Saint Louis drained 27-of-32 second half free throws to subdue St. Bonaventure 76-63 tonight in the Billikens' final non-conference game of the regular-season before a paid crowd of 11,076 at Savvis Center. Senior swingman Maurice Jeffers turned in another sterling effort with 14 points, eight boards and five assists as the Bills snapped a two-game losing streak.

"St. Bonaventure is a good team and this wasn't a game that we were looking forward to coming back from that Hawaii trip, so it's a huge win in that respect," Billikens head coach Lorenzo Romar said. "This is a good win to build momentum going back into the conference season. We had our backs to the wall to a certain degree."

Except for when the Bonnies had an early 2-1 lead, the Billikens led throughout the game and twice led by 10 in the first half but never could put St. Bona away. Leading 6-5, the Billikens put together an 11-2 run highlighted by four points from Chris Heinrich and a Jeffers dunk.

St. Bona crept back within 25-21 on a Kevin Houston free throw at 6:57, but the Billikens pushed it back to 10 on a Justin Tatum jumper at 5:04. Chris Braun's turnaround jumper off the left baseline at the halftime horn provided SLU with a 41-33 margin at the break. The Billikens' aggressive defense held the Bonnies to 29.4 percent from the field in the first half.

"They got up on us early by making inside shots over us which they hadn't shown on film that they could consistently do," Bonnies head coach Jim Baron said. "They are aggressive defensively. Their crowd got into it and it was an emotional game for them. It's easy to see why they're 6-1 at home."

The parade to the free throw line was fortuitous for the Bills in the second half as they made only 4-of-9 shots from the field. The Bills built their largest lead to 12 at the 13:25 mark on a Tatum turnaround jumper. The Bills would lead by 12 on four occasions in the second half before St. Bona began a late push after trailing 58-46 with 7:01 to play.

The Bonnies cut the lead to 65-59 with 2:20 to play, but the Billikens continued to bury free throws. Jeffers brought the house down with a monster slam with 1:07 to play to seal the deal.

The Bills did a solid defensive job on St. Bona's leading scorers, Peter Van Paassen and Kevin Houston who came in averaging 16.3 ppg and 19.7 ppg, respectively.

"Most big scorers don't have great days when they run into Chris Heinrich and Moe Jeffers," Romar said. "Those two guys are our best defenders on the interior and the perimeter. Now it doesn't always happen, but most days those two get the job done."

Sophomore guard Justin Tatum added 11. The Bills shot 57.1 percent from the field, which was the sixth consecutive home game that the Bills made more than half of their shots.

Van Paassen topped the Bonnies with 14 points and 10 boards, while J.R. Bremer added 13 and Kevin Houston added 11. The usually sharp-shooting Bonnies (8-3) shot only 30.6 percent from the field for the game.

The Billikens (8-6 overall, 0-1 C-USA) return to Conference USA action on Sat., Jan. 6, when SLU entertains Louisville at 1:10 p.m.