St. Bonaventure rallied from a 15-point deficit, tied the game with just under two minutes left, but couldn’t put away Mississippi State, which left the Reilly Center with a 76-71 victory Tuesday night.

“One play here, one play there,” lamented Bona coach Mark Schmidt, who termed the result “disappointing” but praised the Bonnies for “a great effort” against their Southeastern Conference opponent.

Schmidt said “everything was in place for us. We made a great comeback, we just couldn’t finish it and that was the ball game.”

The Bonnies trailed, 36-34, at halftime and fell behind, 63-48, with about 12 minutes left.

Led by strong efforts by Lackawanna grad Ray Blackburn (who finished with a career- high 22 points), Andrew Nicholson (13 points and nine rebounds), Chris Matthews (10 points, six rebounds) and Jon Hall (10 points, five steals), the Bonnies rallied to tie the score at 71 on Matthews’ three-pointer with 1:59 left.

But a crowd of 5,111 watched the Bulldogs score the next four points and stymie two Bona out-of-bounds plays in the final 18 seconds.

Canisius overwhelmed

It wasn’t the worst offensive performance in Canisius history, but the Golden Griffins’ output in Tuesday night’s 67-41 loss at Washington State (4-0) was just seven points higher than the school-record low of 34 against Toledo back in 1948.

It was the lowest total for Canisius since a 93-40 loss at Penn State in 2007.

Canisius (1-3) trailed, 39-15, at halftime and didn’t pass the 34-point mark until Frank Turner hit a three-pointer to draw within 62-36 with 4:58 to go.

Chris Gadley led the Griffs with 13 points. Taylor Rochestie had a game-high 17 for the Cougars.

Griffs women lose

Three Canisius women scored in double figures but the Golden Griffins fell to 1-3 with a 63-59 loss at Illinois-Chicago (2-0). Marie Warner led the Griffs with 15 points while Amanda Cavo and Michayla Drysdale added 11 points each.

“I thought we controlled the game until they started to put a little pressure on us,” Canisius coach Terry Zeh said.