The Binghamton men’s basketball team gave St. Bonaventure all it could handle for 35 minutes.

The Bearcats (0-1) battled against their Atlantic 10 opponent for almost the entire game. BU trailed by just four points at the end of the half, tied the game with eleven minutes remaining and then trailed by just four again with five minutes and twenty four seconds left in regulation.

But, with just over five minutes to go, Bonnies (1-0) freshman guard Nelson Kaputo—playing in his first collegiate game– drained a 3-pointer from the extended right elbow to push the lead to seven, 55-48. BU couldn’t recover, falling, 63-53.

“We came in here, we fought them for forty minutes and that was the goal,” BU head coach Tommy Dempsey said in a postgame press conference. “We just didn’t have enough offense tonight to find a way to win.”

It appeared as if the Bonnies were going to pull away prior to Kaputo’s shot. At the end of the first half, St. Bonaventure’s lead ballooned to 13—its largest of the game—after a made 3-pointer by sophomore guard Jaylen Adams with just over three minutes left in the period. But, BU responded with a 10-1 run, highlighted by back-to-back triples from redshirt freshman guard John Schurman and sophomore forward Willie Rodriguez. Rodriguez, who was fouled on his 3-pointer, converted the four point play to send Binghamton into the locker room trailing 30-26.

“We executed a lot of things that we were trying to do in the scouting report,” Dempsey said. “That’s a sign to me that we are growing up.”

While the Bonnies did pull away at the end of the second half, Binghamton put up an excellent performance on the defensive end of the floor. BU held St. Bonaventure, a team that scored over 75 points eight times last season, to just 63 on the night. The Bonnies shot just 37 percent from the field and 21.1 percent from 3-point range.

“Our defense was terrific,” Dempsey said. “[St. Bonaventure] wants to play fast and score 80, 90 points a game. We came up here, got back in transition, we got physical with them and gave them all we had.”

Binghamton is set to return to action in its home opener on Sunday against Army. Tip-off is scheduled for 2 p.m. from the Events Center in Vestal, New York.