Less than 30 seconds after DeRon Hayes opened the Lions' scoring Saturday afternoon, James Barnes foreshadowed the coming rout of St. Bonaventure with a picture-perfect dunk off a feed from Monroe Brown.

"I told Ed (Fogell) to remember we're tied at two now," Barnes said, laughing.

But going neck-and-neck with Fogell in dunks was just the beginning of Barnes' day. In the following three minutes he hit three more shots, taking the Lions to an early 10-2 lead en route to a 93-61 victory. Then Coach Bruce Parkhill, sensing the opportunity to give his substitutes a workout, sat Barnes down.

There was a rhythm to the rest of Barnes' game . . . play a few minutes, sit a few minutes; sit a few, play a few. And when playing, help his teammates rip Bonnies coach Tom Chapman's offensive and defensive game plans to shreds.

"Their first shots were very good," Chapman said. "They got some secondary transition breaks and hit almost every shot early. They were pretty comfortable."

When it was all said and done, James Barnes had played for 26 minutes and scored a career high 27 points. He went 12-of-14 from the floor and 3-of-6 from the free throw stripe. But he refuses to take all the credit for the team-best performance.

"It makes me feel pretty good to reach a new career high," Barnes said. "But I couldn't have done it if the guys didn't get me the ball and get me good shots. It was a team thing."

Characteristically, Barnes is a quiet player who is highly team-oriented. The one truly vocal bucket he made all afternoon was the dunk, a little something volatile to make his presence felt. After that, he retreated into his usual mode: silent but effective.

He simply scrapped under the hoop and consistently put the ball up and in with shadowy finesse. It was almost as if the Bonnies never knew he was there. They'd just turn around and two more points would magically appear on the tote, the scorer vanished.

"The thing that really impressed me with Jimmy was that he was really working hard all the time for position," Coach Bruce Parkhill said. "Sometimes he has a tendency to let up a little bit, but today he really stayed with it and as a result was put in a lot of positions where he got the ball and ran the floor hard."

Working the ball has been a problem for the entire team lately. Over most of break, particularly in their last game against Massachusetts, the Lions were getting the ball but kept throwing it away. In this week's practices Parkhill has been concentrating on keeping the ball and getting in good position to score.

"My success tonight was a combination of both (those things)," Barnes said. "We've been working hard all week at just moving without the ball and freeing up other guys to take shots. I was fortunate tonight to be able to get up and take some good shots."

Barnes also accumulated the most rebounds for the Lions, four offensive and four defensive.

"Jimmy played hard," Parkhill said, "When he plays hard, he's involved, and when he's involved, he's usually a factor."