By SPENCER BATES
NEW YORK — For just about the entirety of the campaign thus far, St. Bonaventure women’s basketball coach Jim Crowley has longed for a complete-game performance from his players.
Against Fordham, he got just that.
Prior to entering Rose Hill Gymnasium, Crowley’s Bonnies had been put through the ringer over their last three games: losses to Richmond, Davidson and Saint Joseph’s — all top-five Atlantic 10 teams — coming by 38, 38 and 27 points respectively. But that perilous stretch was only going to come to an end after facing one more top-five team in the Rams.
But, instead of folding after enduring a number of consecutive crushing losses, Bona went straight at Fordham and maintained a consistent aggressive presence in the Bronx.
And although the fixture still wound up as another loss for the Bonnies, their fifth in-a-row, it was far from another heavy defeat. In fact, it took some late-game heroics from the Rams, in the form of two clutch buckets from Taylor Donaldson, to pull off the narrow victory and down the Bonnies 51-49.
“To be honest with you, I think from the last three games we played, I thought we put a consistent effort together,” Crowley said. “We defended, we fouled a lot, but we only broke down a few times defensively and we made them beat us. Donaldson had the two pretty big shots there at the end, we had a couple good looks that didn’t fall, but we didn’t do anything to beat ourselves. We made them beat us, and to their credit, they did.”
As of late the most glaring problem that faced Bona was its slow starts to games. Against Fordham, it put those struggles in the past and won the opening frame 17-11. And while its offense did slow down at times, its defense remained stout when called upon.
Despite giving up 15 offensive rebounds, the Bonnies conceded just eight second chance points, and off their 19 turnovers, they allowed just 17 points. Now, obviously, Crowley does not want to be giving up that number of offensive boards and turnovers each night, but against the Rams he was satisfied that they caused little to no detriment to themselves.
“We rebounded the ball better, we played more physical, our early defense was much better, we didn’t bail people out, we controlled a lot of things,” Crowley said. “We turned it over more than I would have liked, I think some of that is our minutes and the way (Fordham) plays. But, we didn’t do a lot of things to hurt ourselves, which is ultimately where we want to end up.”
On the offensive end, Bona saw success through a number of methods, but more often than not, the scoring was being done by Zoe Shaw, who broke her previous career-high of 19 points, which was set just a mere number of days prior, with a 22-point performance against Fordham. Shaw not only scored, but did so with incredible efficiency as well, shooting 64.3% from the field and an even 40% from 3-point range.
Backing her up as the only other Bona player to finish in double figures was Caitlin Frost, who bounced back from a scoreless outing at Saint Joseph’s with a 13-point, 10-rebound double-double.
“(Caitlin) had a rough game on Wednesday and this is her response, that’s something to really build on,” Crowley said. “Zoe had the ball taken away from her at one point, then she drove it right down and scored. Obviously I like them won, but these are my kind of games. This is February, March basketball, where two teams know each other, and you got to earn it. Hopefully we can continue to build on that. This has been a challenging stretch, but I’m seeing some pretty good character out of our group, which isn’t surprising.”
In the end, the game stands as another tally in the loss column for Bona, but as Crowley noted, he and his team have much to build on, because not only are the individual performances of his freshmen continuing to improve, but so too is the mental strength within them.
“(Fordham) haven’t lost a home conference game all year, they beat Richmond here,” Crowley said. “It’s a good ball club. And while I think we’ve been pretty good in close games … it’s different when you’re on the road against a conference opponent. It’s different when you’ve been on the road all week and it’s the first week of classes, and you’re missing your classes, and you played back-to-back road games, and you played three straight games (where) things haven’t gone great. So, when you put all that together and see the resolve and resiliency when we’re playing with so many first-time kids, I’m really proud of them.”
St. Bonaventure will have the chance to get back in the win column, using the momentum it currently has after the slim loss, on Jan. 29 when it faces La Salle at home. Tip-off for that game is set for 6 p.m.
