RICHMOND, Va. — On a frosty weekend across the East Coast, host VCU came out red hot and never looked back on the way to a 91-63 victory over the St. Bonaventure men’s basketball team Saturday afternoon at the Siegel Center.

Justin Winston led the Bonnies with 17 points and six rebounds while Jaren English added 15 points.

VCU (13-5, 3-2 A-10) took control early, jumping to a 29-8 advantage thanks to a 18-0 run. Despite being able to create several good looks, little fell for Bona in the opening minutes as the visitors saw just four of their first 18 attempts land.

Little went wrong for VCU during the opening 20 minutes as the Rams shot 58 percent while Nah’Shon Hyland had 17 points at intermission as part of a 52-24 cushion.

“We got off to a tough start. Early on we missed a lot of layups, open jump shots and it just snowballed on us,” St. Bonaventure head coach Mark Schmidt said. “Going into the game we thought Silva was the key and we didn’t do a good job on him. They took us off the bounce and were going downhill. The game was over at halftime. Give our guys credit; we fought.”

The lid came off the basket for the Bonnies to begin the second half as they closed the deficit to 58-36. That would be as close as the visitors would get down the stretch, however, as VCU never relinquished control.

The Bonnies (12-6, 4-1) were playing without sophomore Osun Osunniyi who missed the game due to concussion symptoms.

Hyland led all scorers with 21 points on 8-of-12 shooting for VCU. Marcus Santos-Silva took advantage of Bona’s missing starting center, finishing with 17 points and 11 rebounds.

The scoring was even in the second half, 39-39, but the first half hole was far too much for Bona to overcome.

“We only turned the ball over nine times and if you would’ve said that going in I would’ve thought we would have a shot. We were just missing so many shots. They rushed us a little bit, but we did a decent job getting the ball into the middle,” Schmidt said. “We made some mistakes, but we had some open shots and open layups. We took care of the ball. Their press got us out of rhythm at times, but we did a good a job against it. They took the ball out of Kyle’s hands, but someone else has to make a play. We’re in a stretch of playing the marquee teams in the league and we have to get better.”

NOTES: VCU shot 52 percent from the floor while the Bonnies finished at 35 percent. VCU won the battle of the boards, 43-38. … Five of St. Bonaventure’s six losses have come when the team was playing without one of its regular starters due to injury. Bona is 11-1 when Osunniyi plays a full game and 9-1 when it plays with its full lineup. … St. Bonaventure suffered its first A-10 loss after matching the best start in school history at 4-0. Both the 1999-2000 and 2015-16 teams lost their fifth conference games as well, though both responded extremely well — the ’15-16 team ended up sharing the A-10 regular season crown while the ’99-00 squad finished second in the A-10 Eastern Division. … Robert Carpenter played a career high in minutes with 12. … The Bonnies entered the day allowing just 55.0 points on average to opponents in A-10 games and had not allowed more than 66 in conference play prior to Saturday. … Winston posted his seventh double-figure scoring effort of the season.

NEXT: The Bonnies will travel again to face another top A-10 foe, playing at No. 13 Dayton on Wednesday night in the Buckeye State. Tip-off on CBS Sports Network is slated for 7 p.m.

ST. BONAVENTURE (63)

Lofton 2-8 2-2 6, Welch 3-9 0-0 7, Winston 7-19 1-2 17, English 7-12 1-1 15, Vasquez 0-7 6-6 6, Planutis 2-4 2-2 6, Ikpeze 3-6 0-0 6, Carpenter 0-3 0-0 0, Johnson 0-1 0-0 0, Okoli 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 24-69 12-13 63.

VCU (91)

Jenkins 2-7 2-2 7, Hyland 8-12 0-0 21, Santos-Silva 6-8 5-8 17, Simms 1-5 0-0 3, Vann 4-8 0-0 10, Curry 2-4 3-5 7, Douglas 2-4 2-2 6, Clark 2-5 0-2 4, Ward 3-4 2-3 8, McAllister 3-4 2-2 8, Crowfield 0-2 0-0 0, Henderson 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 33-63 16-24 91.

Halftime–VCU 52-24. 3-Point Goals–St. Bonaventure 3-18 (Winston 2-5, Welch 1-6, Lofton 0-1, Planutis 0-1, English 0-2, Vasquez 0-3), VCU 9-22 (Hyland 5-6, Vann 2-3, Simms 1-2, Jenkins 1-4, Curry 0-1, Douglas 0-1, McAllister 0-1, Clark 0-2, Crowfield 0-2). Fouled Out–Clark. Rebounds–St. Bonaventure 35 (Welch 7), VCU 42 (Santos-Silva 11). Assists–St. Bonaventure 14 (Lofton 5), VCU 15 (Jenkins 5). Total Fouls–St. Bonaventure 20, VCU 16. A–7,637 (7,637).