By Jonah Bronstein
LEWISTON — With his team playing sluggish after a nine-day layoff and trailing by 16 points in the 150th all-time meeting with historical rival St. Bonaventure on Tuesday, Niagara coach Joe Mihalich had plenty to say at halftime.
“Believe it or not, I was upset,” Mihalich shared later. “I was getting on some people and all of the sudden I found myself getting on Eric (Williams). And I stopped and said, ‘What am I doing. Why am I getting on Eric?’ He tip-toed around a little bit in there.”
Williams, a redshirt freshman forward who is averaging less than six minutes per game this season, responded with his best performance as a Purple Eagle, playing a pivotal role in a 16-0 second half run.
After Niagara (8-4) hung on for a 77-71 victory in front of a capacity crowd at the Gallagher Center, assistant coach Phil Martelli said to Mihalich: “You know what won the game — you getting on Eric at halftime.”
Williams, the first Division I basketball player from Hope, British Columbia, had a career-high nine points and four rebounds in 8:22 of floor time during the second half.
“He made a great impact,” said Tyrone Lewis, who had 17 points and four steals. “When he came out there and played like he did, it just got us going. He just played hard. He deserves this. He works hard every day in practice. He beats up (Kashief Edwards) and Scooter (Gillette) every day.”
One of the first things Williams did when he got on the floor was out-hustle Andrew Nicholson for a defensive rebound, and draw the fourth personal foul on the Bonnies’ star center, sending him to the bench with 16:58 to go.
Nicholson finished with 24 points on 10-of-14 shooting, and seven rebounds, but while he sat for over 10 minutes in the second half, the Purple Eagles (8-4) outscored the Bonnies (6-5) 28-16.
Asked if he felt fortunate that Bona only got 16 minutes from its best player, Mihalich retorted: “Maybe they feel fortunate Bilal Benn didn’t play.”
Benn, who is averaging 15.6 points and 11 rebounds, was in uniform and participated in warmups but sat out for a third straight game as he recovers from a Dec. 7 operation to repair a meniscus tear in his knee.
“He’s doing really well, and we worked him out today, but he’s just not ready,” Mihalich said. “I think if it were the championship game, he would’ve played.”
Anthony Nelson had another solid all-around game with eight points, seven assists, six rebounds and four steals.
Rob Garrison had seven points, six rebounds and four steals, the last of which led to a pair of free throws with 24 seconds left that effectively sealed the game.
Lewis hit a 3-pointer five seconds into the game, but Niagara would not lead again until Lewis intercepted an overthrown inbounds pass and streaked in for a breakaway slam that made 44-43 with 12:57 left to play.
The rest of the second half saw five ties and a dozen lead changes.
“I thought it was a great college basketball game, a tale of two halves,” Bonnies coach Mark Schmidt said. “Their second half was better than our first half, and that was the ballgame.”
Niagara shot 30 percent in the first half and trailed by as many as 19 points. Take out Lewis’ 5-of-10 effort, and the rest of the Purple Eagles made just 4 of 20 attempts in the first half.
“Then we woke up,” said Demetrius Williamson, who scored 14 of his career-high 22 points in the second half.
“Even our fans, who are the greatest fans in the world, were probably thinking this wasn’t our night,” Mihalich said. “But in the locker room at halftime, there were 20 people who knew we could win this game. And we went out and played that way.”
“As fairy tale as it sounds,” Williamson said, “that’s seriously what we thought. We were so confident in ourselves that we weren’t going to lose.”
Contact reporter Jonah Bronstein at 282-2311, ext. 2258.
