By SPENCER BATES
ST. BONAVENTURE — Defense, especially late in games, has been extremely difficult to come by for the St. Bonaventure men’s basketball team.
But against Rhode Island, its near 20-point advantage was barely touched late on.
The foot remained on the pedal. There were no signs of trying to bide time. The Bonnies played the game on their terms for all 40 minutes.
Frank Mitchell and Cayden Charles, who each posted a 20-point double-double in the win, both acknowledged that postgame. They spoke about how much better they operated getting downhill and in the fast break and how the defensive effort they put together directly impacted how well they did offensively.
That being said, Rhode Island did still shoot over 45% from the field and from 3-point range. So while it was an improved effort on defense, there is still more head coach Mark Schmidt needs to see.
“We outrebounded them, we kept them off the foul line and if we can do that, then we have a chance,” Schmidt said. “The problem has been either they score or they get fouled, and we did a better job of not fouling them and making them earn everything, which is a positive, and we won the points in the paint.”
A collapse never came and Bona collected one of its largest margins of victory all season over the Rams. Now, it will look to take that momentum into its next game, on the road for its final reverse fixture of the season, at George Mason.
“You learn how to win by winning,” Schmidt said. “We didn’t play great defensively. We did enough. We had 11 steals and got out in the break. And those are positives. Hopefully our guys see that if we get some more deflections and get some more stops, we can get out in the break. You always get momentum off a win, so hopefully we can carry it on.”
In round one between the sides, the Bonnies controlled the affair over the Patriots, who were 19-2 at the time. Everything was going the way of Bona until the moment it wasn’t. Holding a 14-point lead with just over eight minutes left, it looked as though Bona would be able to cruise over the finish line. Unfortunately, everything unraveled in those final minutes. The defense lacked, the offense was stagnant and at the free throw line there were plenty of points left on the table.
But entering round two, George Mason finds itself in the midst of a four game losing streak and with only one win in its last six games.
“They’re struggling shooting the ball, if that’s one of the reasons that they lost five out of the six,” Schmidt said. “But they got good players, a good coach and they run good stuff. Everybody goes through this at some part of the season, unless you’re having a spectacular season. So, hopefully they don’t play well again, but they’re at home and it’s coming down to the end, and it should be a good ball game.”
But the losing streak, combined with the fact that it is well and truly the home stretch of the regular season, does not mean that this go-around with George Mason will have any different level of urgency in the eyes of Schmidt. He expects the same level of effort from the Patriots that they have been operating with. The same goes for his team.
“Everybody’s intense every game,” Schmidt said. “I don’t go for that, ‘it’s the end of the year so teams are gonna play harder, or they’re gonna have more of a sense of urgency.’ Everybody, no matter if you’re at the bottom of the standings or at the top of the standings, you want to play well going into the tournament. Everybody’s playing hard. It’s not like they’re going to sit down there and say, ‘we’re going to play harder than Bonaventure,’ or we’re sitting here saying ‘we’re going to play harder than George Mason.’ Both teams are going to compete. The team that executes the best is going to be the team that wins.”
Amidst his team’s losing streak, George Mason’s Kory Mincy has struggled to get his typical numbers in the score column. Since picking up a thumb injury not long after his 22-point outing against Bona back on Jan. 31, he has hit double digits just once and is on a run of five games with single-digit points. Still, Schmidt anticipates playing Mincy the same way defensively as they did in round one, knowing that if given the chance he will erupt.
“We’re going to play him just like we try to play everybody,” Schmidt said. “He’s one of the better players in our league, and we got to somehow contain him. He shot the ball well against us in game one, he struggled a little bit with his thumb, but he’s one of the focal points, and we’ve got to make sure that he doesn’t have another 22-point game.”
There is some hope that a player like Mincy, or any of the other George Mason guards that like to get downhill, will face some more resistance while trying to score with the ever-progressing duo of Andrew Osasuyi and Joe Grahovac now making a bigger impact. Look no further than the difference in scoring that Fordham guard Dejour Reaves had when faced with more minutes from Osasuyi. Reaves had 31 points in game one against Bona and 12 in game two.
“Andrew does a good job of rim protecting, he makes up for some of our mistakes, something that we haven’t had here in the first 15, 20 games,” Schmidt said. “Joe’s improving. Joe’s getting better. Both those guys haven’t played Division One basketball and it’s been a process for those guys, and they’re getting better, and hopefully they’ll continue to get better as we go into the last three, four, five games.”
However, the Bona bigs won’t just be focused on guards. As Mincy’s production has dropped, George Mason’s big man Riley Allenspach has stepped up. Scoring 23 points in his last game, and netting single digit points just once in his last six games, he is as well-rounded as they come at the position and Schmidt is well aware of the impact he can have.
“We just got to make it difficult,” Schmidt said. “We can’t give him low post position, we gotta try to knock him off his spot. He’s got great footwork. He can shoot the ball from 3s. He’s an unselfish player. He’s strong. He’s physical. He’s got all the attributes. So you try to make it hard for him. He’s going to get his points, he’s going to get his rebounds. You just try to make it as difficult as you can. … If he’s catching the ball in the paint, he’s going to cause foul trouble for us. So it’s just about trying to make him catch a ball off the block and make him take two, three, four dribbles before he can score.”
Jahari Long and Fatt Hill are the other two members of the Patriots averaging double figures per contest at 11.4 and 10.7 points per game, respectively.
St. Bonaventure will tip-off against George Mason at 2 p.m. on Feb. 28.
