RICHMOND, Va. – St. Bonaventure was impressive at both ends of the court Saturday, earning a 71-53 victory over fourth-seeded Saint Louis in the Atlantic 10 Championship Semifinals at VCU's Siegel Center.

It's the fifth Atlantic 10 Championship game appearance for the Bonnies, who played in the last A-10 title game (2019) and won the championship in 2012.

Osun Osunniyi led St. Bonaventure’s defensive efforts with seven blocks, which tied for the fourth most in Atlantic 10 Championship history. He tied with Rutgers’s Roy Hinson, Temple’s Tim Perry (1987) and Temple’s Duane Causwell (1989). His eight blocks now have him over 200 rebounds in his Bonnies career. His efforts helped St. Bonaventure tie for third in Atlantic 10 Championship history with nine team blocks.

“I thought from a defensive standpoint we couldn’t have played better,” St. Bonaventure coach Mark Schmidt said. “Saint Louis is a very physical team and I thought the key to the game was controlling the paint. Shoon [Osunniyi] was terrific, he was the eraser and did so much for us. We hit timely shots and got a lot of our offense off our defense.”

Jalen Adaway paced St. Bonaventure with 17 points, which led all scorers, while also grabbing seven rebounds.

“It was trust in my teammates and just refusing to lose,” he said. “We put in too much work to just give up. I feel like we just dug deep and the team believed in each other, believed in me and made it happen.”

Jaren Holmes added 16 points and earned seven rebounds of his own. Kyle Lofton recorded a final line of 12 points, nine rebounds and six assists.

The Bonnies won the paint battle by a 34-20 mark and owned a 35-27 rebounding edge.

“Shoon, he’s incredible, he has a chance to be a pro right now,” said Lofton. “What he does for our defense you can’t even name it. He just has a great feel for the game and shot blocking is an art and he just has that in him. He’s got to be the defensive player of the year.”

Saint Louis was led by Jordan Goodwin’s 11 points and seven rebounds. Javonte Perkins added 10 points, while Yuri Collins recorded nine assists. The Billikens recorded 13 assists on 19 made baskets.

“It just wasn’t our night give St. Bonaventure credit,” Saint Louis coach Travis Ford said. “From the get go, they had guys step up at every position and play at a high level. We weren’t playing at the same speed they were.”

St. Bonaventure opened the contest on an 11-2 run aided by a pair of Alejandro Vasquez triples. Vasquez entered the contest when Adaway exited the game due to a bloody nose suffered 47 seconds into the contest. Vasquez averaged 4.9 points heading into Saturday night’s contest, but quickly eclipsed his average with the back-to-back threes on consecutive possessions, which set the tempo and fed into the Bonnies defense.

Osunniyi also recorded four blocks in the first eight minutes, and the Billikens were held to a 33.3 percent shooting clip in the first half.

Saint Louis was able to cut its first-half deficit down to four points on multiple occasions, however St. Bonaventure found answers from multiple players, while the Billikens had several streaks where it did not record a field goal.

St. Bonaventure used an early 12-2 run in the second half to lead by 18 points and its advantage remained steady from there for the rest of the contest.

Saint Louis, which had 7-1 non-conference record, dealt with a long COVID-19 pause at the beginning of league play.

“We’ve proven ourselves,” Goodwin said. “We’ve won big games and beaten good teams. I know we hurt ourselves with a couple of losses after COVID, but I feel like we bounced back. We have a lot of good individual players that deserve the opportunity to be in there. I thought we put ourselves in a position to be talked about. We feel we can compete with any team in the country.”

St. Bonaventure advances to face the winner of Davidson and VCU in the Atlantic 10 Championship final which will be held Mar. 14 at Dayton’s UD Arena and be televised by CBS Sports at 1:00 pm ET. Its opponent will be either second-seeded VCU or third-seeded Davidson.

“It’s a blessing,” Lofton said. “We wanted to make a statement to the league. Saint Louis they beat us the last three times and two years ago they sent us home. This year we had enough, it was time to come and play. We just came to battle.”