Box Score Feb. 23, 2011
Final Stats
St. Bonaventure, N.Y. -
After playing a solid game at Xavier on Saturday, the Fordham Rams where hoping for a repeat performance tonight at St. Bonaventure, the site of their last Atlantic 10 win. Unfortunately the Bonnies had other ideas as the host school had one of its better games of the year, defeating Fordham 82-63, in the Reilly Center.
With the loss, Fordham's 15th in a row, the Rams fall to 6-19 overall, 0-13 in the Atlantic 10, while St. Bonaventure improves to 15-11 overall, 7-6 in the conference.
"This was an atypical game for us," said Fordham head coach Tom Pecora. "They made a couple of threes before the half to get separation and our man-to-man defense wasn't effective in the second half. Hopefully this is a learning experience for us. We have to realize that we must play our A-game to beat a solid Atlantic 10 team like St. Bonaventure."
The Rams entered the game wanting to stop St. Bonaventure's Andrew Nicholson, who finished with 25 points and eleven rebounds in the first meeting this year. And Fordham was successful to an extent, as Nicholson was limited to 18 minutes tonight due to foul problems, scoring 16 points and grabbing two rebounds. But the Rams had issues with his backup, Brett Roseboro, who scored a career-high 12 points and added five rebounds.
Last Saturday, the Fordham offense fired on all cylinders, shooting 50% from behind the arc while making ten three-pointers. Tonight it was the opposite as the Rams shot only 38.5% (20-52) from the field and made just five long distance shots while also shooting 58.1% (18-31) from the free throw line. Conversely, St. Bonaventure couldn't seem to miss, connecting on almost 60% of its shots (29-49), including 63.6% (7-11) from three-point range.
The loss overshadowed a career-high 21-points from Alberto Estwick. He connected on nine of his 14 field goals, including 3-for-6 from behind the arc, and he added five rebounds for the Rams.
The game started slowly for the Rams, who trailed by six, 10-4, just under five minutes into the game. But an Estwick three with 14:41 left in the half cut the Rams' deficit to three, 10-6.
After a Matthew Wright free throw bumped the Bonnies lead up to five, 11-6, Estwick answered with a jumper which was followed by a Kervin Bristol layup to tie the game at eleven with 11:09 remaining in the half.
Less than a minute later, Chris Gaston retied the game at 13 with a jumper before St. Bonaventure went on a 10-3 run to take a seven-point lead, 23-16, on a Roseboro jumper with 7:36 on the clock.
The Bonnies led again by seven two minutes later, 25-18, when an Estwick layup and a pair of Gaston free throws pulled the Rams to within three, 25-22, with 4:26 left in the first half.
A minute and a half later, the Rams trailed by four, 27-23, when St. Bonaventure scored the last ten points of the half to take a 37-23 halftime lead. The 10-0 run was capped by a pair of three-pointers in the final minute, including one by Demetrius Conger at the buzzer.
The Rams opened the second half with a 5-2 spurt, with four of those points from Brenton Butler, to cut the deficit to eleven, 39-28, 2:50 into the period.
A Branden Frazier three-pointer with 16:38 left made it an eleven-point game again, 42-31, but a 10-2 St. Bonaventure run got the lead up to 19, 52-33, with 13:23 remaining and the closest the Rams would get from that point would be 13, 61-48, on a pair of Lamount Samuell free throws with nine minutes left.
Samuell finished with 12 points for Fordham while Gaston added eleven points and nine rebounds.
The Rams will next be in action on Saturday, February 26th, as they host the University of Rhode Island in an Atlantic 10 game at the IZOD Center at 2:00 p.m. in a game that will be televised live on the CBS College Sports Regional Network (Verizon FIOS in the New York City area).
Notes
St. Bonaventure has now won the past four meetings and leads the all-time series 18-14 (the Bonnies were forced to forfeit two games in 2002-03 due to the use of an ineligible player)... The loss extends Fordham's Atlantic 10 losing streak to 39 games dating back to 2009... The last Fordham conference win was a 67-65 victory at St. Bonaventure on January 28, 2009... Estwick's previous career-high was 20 points, accomplished three times, the last in the St. John's win back in December... He also set a career-high with nine field goals made, surpassing his previous high of seven... Samuell's 12 points were one shy of his season-high, though he did set season-highs with five free throws made and eight free throws attempted... Butler finished with six points to bring his career total to 1,470, placing him in eighth place on the Fordham all-time scoring list... Gaston's nine rebounds bring his career total to 595, good for 18th on the Fordham all-time rebounding list... He is 16 behind Bob Melvin for 17th place... Kervin Bristol pulled down seven rebounds, the first time in the past six games he didn't record double-digit in rebounding... He is averaging 10.3 rpg over the past six games and 9.9 rpg over the past eight... Bristol also blocked two shots to bring his total to 15 in the past five games and a team-high 43 on the season... He has blocked at least one shot in each of the last eight games and in 19 of the 25 games this year... Khalid Robinson scored his first collegiate points on a pair of free throws... St. Bonaventure's 59.2% field goal percentage was the best for a Fordham opponent this year.
