There was no hole out of which the St. Bonaventure men’s basketball team had to dig. There was no lack of contributors and no abundance of turnovers.
On this night, the Bonnies made it look easy.
Still smarting from a two-game losing streak and an opening round loss to Arkansas-Little Rock in the Lone Star Showcase a mere 24 hours earlier, Bona played its first “40-minute” game of the season on Tuesday night in Round 2. The result was its most decisive win in nearly four years: 102-71 decimation of Central Michigan at the H-E-B Center in Cedar Park, Texas.
“It definitely was real big time,” said senior forward Denzel Gregg, a catalyst in the victory with his early energy and aggressiveness. “We knew we really didn’t come to play last night, so tonight could have gone one of two ways: We either could have backed down or we could have stepped up, and we stepped up.
“So we’re happy, that’s how we need to be playing, and we’re just going to try make another push tomorrow.”
Unlike Monday, when so much had gone wrong for the Bonnies (2-2) in the early going, Mark Schmidt was pleased with just about every aspect of his team’s performance.
Behind another outburst from junior guard Matt Mobley, who tied a season-high with 28 points, the Bonnies exploded offensively, placing five players in double figures and reaching the century mark for the first time since February of 2015.
They also rebounded, holding a 42-30 edge on the boards, defended (limiting the Chippewas) and took care of the ball, going from 17 giveaways and eight assists on Monday to nine and 18 on Tuesday.
But the aspect with which the 10th year coach was happiest? After an ugly loss the day before, his team responded.
“Yesterday, even the Florida game, we didn’t come out with a sense of urgency,” said Schmidt, whose team will meet Pepperdine tonight (6 p.m.) in its final game of the Lone Star Showcase. “And I told the guys, we gotta come out thinking that we’re down by 10. I thought when we got done (Monday) night by 17, we played extremely well from that point on. Even the Florida game, we came back two or three times from double digits, and that’s the mentality you need to have from the get-go, and I thought we had that tonight.”
Jaylen Adams recorded 17 points while Idris Taqqee added 15, Gregg 12 (and 10 rebounds) and freshman Josh Ayeni 10 for the Bonnies, who scored 53 points at halftime and then shot 56 percent over the final 20 minutes.
With the lead at 37-30, Bona outscored the Chippewas (4-1) 16-7 over the final four minutes of the first half to bring a commanding 16-point lead (53-37) into the break. With an opportunity to “curb” them early in the second half, it did just that, connecting on its first four shots — including a 3-pointer from both Mobley and Adams — as part of a 10-0 run that broke it open.
Bona outscored Central Michigan 28-5 over the first eight minutes of the second half to extend the lead to 39 (81-42). Scoring seemingly at will, it was able to cruise to its biggest victory since a 40-point defeat of The Citadel in December of 2012.
“I think that’s what really won the game, or put it away, was the first five minutes,” Schmidt said. “We always say, the first five minutes, the first 10 possessions of the second half … we were up 16 and I told the guys, ‘these first five minutes, is it going to go up to 26 or is it going to come down to six?
“Jay got us off to a great start, we got some stops and that was a huge key. You can’t have it where they score, we score. You need stops and we got stops and scores and that’s why we got it out to 40 points.”
For the second-straight night, fouls were a factor, with 52 (the same number in the UALR game) being called in the game. This time, though, Bona was the aggressor, finding itself in the bonus with 13:27 left in the first half and finishing the game 25-of-35 at the free throw line.
“It was a complete game,” Schmidt said. “We hadn’t played a 40-minute game yet. It was an ugly at times. So many fouls; I still haven’t figured out what a foul is or not. (But) it was a good victory coming off a loss yesterday.”
All four Lone Star participants will enter the final night at 1-1. Tonight, Bona gets a Pepperdine team that lost CMU 88-77 on Monday, but edged UALR Tuesday, 66-65, on a late 3-pointer by senior guard Amadi Udenyi.
Schmidt passed up the opportunity to rest some of his starters against the Chippewas, playing Adams, Mobley and Taqqee between 31 and 35 minutes. He said, however, that the Bonnies are feeling okay and will be ready to go against the Waves, who are 4-1 on the season.
“We’re down a couple of guys, so we can’t as many guys that rest as we want,” he said. “But we got Jay out of there at the end, and Denzel, and I think we’ll be fine.”
-Olean Times Herald
