Minutes earlier, they’d watched with dread as their star center slowly hobbled off the floor with an apparent ankle injury.
Down the stretch, however, Dominick Welch and the St. Bonaventure Bonnies did the very things Osun Osunniyi might have done to help preserve a victory.
With 23 ticks left and Bona clinging to a 53-52 lead, Welch soared in to block a corner 3-point attempt from Taylor Funk, who’d already hit five on the night. With 11 seconds remaining, he absorbed a charge from Ejike Obinna and connected on 1-of-2 free throws to make it a two-point game. And on Saint Joseph’s final possession of the night, Karim Coulibaly picked up the initial block on an Erik Reynolds drive and Jaren Holmes stole the ensuing baseline inbounds pass to end it.
On this night, that’s what made the difference for the Bonnies.
Bona shot just 39 percent from the field, including a debilitating 2-of-18 from 3-point range. But, behind guys like Welch, it defended, and never more so than when it needed to most.
BONA ALLOWED just two buckets, and seven total points, over the final 11:51 and came up with several big stops while escaping Hawk Hill with a gutsy 54-52 triumph before a crowd of 2,356 on Saturday night inside Hagan Arena.
In a must-win situation, the adversity was ever-present.
Forced into more outside shots due to the interior presence of the 6-foot-10 Obinna, Bona struggled to shoot throughout. Midway through the second half, it found itself down eight due primarily to the 3-point shooting of Funk (19 points for the night) and Jordan Hall (16). And then with 8:26 remaining, one of its worst-case scenarios unfolded, as Osunniyi appeared to turn his ankle while landing awkwardly in the paint, grimaced in pain while being helped off and exited the game for good.
Still, the Bonnies (19-7, 11-4) found a way to get it done. And, for as bittersweet as it was given the evidently serious nature of Osunniyi’s injury, they managed to leave Philadelphia with their at-large chances still intact, a 1 ½-game lead over Saint Louis for the No. 4 spot in the Atlantic 10 standings and a now-seven-game winning streak. Now, Tuesday’s massive road rematch with VCU, with the winner potentially gaining the inside track for NCAA consideration, awaits.
“Yeah, we gutted it out,” said coach Mark Schmidt, whose team also pulled to within a half-game of No. 3 with Dayton’s upset loss to La Salle earlier in the day. “It wasn’t pretty, but you don’t win pretty. Some games are gonna be like this, especially on the road where it’s like a rock fight.
“This time of year, it’s about winning games. It doesn’t matter how it looks, and we won another one on the road tonight.”
AMID THEIR ugliest offensive outing since losing to Dayton on Jan. 18, Bona trailed 25-24 at the break and was still down 47-41 with 10:07 remaining.
But, sandwiched around Osunniyi’s departure, it embarked upon its one offensive surge to climb back in it. Schmidt’s team went on an 8-0 run, highlighted by a Welch 3 after Jalen Adaway dove to save the ball from past halfcourt, and capped by a Coulibaly jumper that gave the Bonnies a 49-47 lead. And in the final minutes, they made the two shots they needed to reclaim the lead for good: a Jaren Holmes and-one finish that made it 51-50, and the big one: a beautifully executed lob from Holmes to Adaway for the alley-oop jam out of a timeout that made 53-52 with 38 seconds left.
Still, this largely came down to a defensive effort in which Bona held the Hawks (10-17, 4-12) to just 36 percent shooting while coming up with 17 turnovers. That helped offset the fact it was outscored 33-6 from 3-point range.
“We defended,” Schmidt acknowledged. “We gave up too many 3s (11 for the game on 27 attempts), especially to Funk, but I thought our guys fought. In the last 30 seconds, they got the ball 3-4 times, but … our guys did a good job on baseline out of bounds defense.
“We executed a really good play coming out of the timeout. We struggled, they played back with (their 5-man) and really took away a lot of our stuff, but we found a way.”
ADAWAY finished with 14 points and seven rebounds while Lofton had 12 points and eight rebounds. Osunniyi had five blocks and owned Obinna defensively before watching the remainder of the game with ice wrapped around his bare left foot. Welch added 11 points, but more important than his scoring, Schmidt noted: “The biggest play of the game other than the dunk was Dom’s charge. That was a huge play. Dom’s always in the right position. He’s got a high IQ and that was a winning play right there.”
Schmidt didn’t comment afterward on the severity of the injury to his senior center, whose body language seemed to indicate that it was more than just a typical ankle roll. Instead, he addressed the inspired effort Bona received from Osunniyi’s backup, Coulibaly.
“Karim came in and gave us some rebounding, some toughness, some post defense,” Schmidt said. “That’s what guys have to do when someone goes down and (it’s) next guy up and he played really well.”
Yes, Bona avoided catastrophe on Hawk Hill, but at what cost?
The major question now will be the status of Osunniyi, the reigning A-10 Defensive Player of the Year. Without him, Bona would no doubt have that much more of a challenge in this final week of the regular season, with tough games against both VCU and Richmond to close out the year.
Its keys, however, will be the same regardless.
“Offense,” you never know,” Schmidt said. “But defense and rebounding, those are the two things and we did a really good job defending today.”
