ST. BONAVENTURE, N.Y. – Visiting George Washington locked down the St. Bonaventure men's basketball team in a 62-52 decision Sunday afternoon at the Reilly Center.

Noel Brown paced the Bonnies with 15 points and eight rebounds.

The Bonnies (17-8, 5-7 A-10) offense sputtered in the first half, shooting just over 32 percent, but was buoyed by the play of Noah Bolanga who enjoyed his best shooting performance of the season.

Bolanga drained four straight 3-pointers for a career-high 12 points before the break. He finished with 14 points on the day, his first career double-figure scoring effort. 

GW led by four at halftime, but the Bonnies grabbed their first lead two minutes after the start of the second stanza following a three-ball from Jonah Hinton.

Neither team owned more than a six-point advantage through the first 32-plus minutes of the game, but an 8-0 run from the Revolutionaries put the visitors back in front, 43-39, at the under-8 media timeout.

GW extended the lead to 48-41 with 5:39 left for their largest lead of the day before Brown used the glass to get within five as the clock ticked down under five minutes.

A Melvin Council Jr. floater got the Bonnies back within three, but Trey Autry drained a long trey just before the shot clock buzzer for a back-breaking bucket.

Bolanga's layup got the Bonnies to a 51-47 score, but it would be the closest the hosts would get the rest of the way.

Rafael Castro posted 15 points and 10 rebounds for GW (16-8, 5-6 A-10).

The Bonnies forced 20 turnovers which led to 23 points of offense, but GW outscored the hosts 34-24 in the paint and won the boards by a 39-24 margin. Bona went 6-for-21 from distance while the Revs went 5-21.

GAME NOTES

• Bolanga set single-game career highs with 14 points, five made field goals, and 23 minutes played. He also set a new high with four three-pointers, drilling three in just his first six minutes of action. He entered the contest shooting 23% (8-for-34) from deep on the year but has now totaled a 50 percent success rate (11-for-22) in A-10 play. 
• Chance Moore tied his previous career high of four steals against Northern Iowa (11/29/24). 
• Melvin Council Jr. tallied six assists, his seventh game of the season with six or more dimes. 
• The Bonnies totaled their second-most steals in a game this season with 13, though they were held to their lowest point total (52) and least field goals made (21) in a single game on the year. Their high steals total of 14 came in a win over Northern Iowa in November.
• Bona lost the paint battle for just the third time this season and in back-to-back games.
• In last year's meeting, GW scored 86 points, the most posted by a Bona Atlantic 10 opponent during regulation in the past five seasons. 

QUOTES FROM HEAD COACH MARK SCHMIDT
"We're not a great shooting team, but we beat them by one on the three-point line. Usually, we win the points in the paint, but today they beat us by 10. Part of that was second-chance opportunities. We didn't get to the glass as much as we needed to and gave them second-chance opportunities."

"We had the ball at the nail wide open, and we couldn't make plays. The decisions we were making from that point need to improve. Once you get to the nail, you've got numbers, and you have to decide, do I take it to the basket or do I play a game on the back side and we struggled in that."

"I thought George Washington was more physical. If you look at the stats, there were 13 steals, we forced 20 turnovers. We did some positive things, but from a 40-minute standpoint we didn't do it."
 
UP NEXT
St. Bonaventure starts a week on the road with a Northeast swing beginning Wednesday night at Rhode Island. Tip time is slated for 7 p.m.