Women’s basketball coach Curt Miller said St. Bonaventure’s team reminds him of his 2007 Sweet Sixteen squad.
‘Our team that year reminds me of the Bonaventure team this year. They were tough but most importantly they were smart. So we were able to overachieve and get nationally ranked and get to the Sweet 16,’ Miller said. ‘Bonaventure is tough but smart. They’re phenomenal, I don’t care what anyone says about their schedule, they are legit and they deserve all the credit they can get.’
The Bonnies (10-0) set up Miller’s post game statement well by soundly beating the Falcons (6-3) 70-54 on Saturday.
Junior Lauren Prochaska was BG’s only player to score in double-digits with 21 points, while St. Bonaventure held the team to a 40.4 shooting percentage.
The Falcons’ next leading scorer was Tara Breske – who came off the bench for 25 minutes – with six points, which Miller credited to St. Bonaventure’s ability to contend shots.
‘They don’t beat themselves,’ Miller said. ‘They’re going to contest every single shot and they’re going to make you earn tough baskets. You’ve got to make baskets against them.’
That was evident during a four-minute stretch when St. Bonaventure went on a 12-0 run to take a 24-10 lead midway through the first half. But the Falcons quickly reversed roles and used an 11-0 run of their own to get back within three.
The Falcons did pull within one with 2:44 left in the first half, but they were never able to get closer than that the rest of the way, as the Bonnies slowly increased their lead the rest of the game.
‘It’s a long game and whenever there’s a big game you get all excited, and I thought we did that in the first half when we broke down at times,’ said St. Bonaventure coach Jim Crowley. ‘If you make mistakes they make you pay and we did a good job of limiting those mistakes. It’s a credit to our maturity. We’ve got to be ready to do different things because defenses are going to try to limit them.’
BG did have a chance to get back in the game, as there was a stretch of nearly four minutes during the second half where neither team made a basket. The Falcons missed five 3-pointers during that span. The Bonnies missed six shots.
With 13 minutes left in the game, Megan Van Tatenhove made a jumper that put the Bonnies ahead by 10. They would maintain a double-digit lead for the rest of the game, holding BG to 20 second half points.
But at the end of game, Miller and his team still proudly shook hands with the Bonnies, even though BG beat St. Bonaventure 77-59 last season.
‘We’re never embarrassed to shake hands at the end of the night when we play a team that, frankly, is better than us and … outplays us,’ Miller said. ‘We were outplayed, they outphysicaled us and I thought they outhustled us.’
The Falcons will take a week off of competition to focus on final exams, and will be back in action on Saturday at Canisius.’
