By SPENCER BATES
ST. BONAVENTURE — The unfortunate trend of dropping games in the dying minutes continued for the St. Bonaventure men’s basketball team against George Mason.
Up 14 points with just under eight minutes remaining, the Bonnies’ world was flipped upside down as the Patriots turned the sizable deficit into a four-point, 77-73 win.
These end-of-game collapses have become a theme for Bona ever since Atlantic 10 play began.
But for as gut wrenching as those losses have been, head coach Mark Schmidt admitted that he has not had to do any damage control on the mental front with his team.
“They know we’re right there,” Schmidt said. “We’ve led five of those games that we lost. So the kids know they’re good enough. We just got to make plays at the end of the games, both offensively and defensively. But there’s no panic in terms of them not thinking they’re good enough. The confidence is still there, and it should be. The only game that we weren’t in was the Saint Louis game. … We just got to play better in the last two, three, four minutes, and put a whole 40 minutes together.”
In the last 7.5 minutes of the George Mason loss, Bona did not score once from the field. Frank Mitchell was the go-to guy late in the game. But even though his shot was not falling and some crucially missed free throws left the door open for the Patriots to come back, Schmidt kept feeding his big man, who, in all fairness, has been the most reliable player on the team this season.
After the game Schmidt said that the reason he continued to put the ball in Mitchell’s hands was because his guards are not like the ones he’s had in the past and are unable to drive at defenses in the half court. This is something he hopes to see improved, but ultimately it is not the style of offense he wants to run with the players at his disposal.
“We have to attack, we have to play downhill, we got to be physical getting in and drawing fouls,” Schmidt said. “We got to get more easy baskets, and not just in the half court. When we’re at our best, we’re in the open court. The other day, we played extremely well for 30 minutes, but we didn’t get a lot in the open court. We didn’t get a lot of turnovers, and that’s something that we need to do if we’re going to be successful. … We want a half court defensive game, not a half court offensive game.”
Imposing their will and executing their desired offense will be critical for the Bonnies against their next opponent, the Dayton Flyers.
“Against Dayton, against a team that presses, you got to know when to go and when to pull it back,” Schmidt said. “That’s hard to teach guys. It’s kind of (something you have to) feel. When VCU used to do it, we used to handle it pretty well. The decision making, when to kick it ahead and attack and when to pull it back and run offense. That’s going to be the same thing here. We want to attack for layups, dunks and open 3s, because if you play on your heels you give them a free press. But at the same time, if they’re back in a set, then you got to run some offense.”
Dayton is currently on a four-game losing skid, its most recent defeat being a 102-71 beat down courtesy of Saint Louis, a feeling Bona can relate to. They are, statistically, the worst rebounding team in the A10, but a team doesn’t necessarily need to rebound all that often when they don’t allow shots in the first place.
The Flyers are currently 14th in the nation in turnover margin (4.1), forcing an average of 16.2 turnovers per game.
“They run, they jump, they’re long, they’re athletic, and when you turn it over, that’s when they’re at their best,” Schmidt said. “The crowd gets involved, they get energized. … They have good quickness, they got good length, and it creates problems. It’s almost like they do what VCU used to do with the havoc stuff. It’s not as much havoc as VCU, but that’s the same principles.”
Against George Mason, one of the keys for Schmidt was keeping them off the free throw line, seeing as it entered the game ranked second in the nation in free throw rate, making 19.5 attempts from the stripe per game (which was 12th in the nation).
Dayton has been just as good at getting to the line — shooting an average of 25.5 free throws per game (23rd in the nation) and draining 75% of them, which is a percentage good for second in the conference.
“Every game you want to shoot more foul shots than the opponent takes, and that’s been a struggle of ours,” Schmidt said. “We did a good job against Mason. We didn’t make them, but we got to the foul line 25 times. They got to the foul line 15 times. You got to get to the foul line, you got to shoot 70, 75%, which we didn’t, but it’s the same thing with Dayton. They’re downhill, they’re athletic guys, so we got to have no paint, no foul, keep them to one shot and not turn the ball over.”
Javon Bennett will be the one pulling the strings for Dayton. Almost never off the floor, he averages 16.0 points, 3.3 assists and 1.4 steals per game. However, over the team’s recent run of poor form, he is shooting just 30.6% from the field. Keeping his quiet streak going will be important for the Bonnies.
“He’s the engine, he’s the quarterback,” Schmidt said. “When he plays well, they play well. The last four games, he struggled a little bit, and they’ve lost four in a row. He was a preseason first-team all-league, he’s really talented and he can shoot the ball. He’s on a little bit of a slump, and hopefully he stays in that slump for another game. But he’s really talented. He gets to the basket, has a middle game. He’s the guy you have to stop if you’re going to beat Dayton.”
The other dangers alongside Bennett are De’Shayne Montgomery, who averages 15.3 points per game and scored 23 against Saint Louis, and the 7-1 Amaël L’Etang, who has scored double figure points in consecutive games while working back from an injury.
St. Bonaventure will make the trip to the largest venue in all of the A10 and look to hand Dayton a fifth straight loss, while also looking to put to rest its recent struggles. Tip-off is set for 7 p.m. on Feb. 3 with the game being broadcast on CBS Sports Network.
