By SPENCER BATES
CHICAGO, IL — At the expense of the St. Bonaventure men’s basketball team, Loyola Chicago grabbed its largest Atlantic 10 win since it joined the conference in 2021.
From the jump, Bona looked disjointed, struggling to click on the offensive end. But perhaps the most telling aspect of its 77-53 loss was its substandard performance on the defensive end.
Des Watson and Sheldon Edwards Jr. were at the top of the scouting report ahead of the game for the Bonnies with Schmidt pointing towards the physicality the duo, and the rest of the Ramblers team for that matter, brings to their games.
Unfortunately, their physicality, along with superb efforts from Miles Rubin and Jayden Dawson, were the ultimate downfall for Bona.
Watson finished with a game-high 17 points and Edwards finished not far behind that tally with 11 of his own. Dawson had a slow start but got hot and finished with 14 points and Rubin rocked the rim on a number of occasions, including a stretch where he punished the iron for three straight Rambler baskets, finishing with 15 points.
Meanwhile for the Bonnies, Melvin Council Jr. had the team-high with 13 points and was supported by 11 and 10-point efforts, respectively, from Chance Moore and Jonah Hinton. Meanwhile, Noel Brown and Lajae Jones were prevented from making an impact, the duo shooting a combined 1-for-8 from the field.
“They were just more physical than us,” Schmidt said. “Sometimes it looked like a man amongst boys, they just got into us physically. We’re not going to win many games when Noel doesn’t have a field goal. But physically, they got into us. In the first half I thought we played decent defense and we were competing. Then, when they got on a little bit of a run, our offense stalled and then they were getting run-outs and stuff. We were always playing on our heels. When a team’s more physical, you’re not going to have good results.”
The Ramblers locked down Brown (0-for-4 FG), who scored just four points, all from free throws, after tying his career-high in points with 22 just a few days earlier against Fordham. Inside he, and Xander Wedlow for that matter, were doubled. And for Schmidt, who likes to program his offense to work from the inside-out, that became the root of the problems on offense.
“They were double teaming Noel right away on the pass, from the ball side. And Noel made some tough decisions and it was just a difficult game. Like I said, when Noel doesn’t get a basket, we don’t have an inside presence and we’re going to struggle. I’m not blaming Noel, we just didn’t play. They had us on our heels the whole night.”
As a team, Bona finished the night just 10-for-21 on layup attempts specifically and making matters worse, Loyola Chicago pushed the ball out in transition and won 16-6 in fast break points.
“Our offense started 40 feet from the basket,” Schmidt said. “We just didn’t have any answers tonight.”
St. Bonaventure will hope to find some answers before its next game, a home affair against George Washington on Feb. 9 at 12 p.m.
“Now, we gotta protect the home court,” Schmidt said. “We got to bounce back and hopefully we’ll do that.”
