By SPENCER BATES
RICHMOND, VA — With just over eight minutes to play, the St. Bonaventure men’s basketball team held a seven-point lead over reigning Atlantic 10 champions VCU.
The Rams, who had lost each of its three games this season that were decided by under 10 points, were on the ropes as Frank Mitchell and Darryl ‘Buddy’ Simmons II took over.
Mitchell, the Atlantic 10 leader in rebounds per game and the Bonnies’ leader in points per game, flexed his might, imposing his will down low and dropping a game-high 24 points while reeling in seven boards. Simmons was not far behind, netting 22 points — tying his second-highest tally of the season — and dishing seven assists.
Aiming to nab a massive victory in one of, if not the toughest environment in all of the conference, things were going well for Bona.
Until it suddenly wasn’t.
Immediately after the Bonnies had gone up by seven, the offense ground to a halt. Over the course of the final eight minutes of the contest, they recorded just two field goals — one of which coming with five seconds on the clock. Cayden Charles, who finished with the third-highest point tally for the visitors (14 points), did his best to keep his team in it, draining four free throws and a layup down the stretch, but it was not enough to hold off VCU who rode a 23-9 run to a 89-82 win.
“It was a tough game. We played well. We played hard,” Bona head coach Mark Schmidt said. “At the end of the game we didn’t execute the way we needed to execute. Twice we didn’t get shots, we missed a couple lay ups and on the road, you don’t have to play perfect, but you better play really well. I thought we really played well for the first 35 minutes, and we just made some plays that we got to get better at.”
Prior to the game, Schmidt noted that his team needed to avoid the “grand slam” plays in a Siegel Center that is known to make the most out of opposition mistakes. Unfortunately for him, his side made just a few too many of those down the stretch.
In one such instance, the Bonnies missed three consecutive shots at the rim and after the Rams eventually took possession, Daniel Egbuniwe fouled out on the other end and sent the hosts to the charity stripe — where they lived for a good portion of the night. VCU drew 23 fouls to the 12 Bona received, shooting 28 free throws, making 26 of them.
It was not all bad for the Bonnies though as the 32 minutes that preceded their late struggles were extremely positive.
This Rams team was one throughout the non-conference portion of the season to go deep into their bench. Their leading scorer, Terrence Hill Jr. (13.1 points per game), comes off the bench and no one player on the team averages over 26 minutes per game. But when Bona came to town, VCU head coach Phil Martelli Jr. tightened that rotation significantly, playing just seven guys all night.
Lazar Djokovic was the leading scorer for VCU as he and Bona’s Mitchell went back and forth in an attention-grabbing battle in the paint. He netted a team-high 23 points which was a new career high for him. Brandon Jennings’ 20 points was a career-high as well.
The loss moves St. Bonaventure to 11-3 as it will look to pick up its first win of the conference season in its next game, a home affair against Richmond on Jan. 7 at 7 p.m.
