By CHUCK POLLOCK, Wellsville Sun, Olean Star Senior Sports Columnist
ST. BONAVENTURE — Twice in the previous four games, St. Bonaventure men’s basketball coach Mark Schmidt had sweated out a potential game-deciding three-point attempt at the Reilly Center; one versus Virginia Commonwealth bounced harmlessly off the back iron in a 77-75 win; the other, an off-balance banker from 35 feet was perfect and handed LaSalle an 83-82 overtime decision.
THEN CAME Wednesday night before 3,596 witnesses at the RC when Jonah Hinton’s trey just before intermission put the Bonnies up 37-25 and seemingly on their way to a comfortable 15th victory.

But, alas, the University of Richmond had other plans.
The Spiders (7-11, 2-3 Atlantic 10) started the second half on fire, outscoring Schmidt’s crew 15-2, including a trio of three-pointers that lifted Richmond from a dozen down to two up in a span of barely seven minutes.
Could the Bonnies be facing last-second drama for the third time in five games?
It never occurred to Schmidt.
As a coach you don’t think that way,” he said. “You think about the next play and how to get your team back … getting a basket and getting your momentum back. As a coach, you never think negative, like “Oh, my God, here we go again,” that never enters my mind. Your job is to try to get the guys back being positive and playing the way we’re capable of playing and understanding it’s a game of runs. You’ve got to answer those and we did that.”
After taking a 40-38 lead, Richmond, which had lost to Bucknell (a team which Bona beat by 17 in December) 80-76 in double overtime at Lewisburg, scored only nine more points to SBU’s 25.
The result was a 63-49 St. Bonaventure victory that improved it to 15-3 (3-2 A-10) and those three defeats provided a trio of “what ifs” as there were two five-pointers (Utah State and Saint Louis) and the one-point heartbreaker to La Salle.
IN DESCRIBING Bona’s rally, Schmidt noted, “I thought our identity was back… defending, rebounding (30-23 edge) and taking care of the basketball (6 turnovers to 8). When you do those three things you have a chance to win every game. The last four games, if we’d have scored 63 points, we’d have lost by double digits. That’s why our team is about defense. When you defend and take care of the basketball, you can win when you score 63 points. So it’s all about defense and that identity, that toughness and we showed that tonight.”
He added, “(Defense) is how we’ve always won … we have never been a great offensive team, we’re never in the Top 30 in the country in scoring, it’s about defending and rebounding and taking care of the basketball.
“Against La Salle, we scored 82 points. There are games where things mesh and the offense is going well but you can’t rely on that, your staple is your defense and we got back to that tonight.”
He concluded, “When you’re struggling, you (still) need to make some shots. Defense and rebounding only take you so far … you’re not going to win if you don’t score … the ball’s got to go in the basket sometimes. But if you’re not scoring and you’re not defending, you don’t have any chance.”
On Wednesday night, Bona defended and hopes to take that mindset into Pittsburgh Saturday afternoon against Duquesne, the team that ended the Bonnies A-10 Tournament run in the semifinals last March in Brooklyn.
(Chuck Pollock, a Wellsville Sun and Olean Star senior sports columnist, can be reached at cpollock@wnynet.net.)
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