St. Bonaventure holds off UCLA in First Four

Junior forward Courtney Stockard scored 26 points and senior guard Jaylen Adams buried the tie-breaking jumper to lead St. Bonaventure to its first NCAA Tournament victory since 1970, a 65-58 decision over UCLA in a battle of No. 11 seeds at the First Four in Dayton, Ohio.

Senior guard Matt Mobley added 14 points and junior forward LaDarien Griffin had 10 for the Bonnies (26-7).

Adams, the co-Atlantic 10 Player of the Year, shot just 2-of-16 while scoring eight points but came through in the clutch.

Junior guard Aaron Holiday had 20 points and seven assists before fouling out for UCLA (21-12). Bruins sophomore guard Prince Ali tallied 13 points and freshman guard Kris Wilkes added 10.

St. Bonaventure will face sixth-seeded Florida in Thursday’s first round of the East Region in Dallas.

“It can’t get better,” Bonnies coach Mark Schmidt said in a postgame interview. “Our guys just fought. We had toughness, we made big shots.”

In other First Four action, Carlik Jones nearly had a triple-double with 12 points, 11 rebounds and seven assists as Radford beat LIU Brooklyn 71-61 in a battle of No. 16 seeds in the East Region.

Ed Polite Jr. added 13 points and 12 rebounds, Travis Fields Jr. scored 13 points and Donald Hicks added 11 for Radford, which moves on to face No. 1 seed Villanova in the first round on Thursday night.

The Highlanders (23-12) reached the Big Dance after sweeping their way through the Big South Conference tournament and edging Liberty 55-52 in the championship game. Radford is in the tourney for the third time ever and the first since 2009.

Jashaun Agosto had a game-high 16 points with seven assists and six rebounds for the Blackbirds. Raiquan Clark added 14 points and Julian Batts contributed 13 and eight boards in defeat for LIU Brooklyn.

Syracuse took on Arizona State and Texas Southern faced NC-Central late Wednesday night in the other two play-in contest before thursday main event tip-off.