Mar. 6, 2002
St. Bonaventure went on a 12-0 run early in the second half to turn a five-point lead into a 17-point bulge in defeating Duquesne 81-66 in the first round of the Atlantic 10 Championship at Philadelphia.
The Bonnies hit seven of their Atlantic 10 tournament record-tying 12 three-pointers in the second half to put the game away. J.R. Bremer went 4-of-9 from the arc in scoring a game-high 22 points for St. Bonaventure. Vidal Massiah connected on 5-of-6 three-point attempts in adding 21 points for SBU.
Kevin Forney paced Duquesne with 19 points and five assists on 8-of-12 shooting. Wayne Smith added 17 and Simplice Njoya posted his first career double-double with 10 points and a career-high 11 boards for DU.
Forney single-handedly kept Duquesne in the game with 15 first-half points, as the Dukes trailed 42-35 at intermission.
Aaron Lovelace converted a layup at the 17:43 mark of the second half to cut St. Bonaventure's lead to five at 46-41, before the Bonnies went on their game-deciding run. SBU finished the game 12-of-33 from the arc with just eight turnovers, while Duquesne's 54.2 percent shooting effort was not enough to overcome 19 miscues.
NOTES:
- Wayne Smith finished his career No. 4 on the all-time DU scoring list with 1,820 points. He came up seven points shy of tying Canisius' Micheal Meeks (1,827 points from 1993-96) for the top spot on the list of the all-time leading Canadian scorers in NCAA history
- Forney's 19 points tied his season high.
Duquesne head coach Danny Nee:
On the senior class - "It's tough when you're on your third coach. It makes it difficult for them to digest everything. They have to adjust to new systems. I thought they did a great job this year. They tried. I wish we could have given them more help. Losing Simplice [for 19 games] really screwed them up."
