By SPENCER BATES
ST. BONAVENTURE — The Atlantic 10 Conference is a chaotic beast, one in which just about anything can happen, even a team with 10 new players topping the preseason favorite on opening night.
Luckily for the St. Bonaventure men’s basketball team, that is exactly what it accomplished in its dramatic 77-75 win over VCU.
Bona coach Mark Schmidt alluded before his team’s A10 opener that the games ahead of them will all come down to a handful of possessions. A statement that rang true as his Bonnies found a way — via a game-winning layup from Melvin Council Jr. — to overcome the Rams’ challenge.
With 14 seconds left the Bonnies and Rams were knotted up at 75. The ball was inbounded to Council and he, according to Schmidt, made “a great read” as he drove with a head full of steam into the chest of a VCU defender before rising up and, with expert control, laying in the game-winner.
However, Council noted that originally, the play was not intended for him. Instead, the play was drawn up for Noel Brown, his fellow co-captain. But after some reassuring words from Brown, Council — Bona’s Player of the Game and recipient of the “Bona Belt” — saw the lane and took his opportunity.
“Really I was looking for Noel, but Noel told me in the huddle, ‘If I seal (the defender), just lay the ball up.’ And Noel did a perfect seal and I was open.”
The game was poised for a moment such as Council’s winning bucket from the jump. For two sides who entered the fixture atop the A10 in scoring defense, it was the offenses that flowed. The scores were tied 10 times and the lead had changed hands 16 times, with no side taking more than a two-possession advantage. The biggest Bona lead was six points while VCU only managed to grab a one-point advantage, albeit on several occasions. And for both sides, the biggest scoring run was just six points.
But as close as the affair was, Bona kept their noses in front for the majority of the time, holding the lead for just under 28 minutes compared to VCU’s 5.5 minutes.
“We just took what they gave us,” Schmidt said. “We attacked, we got to the foul line, went 14 out of 19 there. (VCU is) just a really good team. … But we knew it was going to be a close game, and we were going to have to make some plays, and we were going to have to get lucky at times. But our guys fought through and it was good to see, because it was some adversity. We had the lead, they took the lead and we could have folded, and we made the plays when we needed to make the plays.”
Council and Brown both scored a team-high 20 points against the Rams with Jonah Hinton and Lajae Jones adding 16 and 11, respectively, to the tally. Chance Moore, the team’s leading scorer on the season, struggled on the night as he failed to record a point in the first half. He did make a relative impact on the scoresheet in the end, finishing with eight points before fouling out late. But what he may have lacked in terms of points on the night, Schmidt was satisfied with the effort he brought on the glass.
St. Bonaventure guard Melvin Council Jr. (11) celebrates after being named the team’s Player of the Game and being honored with his second “Bona Belt” of the season. (St. Bonaventure Athletics/Craig Melvin)
“He’s not going to have it all the time,” Schmidt said of Moore. “But to have 12 rebounds against that team, says a lot. He’s really the only guy that we have that can really go get it. He can get above the rim and get an off offensive or defensive rebound, and we’re going to need that. He responded. He didn’t play great in the first half, but he responded. And that’s good to see at this point in the season.”
And while pleased with the way his team was able to get the job done, Schmidt noted that there is a long way for his team to go, even on the defensive end of the floor, an area in which they have excelled so far this season. He noted they did a good job defensively on Max Shulga and Joe Bamisile, VCU’s leading point scorers, but faltered in other areas.
Phillip Russell scored a game-high 26 points for the Rams on 10-of-16 shooting from the floor and 6-of-12 shooting from beyond the 3-point arc.
“We are a work in progress,” Schmidt said. “We’re not there, we’re not playing our A-game. We’re not even close to our ceiling, and I’m not sure if we can get there or not, but (VCU’s) an attacking team. Every one of those guys can take you off the bounce, and they try to go after mismatches. … We had some breakdowns, giving up 11 threes, they average 10, our goal was to keep them to seven or less. But, I thought our guys fought. We didn’t do a great job all the time on the backboard, but we got enough rebounds (and) we played physical enough to come out with the victory.”
But, Schmidt alluded, this is far from the only adversity this Bona team, full of new names, is going to face. The new-look Bonnies scored a big A10-opening win over the team picked to walk away with the silverware come the end of the season. But, no matter the opposition, he wants his players to expect the same level of competition on a nightly basis.
“Every game in the Atlantic 10 is like a playoff game,” Schmidt said. “It’s going to come down to the last two or three minutes. It’s going to come down to the last two or three possessions. That’s what you practice for. You practice for those situations. And that’s why our guys come here, to play in the Atlantic 10, to play in this type of environment, against a team of that caliber. That’s why it’s so satisfying to come out with a victory.”
To sum up the affair, Schmidt put it plainly:
“A great college basketball game.”
