“He played unbelievable”, coach Mark Schmidt said of Stockard on truTV.
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St. Bonaventure played at UD Arena on January 3 and lost 82-72. He missed his next eight shots as St. Bonaventure rallied.
The 11-seed St. Bonaventure Bonnies improved to 26-7 (14-4 A-10) on the season after defeating the UCLA Bruins, 65-58, in a first-four matchup of the NCAA Tournament this past Tuesday night. Most of the passes I threw up they were able to recover.
With the win against UCLA, St. Bonaventure will travel to Dallas to face No. 6-seed Florida (20-12) in a first-round meeting of the NCAA Tournament this Thursday evening. “They’re pretty long and they got deflections”.
“Florida’s got four or five days on us, so we’ll be watching tape on the plane”, Schmidt said.
“That 2 a.m. flight’s going to be the best flight of my life”.
While Atlantic 10 Co-Player of the Year Jaylen Adams was held without a basket through his first eight shots, Stockard provided nearly all of St. Bonaventure’s scoring early. St. Bonaventure used a 12-0 run to take a 58-51 lead before UCLA battled back.
“I’m still not 100 percent”, Stockard said, “but I’m feeling way better than when I did when I left the Richmond game”. Because I think that’s really important – legacies and tradition.
Tuesday’s game marked the Bruins’ 49th all-time appearance in the NCAA Tournament and the program’s 11th trip to the national tournament in the last 14 seasons. He stated, “they beat a lot of good teams, Maryland, Syracuse and they made the tournament. that’s all we can ask for”. UF got off the bubble with a three-game winning streak to close the regular season, including over ranked Auburn and Kentucky.
The Gators have four players averaging in double figures scoring, all of whom play on the perimeter: Jalen Hudson, Egor Koulechov, Chris Chiozza and KeVaughn Allen.
“We know those are their two main scorers, and they’re great players”, he said. The guy just picked the ball up, just laid it up… Leading the way for the Gators was Keith Stone who had 22 points, 5 rebounds, 1 assist, and a steal in 24 minutes from off the bench.
The Bruins finished third in the Pac-12 thanks to the play of junior point guard Aaron Holliday and freshmen Jaylen Hands and Kris Wilkes.
St Bonaventure is back in the tournament for the first time since 2012.
Like Adams, UCLA’s Holiday also gave an uneven performance.
Jones didn’t disappoint them.
That, coupled with having lost seven of 12 league games down the stretch, has few outsiders giving the Gators much of a chance to get past the opening weekend of the tournament. I’m just so excited to be a part of this Bonaventure tradition. “It’s insane. It’s a good feeling”. Jashaun Agosto led the Blackbirds with 16 points.
“We’re such a different team”, he said. “Basketball is about a game of runs”.
“We’re going down in history”. It’s just a bond that we’ve got just from that, let alone everything else we do together. St. Bonaventure is a hard matchup, as the Bonnies swarm defensively and play with fire. Each team committed 15 turnovers. “I’d like to see this group one day tear up a locker room after we lose, but that’s not happening”.
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Gators senior point guard Chris Chiozza, whose overtime buzzer-beating shot over Wisconsin sent UF to the Elite 8 past year, expects a tough battle in the backcourt. “We were active. We had deflections and points off turnovers was the difference”. Fouled Out-D.Hicks, Clark. Rebounds-LIU Brooklyn 30 (Batts 8), Radford 35 (Polite 12). Totals 28-59 9-13 71. Assists-LIU Brooklyn 13 (Agosto 7), Radford 17 (Jones 7).
