ST. BONAVENTURE — At times it looked like the Bonnies were in full control Saturday afternoon, but Fordham never went away and challenged them until the end.

Still, the Bona men’s basketball team got its second straight win by defeating Fordham 74-72 Saturday.

After losing five of six games, Bona picked up a big win over Dayton Tuesday to get some positive momentum on their side. Against Fordham, there were glimpses of dominant play, but there was some frustrating basketball as well.

“I thought for the first 15 minutes we played extremely well,” St. Bonaventure coach Mark Schmidt said. “We defended, we rebounded, and we got out on the break.”

In the first 12 minutes of play, the Bonnies looked like they were on their way to a dominant victory, leading 30-14. Melvin Council began the game with a layup and a three-pointer to put them up 5-0.

The Rams answered and were only down 12-10 later on, but Lajae Jones’ six points helped spur an 18-4 Bonnie run.

In the last eight minutes of the first half the Bona momentum started to falter. Fordham made its halftime deficit a little more manageable down 40-29.

“They went to that 1-2-2 zone, and that stopped us a little bit,” Schmidt said. “They went small, which was smart.”

The Bonnies held a double-digit lead for a while in the second half, but Fordham saved its best for last. It started when Jahmere Tripp made a 3-pointer to cut the deficit to 57-50 with 10:02 left in the game.

“We got a little bit stagnant,” Schmidt said. “We were missing some shots, and then we had a hard time keeping them in front of us in the second half. Their two guards, Jackie Johnson III and Medor, are really good.”

Then five minutes later, things got more interesting when the Bonnie lead was cut to 65-62 after a three-pointer from Medor.

“They got momentum, once you give momentum it’s hard to get it back,” Schmidt said. “They made some big shots. There was too much dribble penetration in the second half, and we have to get better at that.”

Johnson III made a fastbreak layup with 2:34 left to tie it at 68-68. Jonah Hinton then hit a three-pointer for St. Bonaventure, and Chance Moore made a layup to put the Bonnies ahead 73-68 with 1:19 to go.

Fordham wasn’t ready to go away quite yet. Two free throws from the Rams cut it to 73-70 with 28 seconds remaining. The Bonnies could have held the ball and waited for an intentional foul, but Council Jr. immediately drove straight to the basket and missed the layup to give Fordham possession with 23 seconds left.

“It’s disappointing that we are in those situations, and we didn’t handle them the right way,” Schmidt said. “I can guarantee you that Melvin will not go in there for that dunk for the rest of his life. Those are things that you hoped that they would have learned by now, but I guess they hadn’t.”

After a Fordham timeout, they looked to tie the game with a Johnson III three-pointer. He missed, but Romad Dean was right there to get the ball and dunk it to cut the lead to one point with only six seconds left.

After a quick foul, Lajae Jones went to the free throw line and made one of two shots with three seconds remaining. A last second heave from the Rams was off the mark, and the Bonnies escaped with the win in a game that they should have won more comfortably.

“We won, and that’s what this business is all about,” Schmidt said. “But we got to get better. You can’t make those mistakes in the second half. When you got a team down, you need to keep them down.”

Noel Brown had 22 points and 8 rebounds to lead the Bonnies. Council Jr. scored 13 points with 7 assists while Jones had 11 points. Off the bench backing up Brown at center, freshman Xander Wedlow scored 10 points on 5-of-5 field-goal shooting.

For Fordham, Johnson III led the Rams with 20 points.

“I think this group specifically when it comes down to certain things need to gel in a time like this,” Brown said. “We have to be mature enough, especially in the development as captains, to make sure the game is going at the right pace.”

St. Bonaventure improves to 17-6 overall and 5-5 in the Atlantic 10. Fordham drops to 10-12 overall and 2-7 in A-10.{/span}

The Bonnies will next play at Loyola-Chicago at 9 p.m. (EST) on Tuesday. Then they will return home to play George Washington at noon Sunday.

St. Bonaventure now sits in sixth place in the standings. Loyola Chicago is right with them at 4-4 in the A-10.

“Thankfully we won,” Schmidt said. “But those are the things that we have to make sure we recover. We can’t make those errors.”