ST. BONAVENTURE, N.Y. — That’s how you take care of business.
If you judge by the record, 0-7 Saint Joseph’s seemed no more an obstacle to St. Bonaventure’s basketball team than an exhibition against Alfred.
But Mark Schmidt knew otherwise.
The Bonnies’ 14th-year coach was all too aware that among those seven defeats were losses to No. 6 Kansas, No. 7 Villanova and No. 10 Auburn. There were also overtime decisions to Auburn and Rhode Island.
And, oh yeah, against that brutal schedule, which included Atlantic 10 favorite Virginia Commonwealth, the Hawks still averaged 71 points.
SCHMIDT’S wariness was apt.
The final score on Wednesday afternoon at the fan-less Reilly Center was what you’d expect: St. Bonaventure 83, St. Joseph’s 57.
But the Bonnies, now 4-1, trailed by seven in the first half and it was still a one-possession game with under 16 minutes to play.
Then they kicked it into gear, outscoring the Hawks 45-22 down the stretch.
All it took was two monster games by a pair of transfers and a gem of a performance by a point guard who didn’t even score a field goal.
Transfer No. 1 was Jaren Holmes (nee English), a junior guard in his second year at Bona after a season at Ranger Community College, who merely had a career effort: 38 points on 8-of-12 shooting, 10 rebounds and three assists.
Transfer No. 2 was Jalen Adaway, a junior forward late of Miami (Ohio), in his first season with the Bonnies, who merely set a career high with 24 points on a glittering 11-of-12 from the field, to go with seven boards and four assists.
IF YOU didn’t know about those efforts, there would be a major question how the Bonnies could prevail in this game when elite point guard Kyle Lofton’s offense consisted of four free throws and star center Osun Osunniyi struggled to seven points. Between them, they were 3-of-17 from the field.
The fact the Bonnies won convincingly was because they found other ways to contribute and help showcase this team’s depth.
Incredibly, Lofton almost had a double-double: 11 assists and eight rebounds.
Osunniyi added 12 boards and three blocks.
As Schmidt noted, “Even though Kyle didn’t make a basket, he had 11 assists and 8 rebounds That’s what’s so special about him, he doesn’t care about scoring if his shot’s not going down, he’s still a team guy and that’s what you want.
“He’s the leader … he doesn’t care if he scores one point or 25. He wants to win, he shares the ball and he’s smart. He knew Jaren had a hot hand and every good point guard, that’s what you do, you go back to that guy. He defended, he rebounded. He didn’t shoot the ball well and a lot of times you don’t shoot well your head goes down. But he’s not worried about that, he’s not that type of kid.”
SCHMIDT ADDED, “What can I say about Jaren … 38 points and 10 (rebounds). Adaway misses one shot. (He’s) a big key for us being able to score in multiple ways. We’ve got some weapons and when Jaren shoots the way he shot today — 8-for-12 — that’s a career day.
“We shared the ball (27 assists on 32 field goals). We played like a team and we defended. We did what we needed to do to win this game.
“Every coach would like 27 assists and (only) seven turnovers and if we do that every time we’ll be a pretty good team.”
He concluded, “No game is easy … as you saw today. (But) we played a good game … the last 20 minutes we played exceptional.
“We won this game because we held them to 57 points. The offense was great, scoring 83 points, but holding that team to 57 was a great job for us.”
(Chuck Pollock, a Times Herald senior sports columnist, can be reached at cpollock@oleantimesherald.com)
