By SPENCER BATES
ST. BONAVENTURE — The St. Bonaventure men’s basketball team had a victory on the road at Dayton within its grasp.
Using a 14-0 run in the second half, it surged back into contention after Dayton had pulled ahead by 11 points at the half. The Bonnies even managed to nab a 48-47 lead, its first time of the game since it was 13-12 early.
But as remarkable as the comeback was, this meant that they would need to find a way to out-duel its opposition over the remaining minutes in a tight contest — something they have been largely unable to do since Atlantic 10 play began.
Unfortunately for the Bonnies, an all too familiar story played out over the dying minutes as they failed to see a shot from the field fall over the final 3:40 of game time. Meanwhile, the Flyers out-scored them 7-2 down the stretch, flipping the result in their favor.
A major part of that extremely late 7-2 burst from Dayton were three free throws from Jordan Derkack.
On the night, Derkack shot 15 free throws. He was the catalyst for the Flyers, who shot 33 free throws combined to the Bonnies’ 17 attempts. The game prior for Bona, against George Mason, keeping trips to the stripe limited was a key, considering they were one of the best teams in the country in free throw rate and made free throws per game. Dayton ranks right up there with George Mason in the categories. And while Bona was able to win the free throw battle, 25-15, over the Patriots, the outcome flipped against the Flyers.
“We just didn’t do a good job,” Bona head coach Mark Schmidt said. “I thought we did a decent job against Bennett. (Derkack) killed us and he wasn’t somebody that was hurting other teams. He went to the foul line 15 times. So, it’s the same thing, we got to keep the ball in front. We can’t foul. There were a couple of tough calls (in the Dayton game), but I thought we did a decent job on most of those guys, other than (Derkack). You can’t let one guy go to the foul line 15 times.”
Another significant aspect of the Dayton game was the extremely limited time on the floor from anyone outside the starting five. Combined, the Bonnies got just 15 minutes from its bench and zero points. In fact, Achille Lonati, who played just four minutes, was the only player from the bench that even attempted more than one shot.
Schmidt’s reasoning for the limited minutes was simple: they just weren’t producing. Therefore, he stuck with his starters, which didn’t necessarily condemn the team as each finished with double figures in the score column.
“When they went in, they weren’t really productive,” Schmidt said of his bench players. “It’s hard, playing on the road at Dayton with 13,000 people (in the crowd). To put young guys in there and expect them to be successful, it’s hard, and I understand that. They went in there, and it was just a tough environment. We tried to go with the veteran guys as much as we could.”
Bona’s next chance to get a tally in the win column will come at Fordham. It is the first reverse fixture of the season for Schmidt and Co. and they will be looking to avenge the loss the Rams handed them at the Reilly Center back on Jan. 10.
“They haven’t changed,” Schmidt said of Fordham. “They’re playing a power game. They play ball screen offense. They do a good job on the backboard. They get to the paint. They got a couple more guys that are playing. They play the 2-3 zone, let the ball into the high post and they go man-to-man. They’re not doing anything differently, probably doing it better, but they’re not doing anything different.”
Perhaps the biggest key to the game for the Bonnies will be to keep Dejour Reaves quiet. Having scored a career-high 31 points on 9-for-17 shooting with only one 3-pointer to go along with a 12-for-12 night at the free throw line in round one, the Bona defense will look to shut down Reaves on his home court.
“We got to keep him out of the paint,” Schmidt said. “He got 31 points and he had one 3. We got to do a better job on ball screen defense. We got to do a better job of keeping him in front. We can’t foul him, he went 12-for-12 from the foul line (against us last time). He’s a good player, he’s done that to a lot of people, but he hasn’t scored 31 against those guys. So, we just got to do a better job of keeping them in front with ball screen defense and not fouling.”
The bigs for Fordham will also draw a significant amount of attention as Rikus Schulte and Jack Whitbourn combined for 28 points and 16 rebounds in the RC. Going into the first game between the sides, Fordham led the A10 with a conference-best 13.8 offensive rebounds per game. That rank has maintained and the number has only dropped to 13.4 per game.
“We out-rebounded them by one in game one, that wasn’t the problem,” Schmidt said. “But the big guys had 28 points and 16 rebounds with six offensive rebounds, so we got to keep the big guys off the backboard. But a part of that is trying to keep the guards in front of us so we don’t have to get in rotations and so forth. Rebounds are always a critical thing, and they’re good at it. We did a decent job in game one, but we got to do a better job tomorrow.”
St. Bonaventure will tip-off against Fordham at 2 p.m. on Feb. 7 in the Bronx.
