Four Mile Brewing Post-game vs. VCU 83, St. Bonaventure 77 (OT)

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By: Jonathan May @jmay425

Quickly: The VCU Rams beat the St. Bonaventure Bonnies 83-77 in overtime. That unfortunately doesn’t tell nearly the story of this game that is will go down in Bonaventure lore, for better or worse.

The St. Bonaventure Bonnies appeared to finally have a signature win to their season after Matt Mobley’s step back three point shot went through with 0.4 seconds left to beat VCU. It was his 8th three pointer of the contest.

What happened next, well was shocking but in this corner of the world, completely warranted. After Mobley’s shot went through, the clock stopped with 0.4 second left on the clock and students and team members alike celebrated as if the game was indeed final. Except, with the stop clock situation after a made shot and the Rams possessing one final time out, the game was in fact very far from over. After numerous pleas from the PA announcer, the officials convened and made  a controversial, yet rather correct call. According to the rule:

“Art. 8. Team followers (fans, bands, cheerleaders and mascots associated with either team) shall not commit an unsportsmanlike act, including, but not limited to, the following:

…
d. Delaying the game by preventing the ball from being promptly made live or by preventing continuous play, such as but not limited to, followers entering the playing court before the player activity has been terminated. When the delay does not interfere with play, it shall be ignored.”

By rule, and hate it or love it, the fans and team alike prevented the ball from being promptly made live or put into play by being on the court. After the technical foul was assessed, Jequan Lewis made the shot and the Rams nearly ended it before overtime by drawing back iron on a 90 foot shot by Jonathan Williams.

In overtime, the Rams scored first and seemed to have more left in the tank than the Bonnies who were most likely still shell-shocked from having a game within reach only to let it slip away. In all, the Bonnies drop to 14-8 overall and 6-4 in the A10 and hopefully this can be a lesson used by all teams in the NCAA on how to let your team finish off a game and then go about your own business.

For the GoBonnies.com recap, click here.

5 Takeaways:

1. Where would the Bonnies be this year without Matt Mobley? In another hit during the transfer process, Schmidt has picked his spots wisely. 17 points in the first half kept the Bonnies treading above water when all seemed to be lost on offense. He also had the game winner…oh wait. Mobley finished with 34 points on 10-19 shooting and carried the team from start to finish in this game. Without him they would have been nowhere near the Rams at the finish. This was his finest game as a Bonnie. 
2. The Bonnies never seemed over matched and yet didn’t really seem completely comfortable in the half court offense. Like any top level coach and I believe Wade is nearing that realm, he took Adams out of the game plan and made the Bonnies try to beat VCU and not just Jaylen Adams. Adams shot a horrific 3-16 from the field, had six assists and four turnovers. He scored 14 of his points at the foul line. This is the second game in a row where Adams has been bottled up from the field and forced to score from the line. 
3. There are flashes in each game that Ikpeze and Ayeni have played in that have to pique the interest of what can be with these two in the fold for four years. They are raw for sure, but Schmidt and his staff have taken unheralded bigs and made them mainstays on all conference team lists. Dion Wright, Denzel Gregg, Yousou Ndoye, and hopefully adding these two will be quite the feat. Ikpeze battled with Alie-Cox all game long and had some bright moments including a nice OT take for a bucket off the bounce. He has clearly put himself into the Bonnies rotation as a big and has bumped David Andoh to the bench; for now. Alie-Cox was held to four boards while Justin Tillman had 12. Those two did combine for 32 points though on 15-23 shooting. SBU was out-rebounded 42-30. 
4. I’ll need to use this space to at least lighten the mood. Twitter was ablaze with some awesome takes on the game call. The analogies were out of control but some of our fans were up to the task. In response to Chic-Fil-A not being open on Sunday’s and referencing Mo-Allie Cox as having “game so nice they named him twice,” this one made this blog writer laugh out loud. The announcer also said “Mark Mobley” several times including a few in OT. That is pathetic for a such a big game, considering “Mark” nailed nine three pointers.

5. The Reilly Center was electric today and can only hope games like these, win or lose are the spark that can get the community back through the doors for games that don’t involve the top teams in the A10. The RC is still an amazing venue and with the upgrades has transformed into a top notch mid-major venue. Whether you want to blame the players or the fans or both or none of them for the technical foul the crowd was awesome today. It’s so fun watching these games when the RC is rocking like it was today. The final result was just a huge black cloud that will hang over the contest forever. 

Moment of the Game: Matt Mobley’s potential game winning 3 pointer with 0.5 seconds left in the game. This would have gone down as one of the all-time moments in Bona history had the shot led to a win. 

Moment of the Game II: With 0.5 seconds left, fans and team members alike while celebrating on the floor, were assessed a team technical foul to resulted in a one shot foul and team control of the ball.

Moment of the Day: Rumor has it Will Wade asked on the record during his presser about about the writers of the blog. Said he reads it all the time. Love a guy who goes to bat for us last year and fights for the league in general. That’s pretty sweet to hear.

Stats:

Stats via GoBonnies.com

Up Next: The Bonnies continue their home stand by welcoming the St. Louis Billikens to the Reilly Center on Wednesday. This is the second game of a home and home with St. Louis with the Bonnies looking for the sweep after their 71-52 victory only a few weeks back.

Photos courtesy of Steve Harrison Photograph. Check out his great work and amazing shots here.