of the first 11 weeks of the season, the St. Bonaventure men’s basketball team shot the lights out as it rolled past Niagara.
The Bonnies’ achieved a number of different accolades in their 71-52 win over the Purple Eagles on Dec. 21. The first being a season-sweep of their Big 4 rivals. The second, and perhaps most importantly, is that they matched the program’s best start to a season as they now sit at 12-1 with non-conference play wrapped up.
Bona was decked out in throwback jerseys from the 1969-70 season, led by the Hall-of-Famer Bob Lanier, the last team to achieve this feat. And for the players on the court, it was a special moment.
“That means a lot,” St. Bonaventure’s co-captain Melvin Council Jr. said. “Going back in history to when players played with those jerseys, for us to put it on and represent St. Bonaventure, that means a lot. Plus, we got the win against a rival.”
And while the Bonnies got to that historical 12-1 record, the way they notched that 12th victory was through a slightly different method.
Bona’s defense, statistically one of the best in the nation, did its job. It held Niagara to under 60 points, the seventh time it has been able to hold an opponent under that threshold this season, and smothered the opposition’s shooters, keeping the visitors to an even 34% tick from the field.
The Bonnies held a +6 rebound margin, forced 12 turnovers to their seven, and finished with seven steals and six blocks.
But what proved to be the difference maker was how much its offense had stepped up.
St. Bonaventure center Noel Brown (24) puts up a hook shot. (St. Bonaventure Athletics)
“We didn’t force any threes for the most part, maybe a couple,” Bona coach Mark Schmidt said. “We were getting open shots, I thought we were driving and kicking, and I’ve said it from the very beginning, we got good shooters, it’s just that sometimes jump shooting is fickle. Sometimes they go in, sometimes they don’t. You don’t win with three point shooting, you win with defense. And I think our guys have got to that point to understand that that’s how we’re going to be successful this year and today was indicative of that.”
Bona drained 11-of-24 3-point attempts on the day, over a 45% tick in that area. Overall, it shot just under that mark from the field as a whole, having finished at 43.6%.
But what made the offense that much more effective from the Bonnies was that they finished with five players, all of whom were starters, in double-figures for scoring.
“We share the ball, we don’t have pigs, we don’t have guys that are selfish,” Schmidt said. “Guys are sharing the ball, and when you have four or five guys in double figures, it makes it more difficult to guard us. There’s not just one guy that they have to stop. They need to stop five guys, and that’s that’s difficult.”
According to Council, who finished with 14 points, the kind of offensive efficiency they mustered up against the Purple Eagles was only a glimpse of what they hope to achieve as the season progresses.
“Most teams, or people around, think we’re just attacker guys, and we’ve been working on our 3s,” Council said. “We’re gonna keep shooting, and we’re gonna always believe that we can shoot, because we work on it in practice and when we have workouts with our coaches. So that’s gonna increase.”
Chance Moore and Lajae Jones each finished with a team-high 16 points for Bona, the latter having earned the “Bona Belt” for the team’s player of the game. Noel Brown’s 13 points and Jonah Hinton’s 10 rounded out the double-digit scorers for the hosts.
But what compounded the headache for the Niagara defense was the fact that the Bonnies were able to produce their offense through their typical means as well, with far from everything coming from the jump-shot.
St. Bonaventure guard Lajae Jones (10) rises up for a layup on the fast break. (St. Bonaventure Athletics)
They beat the Purple Eagles by a 17-0 margin in points off turnovers, dominated the paint, out-scoring their guests 26-14 there and gave up zero second-chance points on the other end.
“We hit some benchmarks,” Schmidt said. “We got to shoot the ball better from the foul line, but we’re getting better. I guess I always talk about it, but we’re not there yet, but we’re improving. We’re going in the right direction. Now, how high is our ceiling? That’s going to be the question.”
Now begins, as Schmidt noted, the next portion of Bona’s season. With non-conference play now in the rear-view mirror, the attention shifts to the Atlantic 10 where it has been granted a difficult task right out of the gate in the form of VCU.
“We’re in our second season,” Schmidt said. “Come December 31st, we get 18 games. It’s great to be 12-1, but that’s not going to help us when we play VCU on the 31st. We got to continue to work … sometimes there’s portions of the game where we play really well, and then there’s areas where we don’t. Our goal is to win the Atlantic 10. Every year that’s our goal and we got to play better individually, better as a team, if we’re going to do that. And it’s going to start off against VCU, which was picked one or two in the (A10) preseason (poll). So, we’re starting off with the big dog.”
The Bonnies have a 10-day break for the holidays, but will tip-off Atlantic 10 action in the Reilly Center against VCU on Dec. 31 at 2 p.m.
