ST. BONAVENTURE — Not many teams in college basketball have been better at defending than St. Bonaventure.
Still, the Bonnies want more.
“We just found out we’re top 20 in points allowed,” guard Lajae Jones said after another stout defensive effort resulted in a 65-55 non-conference victory over Buffalo before 3,995 on Saturday afternoon at the Reilly Center. “We want to make defense our identity and try to get top five, top one by the end of the season, hopefully.”
The win over UB (5-5) marked the sixth time this season in 10 games the Bonnies held an opponent under 60 points. Coming into Saturday, they ranked 19th of 355 Division I teams in points allowed at just over 61 a game.
Clamping down on opposing offenses is the chief reason Bona is off to a 9-1 start for just the third time since the 1970-71 season. And though the competition hasn’t necessarily been formidable outside a loss to unbeaten Utah State on a neutral floor, the Bonnies are winning convincingly.
Against the Bulls, Bona led from start to finish just as it did at Bucknell on Wednesday. It has won all 10 of its games by nine points or more – seven coming by double digits. The team’s 12-point average margin of victory is the program’s best since 2000-01.
Even so, Schmidt gave the Bonnies defense that ranks top 50 nationally in steals and blocks per game and top 100 in field goal percentage defense, rebounding margin and turnovers forced per game a grade of B through 10 games.
If the Bona ‘D’ has earned only a B, the offense isn’t passing by much.
A few scoring lulls allowed UB to stay close. The Bulls were only down 59-53 after trailing by as many as 14 seven minutes into the second half, but they missed a pair of 3-pointers that would have trimmed the deficit to three points and committed their 18th turnover of the game all in the final minute.
A steal and Chance Moore dunk with 18 seconds left put the finishing touches on Bona’s latest win.
“We’re realizing that we’re an elite defensive team, and we’re going to keep working on the offensive end to have both components so that we can really be able to put teams away,” said Moore, who led Bona with 16 points. “But it’s a work in progress.”
Bona shot 21-of-47 overall and 4-of-15 on 3-pointers.
“We’ve got to shoot the ball better,” Moore said when asked about improvements the Bonnies can make on offense. “Just being able to get by defenders and be able to make those reads in the paint, kick out, whether it be kick out for a shot or to feed the bigs. More IQ, better IQ on the offensive end, I would say, and shooting the ball, obviously. I would say just making the game easier, read what the defense is giving us and just try to take better open shots instead of end of the shot clock contested shots.”
Schmidt acknowledged that with a new roster playing together for the first time, fruitful offensive execution tends to take more time compared to defense.
“(We’re) trying to learn how to play with each other, trying to learn what’s a good shot,” Schmidt said. “We’re passing up good shots, and we’re taking contested shots.
“We’ve got to execute better,” he added. “We’ve got to play with pace. Our first cut is too slow. We’ve been doing a decent job of getting downhill. And I didn’t think we did that. I thought we were going too much east-west today. We were settling. We’re a team that has to go north-south. And I thought, and give Buffalo credit, they pushed us out a little bit.
“But we got to play harder on offense. It’s funny. You always talk about playing harder on defense. But we got to play harder on offense. Better cuts. We got to read things better. We got to do a better job in the ball screen game. There were a number of times where we could hit the 5-man rolling, and we didn’t.”
Moore and Melvin Council Jr. (12 points, 3 steals) shot 5-for-11 each from the floor, while guard Jonah Hinton (career-best 12 points) and big man Michael Folarin (6 points, 5 rebounds) gave the Bonnies a spark off the bench.
Folarin played nine minutes as starting center Noel Brown dealt with foul trouble and reserve big man Xander Wedlow left the contest with an injury in the first half. Folarin responded by making three of his five field goal attempts, including a pair of offensive rebound putbacks.
“I thought Mike gave us a big lift,” Schmidt said. “I thought if there was an MVP of the game, it was Mike. He was a plus-9 in the plus-minus category. I thought he really gave us a lift. And that’s what we need for guys coming off the bench, especially five men that are backing up Noel. It doesn’t necessarily have to be points, but it’s got to be energy. And I thought Mike did a good job on the ball screen defense. So hopefully that gives him some confidence going forward.”
Jones was quiet for Bona on the offensive end, but led the way with eight rebounds and added four of the team’s 10 steals. Guard Dasonte Bowen chipped in six assists, two steals, and five boards.
The Bonnies topped UB in points off turnovers (16-11), points in the paint (30-24), second-chance points (10-4), and fast break points (19-6). Both teams grabbed 28 rebounds.
Ryan Sabol and Bryson Wilson each netted 14 points to lead UB, but the Bulls only shot 20-of-48 from the field and 8-of-25 from the perimeter. Point guard Tyson Dunn committed 10 turnovers and UB only earned seven trips to the foul line compared to 24 for Bona.
The Bulls fell behind by 10 points less than five minutes into the game and could never recover in large part due to the Bonnies’ defensive aggressiveness.
“They were real physical on the ball, put two guys on the ball a lot when we’re in some ball screen actions and made it tough for us to catch the ball, especially guys like Ryan and our shooters,” UB coach George Halcovage said. “I think we got a little sped up because they did a good job pressuring us early in the half-court. It’s not really always a full-court press. Sometimes they do a good job really pressuring the ball in the half-court, speeding you up, and I thought they did that to start the game.”
Bona next meets Providence Saturday at 5 p.m. as part of the Basketball Hall of Fame Showcase in Uncasville, Connecticut. The Friars are 6-4 with losses to the Atlantic 10’s Davidson and Rhode Island.
“We have ways to go (to get better), which is good,” Schmidt said. “You’re 9-1, and we have a long way to go to reach our ceiling.”
