Ground Hog Day has ended. Still, the Bonnies are giving their faithful a reminiscence of the Bill Murray movie. On Wednesday the script repeated- spot your opponent a double digit first half lead, get the deficit manageable by intermission and make a late game run to close out the victory.
The Bonnies defeated UMass 79-73 at the Reilly Center. Both teams exited the court with identical records, 5-5 in A10 play and 14-8 overall.
Possessions: 67
Offensive efficiency: St. Bona 118, UMass 109
Numbers (Four Factors in bold)
St. Bona | UMass | |
eFG Pct. | 57 | 53 |
FT Rate | 53 | 28 |
OREB Pct. | 31 | 35 |
TO Rate | 18 | 18 |
2 pt FG Pct. | 58 | 55 |
3 pt FG Pct. | 35 | 33 |
FT Pct. | 68 | 69 |
Ball control index (BCI). A formula I saw a few seasons back on rockmnation.com (a Missouri site) and haven’t used as much recently. BCI adds assists and steals and divides the total by turnovers. Still not sure what constitutes an average or elite BCI but one thing is certain. You want that number to be positive not negative. Last night’s BCI:
UMass 1.83
St. Bona 1.58
Bonnnies jumped out to a 7-0 lead. Frank Martin’s Minutemen answered with a 20-4 run. The lead was 13 with just under four minutes to go in the half. A 10-0 Bona run fueled by eight Moses Flowers points cut the deficit to four at intermission.
The second half was back and forth as UMass frequently hinted at separation and were quickly reeled in. After a Matt Cross layup gave the visitors a one point lead at 2:26, Flowers drove and converted at the other end to give the Bonnies the lead they would not relinquish. The game featured three ties and six lead changes with the Bonnies answering each UMass run.
“We got off to a great start, then we went into a lull,” St. Bonaventure coach Mark Schmidt told gobonnies.com. “UMass was more physical than us in the first half. In the second half we got points off our defense…we did a better job driving the ball and we got to the foul line. We just played better and with more urgency.”
Mika Adams-Woods, who converted a key traditional 3-point play in the stretch, added “we know every game in this conference is going to be a dogfight, but we stay together.”
Points of emphasis. Entering the contest, keeping the Minutemen off the offensive boards was a concern. UMass leads the A10 with a 39% offensive rebounding percentage. Bonnies kept them under that number while enjoying a 15-12 edge in second chance points. In raw numbers the visitors managed a slight 34-32 advantage in total rebounds.
Bonnies also did an excellent job on UMass’ Josh Cohen. The 6’10” senior, a 16.3 ppg scorer, was held to four points on 2 of 8 shooting from the floor. Credit the Bonnies’ Chad Venning and Noel Brown, off the bench, for an outstanding and decisive defensive effort.
Kenpom.com MVP: Charles Pride. The Bona senior guard tied UMass’ Matt Cross for game scoring honors with 19. Pride shot 8 of 11 from the floor.
Spreading the wealth. Both teams had four players scoring in double figures. Beside Cross with 19, Keon Thompson scored 16, Jayden Ndjigue 12 and Rashool Diggins had 10 for UMass.
As noted, Pride led the Bonnies with 19 followed by Mika Adams-Woods and Venning with 15 and Flowers 14.
Notes: Turnovers were even at 12 each, while UMass did have a slight 22-20 edge in points off turnovers.
UMass came in averaging a conference leading 16 made free throws per game. They shot 11 for 16 for the game. The Bonnies, by contrast, shoot a league high 78% from the charity stripe, while getting to the line the least. UMass was whistled for 24 personals (UMass physicality plus Bona’s attacking the basket) to 15 for Bona, putting the hosts on the line for 28 free throws. Bonnies canned 19 which computed to 68%, a figure below their norm. Regardless, the 19-11 difference in free throws made proved to be a big one.
Bona’s Assa Essamvous was the game-high rebounder with eight, three on the offensive boards. Thompson led UMass with seven.
Bonnies have now won three of their last four. They host Duquesne on Saturday. Dukes had a four game win streak snapped by Davidson on Wednesday. Duquesne defeated the Bonnies 54-50 back on January 23rd. Keith Dambrot’s club leads the A10 in three point percentage defense at 28%. They are last in the conference in offensive efficiency (97) and fifth in defense (100).
“We don’t quit. We have some character guys and we responded.” – Mark Schmidt