Enthusiasm and love for a team have a way of clouding reality for many of the faithful. And for those who follow St. Bonaventure basketball – men’s or women’s – with the regular season a week away, expectations of Bonnie nation are high for both teams.
Bona’s women’s team is coming off an advance to the second round of the NCAA tournament while the men are still stinging from an egregious invitation slight to “The Big Dance,” settling instead for the disappointing consolation prize of the NIT.
For men’s coach Mark Schmidt, the inflated hopes of the faithful are self-inflicted. He’s a victim of his own success to the point where even losing two of his three top scorers from last season’s 22-9 squad, and the addition of six new faces, has done nothing to dampen fan optimism.
It’s different for first-year women’s coach Jesse Fleming, who inherits expectations of the success enjoyed by his predecessor, Jim Crowley. But when he left to take over a similar position at the Big East’s Providence, his exit coincided with the graduation of three starters and the transfer of one of Bona’s top returnees.
Fleming’s 11-woman squad has only one returning starter and five freshmen … hardly the prescription for excellence in a tough Atlantic 10. Schmidt has made an interesting metamorphosis starting his 10th season at Bona.
The school that was once coached exclusively by alums – 30 straight seasons of Eddie Donovan, Larry Weise and Jimmy Satalin – has gotten away from that homegrown posture.
Of the last seven Bonnie bosses, only Jim Baron was an SBU graduate and, from the other six, Schmidt has not only stayed the longest, but also has best understood and bought into the St. Bonaventure culture.
When he first arrived, cynical fans felt Schmidt was only going to be at Bona until a better offer came along. Maybe there weren’t any of those … but he surely had chances to leave.
And now, at age 53, while he still might be enticed by a higher-profile job, Schmidt has carved his own niche at the A-10’s smallest school. He wears the underdog role of being the conference’s lowest athletically-funded member and one of the county’s most tiny Division I programs with a sense of pride
and passion.
Significantly, this past off-season, with the university in the throes of its own financial concerns, appreciative alumni donated money to increase Schmidt’s salary from among the Atlantic 10’s lowest-paid coaches to the middle of the pack.
And that raise comes on merit.
After going 8-22 in his first year, inheriting the marginal talent left over from the Anthony Solomon disaster, Schmidt’s teams have averaged just over 17 wins per season with one A-10 title and trip to the NCAAs, last season’s bid to the NIT and a berth in the College Basketball Invitational.
He’s endured only one losing campaign in the last eight (14-15) and hasn’t won fewer than 18 games over the past three.
This season, having lost graduates Marcus Posley (drafted by Erie of the NBA D-League) and Dion Wright (playing professionally in Japan), Schmidt’s squad will center on junior First-Team, All-Conference guard Jaylen Adams. Also back are junior Idris Taqqee, a starter at small forward and senior swing forward Denzel Gregg, the A-10’s Sixth Man of the Year last season. Sophomore backcourt reserve Nelson Kaputo, who tailed off in A-10 games after a fast, non-conference start a year ago, is academically ineligible for the Bona’s first nine games.
But what’s really gotten the fans’ attention is those six new players. Three are transfers: junior guard Matt Mobley (Central Connecticut), 6-foot-7 senior forward David Andoh (Liberty) and 6-9 center Chinonso Obokoh (Syracuse). They’ve lost another transfer for a second straight season, 6-5 junior swingman Courtney Stockard (Allen Community College), who missed all of last season with a foot injury is out for all of this year with a recurrence of the same ailment.
Finally, there are the three freshmen: Josh Ayeni (6-8 forward), Tareq Coburn (guard) and Amadi Ikpeze (6-10 center/forward).
It’s the uncertain upside those six bring to the program which has fans excited and putting the burden of expectations squarely on Schmidt.
Fleming’s situation is drastically different. A Bona graduate, he started as a student manager under Crowley, worked his way up to an assistantship and finally associate head coach.
For the last four years he’s been the top aide at Bowling Green until his alma mater hired him to replace his former boss this spring. Crowley left a dazzling resume, but a circumstantially-depleted roster.
The first six seasons of his 16 years as Bona head coach, Crowley was 53-114, 28-71 in the A-10 and 0-5 in the conference tournament without a single winning campaign.
He often joked that the only reason he wasn’t fired was that his players stayed out of trouble and had high GPAs … and, oh by the way, nobody really cared about the program.
But eventually Crowley zeroed in on a playing philosophy and the kind of players he wanted to recruit.
The result was an extraordinary 10-year stretch where his Bonnies went 205-117. Over his last eight seasons, Crowley took his team to two NCAA Tournaments and four WNITs.
After the 2015-16 campaign ended with a second-round NCAA loss to Oregon State at Corvallis, Ore., starters Katie Healy, the program’s second all-time leading scorer, Nyla Rueter and Emily Michael picked up their diplomas less than two months later. Then, while it’s never been verified as a cause and effect, after Crowley left, talented junior-to-be Miranda Drummond transferred to Syracuse. Erin Wood, a
6-foot-2 freshman, who had seen little action, also left school.
That leaves Fleming with one returning starter, junior guard Mariah Ruff, four role players, Gabby Richmond, a grad student, senior Imani Outlaw, junior Matea Britvar and sophomores McKenna Maycock and Keely Fresh plus five promising freshmen.
It’s a heavily inexperienced roster.
And, it’s worth noting that the only other time Bona’s women made the NCAAs was 2010 when they advanced to the Sweet 16, went 31-4, and immediately lost stars Megan Van Tatenhove and Jessica Jenkins, plus starter Amelia Horton and contributor Jennie Ashton to graduation.
The next season, the gutted Bonnies went 10-19, Crowley’s only losing campaign in his last decade at Bona.
Thus, it’s unrealistic to expect anything less than a rebuilding season from Fleming … but, despite that cautionary tale, don’t tell that to his program’s fans.
(Chuck Pollock, the Times Herald sports editor, can be reached at cpollock@oleantimesherald.com)
