OLEAN, N.Y. – Enveloped by the roars of a sold-out Reilly Center crowd during the final minute of a Saturday afternoon loss at St. Bonaventure, Yuta Watanabe took a seat on the bench, and hung his head in frustration.
The Colonials had clawed all the way back from an 11-point, late second-half deficit to trail just 59–55, and with 42.4 seconds remaining, the sophomore forward headed to the line with a chance to cut the Bonnies’ lead, once as large as 15 points, to two.
The front end of the one-and-one did not fall.
The Bonnies secured the rebound, and some seconds later moved to an impressive 17-6 overall and 9-3 in Atlantic 10 play with a 64–57 decision over GW (18-7, 7-5 A-10).
“[In the second half] their team got confident, the environment and everything had a major influence, but I think we’re still lacking that defense we had at the beginning of the year,” senior swingman Patricio Garino said. “That’s been hurting us lately.”
Despite a game-high 21 points from Garino, including three of the Colonials’ five three-pointers on the day, men’s basketball committed 16 turnovers, nine in the first half alone.
The visiting defense also allowed St. Bonaventure to shoot 56.0 percent from the field in the second half en route to GW’s second consecutive and fifth A-10 loss overall.
Up against the best free-throw shooting team in the nation, the Colonials also went a disappointing 10-for-15 from the charity stripe.
“It was really worse than that,” head coach Mike Lonergan said. “It’s just mental toughness–some guys struggle with pressure. Yuta was our best free throw shooters last year and he goes up there and misses a huge one-and-one, I mean the crowd gets to you or whatever, you just have to block that out. Five misses at least one or two of them were one-and-one, it was really costly for us.”
Sophomore guard Jaylen Adams scored a team-high 19 points and went a perfect 3-for-3 from deep to frustrate a GW defense that has struggled as of late.
Senior guard Marcus Posley, the A-10’s third leading scorer was held to just 3-of-14 from the field but added 11 points, while senior forward Dion Wright contributed a crucial 12 points off the bench, while GW’s reserves combined for just four on the day.
Lonergan lauded Adams’ offensive performance and thought his team played well defensively early, but fell apart in the second frame.
“We got away from [good defense] for whatever reason, they got us on our heels and just started lighting us up and then they got all the 50-50 balls,” Lonergan said. “[The Bonnies] were definitely a tougher team today, they scrap and we struggled with toughness at times.”
However, on a frigid four-degree day in Olean, N.Y., both teams came out shooting cold. The squads both began the game shooting a lackluster 2-for-8 from the field, prompting a low-scoring half, which Saint Bonaventure finished with a 24–19 lead.
Redshirt junior forward Tyler Cavanaugh posted 17 points, the only other Colonial aside from Garino to score in double figures, but got 10 of those at the foul line. The usually-efficient shooter went 3-for-13 from the field and 1-for-5 from deep, embodying his team’s poor shot selection that permeated much of the contest.
GW shot 5-of-21 from beyond the arc to the Bonnies’ 6-of-17.
“We were 2-for-10 [from three-point range] at halftime of the Saint Joe’s game, and 2-for-11 today” Lonergan said. “Some guys are just shot-happy and looking for threes too much and when teams play physical with us…and the game isn’t called closely that’s not to our advantage, and we backed away from that challenge.”
The Colonials will travel to Pittsburgh on Wednesday to take on Duquesne at 7 p.m.
