(8) St. Bonaventure 83, (9) Duquesne 71

 

The Big Picture: Bona's late-season run continues, as Tuesday's win makes it 5-of-6 for the Bonnies (15-15) down the stretch.  A raucous Reilly Center crowd saw star-in-the-making sophomore center Andrew Nicholson dominate the Dukes on the interior while senior wing Chris Matthews continued to play the best ball of his career, dropping 28 points on Duquesne (16-15) in his final game before the folks in Olean, N.Y.

The Good:  Nicholson's 21 points were nice and all, but the best part of his performance tonight was what he didn't do: commit careless fouls.  Nicholson, who seems destined to be one of Bona's all-time greats, committed but a single foul in 36 minutes of burn against an athletic Duquesne frontcourt.  Mark Schmidt's squad will be in any game in which Nicholson plays 36 minutes of relatively foul-free hoops.  That goes for Thursday's go-round with Temple in the quarterfinals.

The Bad: It’s tough to figure out why Duquesne decided that Tuesday was the time it should suddenly start chucking away from three with reckless abandon.  Given that the Dukes were missing most of those shots - they finished 5-of-21 behind the arc - the Dukes' decision-making on the offensive end becomes, well, confounding.  One wonders if Nicholson avoided foul trouble mostly because Duquesne was content firing up triples rather than trying to probe the interior of the Bonnies' defense.