Was the sound you heard in Chinatown on Saturday afternoon the bubble bursting for the St. Bonaventure basketball team?
The Bonnies entered its game with Davidson having won 13 games in a row and finishing second in the Atlantic 10 Conference regular-season.
But Davidson got 24 points from senior Peyton Aldridge, the Co-Player of the Year in the conference, and 23 more from freshman Kellan Grady to beat the Bonnies 82-70 in the tournament semifinals.
Davidson (20-11), the No. 3 seed, will now face No. 1 seed and regular-season champion Rhode Island for the title on Sunday at 1 p.m. at the Capital One Arena. Rhode Island (25-6) is ranked No. 25 in the country and upset Creighton in the NCAA tourney last year.
Most experts predicted before Saturday’s play that the Bonnies would make the NCAA field, which will be announced Sunday evening.
Now that is not a sure thing.
“I think we have a special non-conference (schedule), one of the best non-conference I’ve had since I have been there,” said Bonnies senior standout Jaylen Adams, a product of Mount St. Joseph’s in Baltimore. “We beat some good teams. Hopefully it helps us tomorrow. It’s not something we really know for sure. Like I say, we got some quality wins and hopefully it’s enough tomorrow.”
Davidson will most likely have to win Sunday to get into the NCAA tournament.
It was 10 years ago that Davidson made a memorable NCAA run back of guard Steph Curry, now an NBA All-Star with the Golden State Warriors.
Current freshman guard Grady of Davidson is a huge fan of Curry and that was a major reason that he enrolled at the tiny private school near Charlotte.
Grady got to meet Curry a few months ago and is now getting to also play for McKillop, who took over at Davidson in 1989-90 and was 4-24 that first season.
What will New York native McKillop tell his team about Rhode Island?
“I have not even thought about that at this point. I will spend the next two or three hours putting my thoughts together. At this point I am a jumbled mess in terms of my mind,” he said, just minutes after the Wildcats quieted the many Bonnies fans who had come to Chinatown.
Rhode Island senior guard Stanford Robinson, who is from Landover, Maryland and played at Paul VI High in Fairfax, said the Rams are also pumped for another title.
Rhode Island lost at Davidson in the regular-season finale March 2 by two points.
“It is definitely motivating,” Robinson said, standing in the locker room after the win. “One of our goals was to win the regular-season and win the tournament.”
Rams sophomore guard Jeff Dowtin (16 points, 10 assists), who is from Upper Marlboro, Maryland and played at St. John’s College High in The District, had a big shot in the closing seconds in the win over the Hawks on Saturday. Rhode Island did not lead in the game until less than seven minutes to play.
“I guess it just took us awhile for us to settle in, into the moment,” he said. “I guess for the first half we were rushing out shots a little bit but we were taking good shots knowing that we could make them.”
Davidson also made its shots, hitting 16 from 3-point range in the win over the Bonnies. That was the second most in Atlantic 10 tourney history, a record that is held by St. Bonaventure.
“When they shoot the ball the way they shot it today they are hard to beat,” said Bonnies head coach Mark Schmidt.
Whether the Bonnies (25-7) made enough shots — and posted enough wins — to gain an at-large bid to March Madness will be learned after the title game Sunday.
The Davidson-Rhode Island winner in D.C. gets an automatic berth to The Dance.
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