By SPENCER BATES
ST. BONAVENTURE — It was the epitome of night-and-day.
Sure, the St. Bonaventure men’s basketball team recorded its 10th win of the season, topping Colgate 85-77, but the way it got there was a complete tale of two halves.
The Bonnies did not make things easy on themselves by any means. Besides a quick start that saw them momentarily keep pace with their guests, the offense was slow, sluggish and in head coach Mark Schmidt’s own words, “lethargic.”
The offense trudged its way through set plays, turned the ball over seven times, and on defense allowed one of the nation’s most efficient teams to shoot nearly 56% from the floor and take a 13-point lead into the intermission — the largest halftime deficit they had seen this season by a considerable margin.
Bona has played some inspired basketball at times this season. Their first half against Colgate was not one of those times.
But after some less-than-pleasant, as Cayden Charles described them, conversations in the locker room. The Bonnies looked like a team renewed.
They played quick, moving the ball well in the process, got downhill, drawing numerous fouls on buckets and dominated on the glass.
Schmidt’s team had been resuscitated, stirred from their daze, and in less than nine minutes had cut a 14-point deficit down to one point.
“We had more energy, we had more of a sense of urgency, a sense of desperation,” Schmidt said. “We came out lethargic and we can’t do that against a good team. … We were going backwards, we were dropping balls, we just weren’t mentally ready to play (in the first half).”
Bona had pushed Colgate to its wit’s end in the latter half of the contest and did not let up. Frank Mitchell was a man on a mission and with his 19-point, 18-rebound double-double performance, he surpassed St. Bonaventure icon and former first-round NBA draft pick Andrew Nicholson for the most double-doubles prior to conference play in the Schmidt era.
“It means everything, having a legend that I can look up to like Andrew Nicholson, especially being from Canada,” Mitchell said of breaking the record. “Having someone that I can chase, it’s incredible. Schmidt, the coaching staff and the team allows me to do this. They give me the utmost confidence to do what I do and play hard. I do it for them. I just have to keep doing it, keep staying humble and keep having the right mindset.”
St. Bonaventure’s Frank Mitchell (00) saves a ball from going out of bounds against Colgate. Mitchell recorded his fourth consecutive double-double for the Bonnies with 19 points and 18 rebounds in the win over the Raiders. (Derek Gumtow)
Cayden Charles put on an impressive display of hard-nosed, impassioned basketball. He threw himself at the Colgate defense, scored, drew the and-1 opportunities and pumped up the Bona faithful — who grew in voice alongside their team’s resurgence.
“I was just trying to be aggressive,” Charles said. “I figured we needed a spark. Obviously, we started out flat. I was just really trying to get downhill, find my open areas and play off others.”
Dasonte Bowen, whose record when starting for the Bonnies has now improved to 19-2, mirrored Charles’ brave charges down the lane and found himself putting up tough buckets en route to a 15-point outing. But he was more than a scorer on the night. He embodied the classic point guard archetype that Schmidt admires with nine assists and just one turnover.
“(Dasonte) is a guy that never slacks off, never wavers,” Mitchell said. “He’s never too high, never low. He’s always the same person. It’s good to see him do what he does. … He’s one of the best passers and best leaders I’ve been around. To see him do (what he did tonight), it’s not surprising, and I’m expecting many more games like this.”
Charles poured on the praise for Bowen.
“Dasonte is probably one of our most unselfish players,” Charles said. “He doesn’t get all the spotlight and stuff, but he runs our team and without him we wouldn’t be where we are. It doesn’t happen without a true point guard like him.”
Darryl ‘Buddy’ Simmons II was the fourth and final Bona player to finish with double-figures, racking up 17 points.
The quartet of double-digit scorers for the Bonnies were enough to overcome the career nights from Colgate’s Jalen Cox and Andrew Alekseyenko, who finished with 26 and 25 points, respectively.
“It was a tale of two halves, give Colgate a lot of credit,” Schmidt said. “We knew this was going to be a tough game. They played Michigan State to an 11-point game, they played Illinois tough, they had won four in a row. … They came out and they put us on our heels. They were really scoring the ball. We had a hard time defending the ball screen stuff and Cox was just phenomenal.”
The attacking mindset his team displayed in the second half was a sight for Schmidt’s sore eyes. His players were able to take what the Raiders had been able to do successfully in the first half and completely flip the script.
“The game is still won in the paint, and we did a much better job in the second half of going downhill,” Schmidt said. “(Colgate) did a much better job going downhill in the first half. They had more points in the paint in the first half. They did everything better in the first half.”
This ultimately played into the biggest takeaway Schmidt had for the game. He noted that in a game the likes of this one, where they faced a sizable deficit on the scoreboard and were playing far below standard, you can learn a lot about what a squad is truly capable of.
What he gathered is that his team has grit.
“You find out a lot about a player, about a person, about a team when adversity hits,” Schmidt said. “Some players wilt and lay down, but if you’re a competitor, you get up and fight. And I thought, we gathered ourselves, we came back in the second half and we played much better.”
St. Bonaventure’s next game is set for Dec. 13, away from home, against Ohio University. The game will take place at 5 p.m. in Rocket Arena, home of the Cleveland Cavaliers, as a part of the Cleveland Hoops Showdown MTE.
