BUFFALO — The St. Bonaventure men’s basketball team secured its first “road kill” of the season.

At least, that was the terminology coach Mark Schmidt used after his team’s 87-78 victory over Canisius, a longtime Little 3 rival that has been a thorn in the side of the Bonnies as of late.

Prior to Saturday afternoon’s fixture at the Koessler Athletic Center in Buffalo, Bona had dropped three of the last four contests to the Golden Griffins. But, one thing that the Bonnies had this year that they didn’t in the past was Chance Moore.

Moore was the spark that lit the fire for the visitors. He shared a team-high 10 points going into halftime, but that proved to merely be a sliver of his final total. The Missouri State transfer erupted in the second half, finishing with a team-high 27 points on 9-of-13 shooting while also going a perfect 8-for-8 at the charity stripe and sharing the team-high in rebounds with Noel Brown at six.

Moore’s impact was not kept to the offensive side of the floor either. His defensive presence and athleticism saw him easily glide past or break through screens, giving the Canisius offense headaches.

According to Schmidt, Moore was just about at the top of his game Saturday. And while there are still some finer details Schmidt hopes to see cleaned up this season, Moore gave the Bonnies the edge.

“When he’s engaged he’s a really good player, we just got to make sure that he’s engaged all the time,” Schmidt said. “Today he was, and that’s the talent that he has. He’s got to work on things, understanding of not helping in the corner, and some X’s and O’s things. But, from an athletic standpoint, he’s really gifted and when he’s playing the way he played today, we’re that much better of a team.”

Of course, Moore can only do so much as one player. Collectively, the Bonnies struggled to put significant distance between themselves and their hosts through the first half, even giving up a lead. While any of the Griffins’ advantages failed to balloon to more than three points, Bona’s biggest lead of the opening half was eight.

Much of this can be attributed to the timely 3-point shooting of Canisius. Tana Kopa and Paul McMillan, shot a combined 8-of-13 from long range. McMillan’s 31 points were the most by any Canisius player in their first home game since 2015. And it wasn’t just that Canisius was hitting from deep, it was when. Several shots just beat the shot clock and were gut-punches to Bona’s attempts to build momentum.

But while Schmidt’s team gave up the 3-pointers, it dominated on the interior.

“Give Canisius credit, their coach runs some really good stuff, and it’s hard to guard, especially when the five man is shooting the ball the way they do,” Schmidt said. “They just put pressure on your defense at all times. McMillan, we didn’t have an answer for him. He’s a heck of a player. But I thought our guys (did well). (We won) 49 to 20 in points in the paint, 12 to six in points off turnovers, 17 to 10 in second chance points. We out-rebounded by 14, we went to the foul line 24 times, they went to the line 12, so we did some positive things.”

Moore’s big second-half display lifted the Bonnies to a 15-point advantage, their largest of the game.

“I felt good out there, man,” Moore said. “I know Canisius has got us the last two years so we were hyped for this game. We were trying to punch them back and following Coach’s game plan. We had a couple lapses, but we were able to make up for it and come out victorious.

“We’re still working on getting better shooting from range. We’re better downhill. So Coach always emphasizes just attacking, owning the paint and winning the downhill game.”

Things got a bit dicey later for Bona as Canisius cut the lead to eight with just under two minutes left to play.

But, after a clutch bucket from Dasonte Bowen, who finished with 12 points, and good poise at the free-throw line from Melvin Council Jr., who compiled 17 points, the Bonnies were able to exorcize recent Canisius memories and jot down another win, leading the all-time series at 103-69.

While satisfied with the win, the celebrations came and went for Schmidt who has already begun thinking about how they will need to improve to keep the winning ways alive with a trip to Fort Myers, Fla. ahead.

“As I told the team, we can be happy we won, but we got to continue to work,” Schmidt said. “We’re nowhere near where we need to be to play the teams we’re about to play, starting on Wednesday against Florida Gulf Coast. But, I thought Chance came to play today, Noel played extremely well, Melvin (too). I thought Jaxon (Edwards) did a really good job, especially in the first half, of offensive rebounding. I thought Duane … got us off with a good three and made a couple moves to the basket. So, we had a lot of guys that came in and helped us today, and that’s good to see.”