By SPENCER BATES
ST. BONAVENTURE — The St. Bonaventure men’s basketball team put a bow on its regular season home schedule, surviving an end-to-end affair with UMass.
The Bonnies got the better of the Minutemen 73-72 in the final A10 meeting between the sides, completing a season sweep after having defeated them in Amherst previously on the season.
However, the biggest difference between the first meeting and this one was that in the game back on Feb. 15, UMass was without its primary ball-handler in Jaylen Curry.
His 16 points, four rebounds and three assists gave the Bona defense some trouble on the night, especially as he was paired alongside Rahsool Diggins, who added another 18 points, four rebounds and two assists to the Minutemen’s total.
“With Curry and Diggins, it’s just (about) trying to make it as hard as you can on them,” Bona coach Mark Schmidt said. “And I thought we did. We gave them a couple open looks in the first half, a couple in the second half. But overall, I thought we got to them and made them put it down.”
And it was the latter of the duo that had the ball in his hands with time expiring, heaving up a prayer that, much to Bona’s satisfaction, symbolized by center Noel Brown throwing both hands in the air in victory, missed the mark.
“It wasn’t the best game from an offensive and defensive standpoint,” Schmidt said. “We gave up too many offensive rebounds, I thought they got into the paint a little bit too much, but give our guys credit. I thought we did a good job on the last possession, making it really, really difficult on Diggins.”
Bona was led in the scoring category by Lajae Jones’ 15 points, but the entire team played a big role in the overall offensive effort. Co-captains Melvin Council Jr. and Brown netted 14 points apiece, Chance Moore finished just behind them with 13 to his name and rounding out the starters was Jonah Hinton, who finished with nine. Jones, Council and Moore roped in six rebounds apiece as well.
But despite the high offensive efficiency from the Bonnies’ starters, the Bona Belt went to Duane Thompson, who finished with eight points, four boards and zero turnovers in 14 minutes of action off the bench.
“I thought Duane was the MVP of the game,” Schmidt said. “He hasn’t played a lot, but we got some injuries, and we put Duane in at the five. Duane is (6-foot, 5-inches) and for him to come in and get eight and four, it was big for us. So he got the Belt.”
Ultimately, the back-and-forth affair ended in favor of Bona on the night, but the newest tally in the win column represents far more than the average victory. The win was Bona’s 20th on the season, a threshold that has been reached, now, seven times under Schmidt and 19 times in the history of the program. A great marker to reach, Schmidt noted, but one in which he and his team intend on surpassing as it looks to enter the fast-approaching A10 tournament with some momentum.
“Overall, it’s a good victory, it’s the 20th victory … that’s the bench benchmark for a season,” Schmidt said. “But we want more. We’re going to go to Davidson, playing a really good Davidson team down there, and then we go to (Washington) D.C., and our goal is to get some momentum going into D.C. and win the tournament. That’s the only way that we’re going to get to the NCAA tournament. That’s been the goal since we started this thing.”
St. Bonaventure will cap off its regular season away at Davidson on March 8, tipping off in the John M. Belk Arena at 2 p.m.
