St. Bonaventure survived a major meltdown Friday night to secure a spot in the semifinals of the Atlantic 10 Conference championship.
The Bonnies did not make a field goal in the last 6:25 of play against Richmond, and the No. 2 seed from New York missed its last five shots from the field at Capital One Arena in Chinatown.
But thanks to a 17-point lead, St. Bonaventure held on to beat the No. 7 seed Spiders 83-77 as guard Matt Mobley had 21 of his 29 points in the second half as the Bonnies won their 13th game in a row. The winners made just 12 of 23 free throws.
“We struggled early. Both teams probably had nerves,” said Mark Schmidt, the Bonnies head coach. “Mobley did a heck of job to get us going. Then we just held on. We didn’t play great defense. We didn’t make our foul shots. It was a good win for us. Courtney (Stockard) got hurt (hamstring) in the last 10 minutes. We found a way; we dealt with some adversity.”
Mobley had nine 3-pointers to set a conference tourney record.
“I had a lot of open looks. My teammates did a good job of finding me,” Mobley said. “I was just happy to get the win.”
The Bonnies (25-6) were playing for their postseason lives. While many pundits have predicted St. Bonaventure will make the NCAA field to be announced Sunday, a loss to a Richmond team that is 12-20 overall may have been a crushing blow.
St. Bonaventure will play on Saturday at 3:30 p.m. against No. 2 seed Davidson, which smothered No. 6 seed St. Louis 78-60 in the last of four games Friday as Wildcats senior Peyton Aldridge had 35 points.
Davidson’s Aldridge, the co-player of the year in the conference, almost bested Mobley in the first half alone of his game.
The senior from Ohio made all six of shots from 3-point range and had 22 before intermission against the Billikens. Davidson led by 26 points late in the first half and by 41-25 at halftime.
The other semifinal Saturday, to be held at 1 p.m., will have No. 1 seed Rhode Island against No. 4 seed Saint Joseph’s. Rhode Island beat VCU and the Hawks downed George Mason in the other two games Friday.
Khwan Fore led Richmond with 25 points, and Jacob Gilyard had 18.
Baltimore product Jaylen Adams, one of the top players in the conference, was held to 5 points on one of seven shots from the field for the Bonnies.
“We are not a two-man team,” Schmidt said.
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