St. Bonaventure fell to Florida Atlantic 64-54 this afternoon. The Bonnies were plagued by a second-half drought plagued by turnovers and conceding offensive rebounds. Johnell Davis led the game with 16 points while Flowers led the Bonnies with 12 points. Here’s how it went down in Springfield, Massachusetts this afternoon.
The offenses were off and running early in Springfield. Brandon Weatherspoon cashed a quick three on FAU’s opening possession before Chad Venning answered with a bucket over Vladislav Golden. Charles Pride then grabbed his first points since returning from injury as he knocked down a deep two to give the Bonnies an early lead. Golden would answer on the other end with an open layup.
Mark Schmidt’s team began to fee its big man down low as Venning potted back-to-back baskets. Assa added a layup and the Bonnies continued to smother the Owls on the other end of the floor. After two scoreless minutes and a media timeout, Assa chased another three before Moses Flowers added a floater to push the lead to 20-10. Florida Atlantic ended the 11-0 run and their own 7:19 scoreless drought as Weatherspoon picked Kyrell Luc’s pocket which led to a fast-break slam.
Now it was the Owls turn to go on a run. The Rosado jumper opened a 9-0 Florida Atlantic run that consisted of a pair of Davis free throws, and five Greenlee points via a mid-range and a three. After dominating nearly the entire first half, the Bonnies went to the halftime locker room training 27-26.
Assa led all scorers at the break with 11 points while Davis trailed close behind with nine. Venning had tallied six points while Weathers, Greenlee and Adams-Woods all had five points in the first 20 minutes. The team stats were also eerily similar to each other in the first half. FAU shot 11/25 (44.0%) from the field, 3/10 from beyond the arc and 2/4 from the free throw line. St. Bonaventure shot 11/26 (42.3%) from the floor, 4/8 from deep and did not attempt a free throw. The Owls outrebounded the Bonnies 15-14 while each team turned the ball over nine times.
Venning immediately put the Bonnies back in front out of the halftime locker room. His and-one layup put Bonas up 29-27 after one possession. After two scoreless minutes, Pride splashed a triple. However, that was immediately countered by Davis on the following possession. Adams-Woods and Gaffney traded layups before the game hit the first media timeout of the half with the Bonnies up 34-32.
The trend of trading buckets continued over the next few minutes with Daryl Banks III and Noel Brown cashed in for Bonaventure while Rosado and Boyd scored for the Owls. Adams-Wood drove to the hole for two which pushed the Bonnie lead to 41-38 with under 12 minutes remaining.
The Owls then turned to their best player, Vladislav Golden, who took over the game and put the team on aa 14-0 run. Golden flushed a pair of dunks before grabbing one of two free throws. FAU came down with a pair of offensive rebounds which allowed Davis to score. He would make one of two free throws on the next Owl possession before forcing a Flowers turnover. While Florida Atlantic came up empty on that trip but cashed in following a Venning turnover with a wide open three by Nicholas Boyd. The Bonnies trailed 49-41 as the game hit the under-eight media timeout. Venning had also just collected his fourth foul of the game.
The run continued after the timeout with Greenlee hitting the deck and cashing in on an and-one layup. Flowers would mercifully put the run to an end as FAU was called for a goaltend on his layup. Goldin knocked down a pair of free throws before Venning countered with a layup. The Bonaventure center would then foul out of the game on what appeared to be a clean block.
The Bonnies continued to play sloppy and turn the ball over. Bonaventure reached the 20 turnover plateau with 4:37 remaining in the game while the team continued to allow FAU to crash the offensive boards. Boyd’s layup with about four minutes left ushed the Owl lead to 11 which stood as the game took its final media timeout.
Pride made one of two free throws before the sloppy play continued with yet another turnover. That led to Golden slamming one home to put an exclamation point on this game. Schmidt called the timeout to settle things down, and Flowers responded with a pair of threes to push the deficit back to six at 58-52. Flowers got the heat check on the next trip down the floor and saw his three go in and out of the bucket.
On the ensuing possession, Martin would put back a Davis layup to push the lead back to three possessions with only 57.7 seconds remaining. Luc attempted to drive on 7-foot-1 Goldin and was blocked before the Bonnies fouled. Gaffney made one of two before Flowers was fouled and hit both free throws on the other end. St. Bonaventure fouled again which led to Davis making one of two free throws. Goldin grabbed the offensive rebound which led to another foul and two more free throws from Martin. The game would go final at 64-54 with the unnecessary fouling at the end of the game.
Davis led all scorers with 16 points while Flowers finished with a team-high 12 points. Goldin, Venning and Assa all tallied 11 points and were the only other scorers in double figures. Florida Atlantic shot 23/56 (41.1%) from the floor, 5/20 (25.0%) from beyond the arc and 13/23 (56.5%) from the free throw line. St. Bonaventure shot 20/48 (41.7%) from the field, 7/18 (38.9%) from three and 7/11 (63.6%) from the charity stripe.
FAU outrebounded the Bonnies 36-32 including 10-5 on the offensive glass. The turnover battle was tied at nine apiece after 20 minutes. However, the Bonnies turned the ball over 12 times in the second half while the Owls only gave the ball away four times which gave them a 21-13 advantage for the full 40 minutes.
The Bonnies fall to 7-3 on the season while the 15th ranked Owls improve to 9-2. Florida Atlantic will travel to Las Vegas to take on #1 Arizona in their next game while the Bonnies will face Binghamton Friday in the Reilly Center.