RICHMOND, Va. - St. Bonaventure showed why it is the top seed at the Atlantic 10 Championships, winning a quarterfinal contest 75-59 over Duquesne Friday afternoon at VCU’s Siegel Center.
Osun Osunniyi recorded a double-double, posting 18 points and 14 rebounds, while Dominick Welch also added 18 points towards St. Bonaventure’s cause. Jaren Holmes posted 14 points, Kyle Lofton netted 11 points and Jalen Adaway contributed 10 points.
“I thought we got off to a really good start,” St. Bonaventure coach Mark Schmidt said. “Duquesne is a very physical team and we thought the team that could control the paint would win. Shoon (Osunniyi) was great, offensively, but more so defensively. Duquesne fought back, we knew they would, and our guys dealt with some adversity, but fought back and gained confidence. It was a good victory. We didn’t come here to go 1-0. Now we have to go back and hopefully play better tomorrow.”
St. Bonaventure won the paint battle by a 50-30 margin.
“It’s easier for my teammate to make shots when the ball is going inside out,” said Osunniyi. “If I am a presence inside, it shrinks the defense. I’m always willing to pass and it’s always a good thing to be a presence inside.”
Duquesne was paced by Michael Hughes’s 15 points and eight rebounds. Both Tavian Dunn-Martin and Tyson Acuff scored 12 points for the Dukes, and Toby Okani grabbed nine rebounds. Duquesne was held to a 34.4% shooting clip from the field.
This is St. Bonaventure’s third consecutive trip to the Atlantic 10 Championship semifinals as it looks to back up its first-ever A-10 regular-season title with its second A-10 Championship title, pairing it with 2012’s triumph over Xavier.
Duquesne opened up a 7-4 lead after freshman guard Tyson Acuff sank a 3-point shot, however before the make it briefly lost Chad Baker to a hip injury, though he was able to return. Baker was Duquesne’s leading scorer in its first-round victory over Richmond.
St. Bonaventure responded to its brief deficit, posting a 14-2 run over 4:58 of game action. In this stretch, the Bonnies were able to find several open shots with quick ball movement and also were aggressive grabbing four of its nine first-half offensive rebounds in that stretch.
Scoring continued to be hard to come by for the Dukes as it went 6:28 without a field goal, following an Andre Harris basket that comprised the lone points in the aforementioned Bonnies run.
Bonaventure enjoyed a double-digit lead for much of the first half and closed the frame on a 10-0 run before Dunn-Martin beat the buzzer with a layup. Even still, it was the Bonnies in front by 21 points.
Duquesne committed 10 first-half turnovers that St. Bonaventure turned into 17 points.
“I thought we got some stuff off of our defense,” said Schmidt. “I felt we moved the ball from side-to-side a little bit better today in the first half.”
Early on in the second half, both teams went on mini runs, but it was a 12-0 Duquesne run that brought the game back into single digits.
The run started with an Okani 3-point basket and later on he made a loud dunk which forced Schmidt to call a timeout.
After a pair of Duquesne free throws, St. Bonaventure then scored nine points, responding to that run with one of its own placing the advantage back up to 17 points.
The Bonnies will face either fourth-seeded Saint Louis or fifth-seeded Massachusetts in the first of two Atlantic 10 Championship semifinal contests. The contest will be held at 6 p.m. Saturday evening at the Siegel Center and be televised by CBS Sports Network.