Earlier this month, the St. Bonaventure men’s basketball team lost one big man to an unexpected transfer.

On Friday, it was down another.

Josh Ayeni was left at home for the Bonnies’ 83-73 loss to Davidson on Friday due to a violation of team rules, a team source confirmed earlier in the night. Though no further information was provided, the 6-foot-8 sophomore is expected to be suspended for a total of three games, including Friday’s contest, according to a second source.

Ayeni’s absence left Bona with nine scholarship players Friday, only seven of whom saw significant minutes.

With the Bonnies’ usual starting center out, Courtney Stockard earned his first start of the season as Bona went with a smaller lineup for much of the game (backup center Amadi Ikpeze played a total of 10 minutes). The junior forward played reasonably well before fouling out in the waning minutes, finishing with eight points on 4-for-10 shooting and four rebounds.

Much like it was against a deeper Rhode Island team last Saturday, fatigue might have been a factor for Bona, whose starters all played 32 minutes or more in a fast-paced, high-scoring affair.

In the second half, it shot just 29 percent from the floor, went six-straight minutes without a field goal and once again fell behind big (this time by 14) to a quality opponent in a difficult environment.

By the end, both teams continued trending the same way they came in: The Wildcats, unbeaten at home (6-0), have won five straight league games for the first time since joining the Atlantic 10 in 2014, four of those by double figures, while Bona has lost four of five, all on the road by an average of 10 points.

Other notes from the Bonnies’ loss before 4,305 fans, many of them Charlotte-based Bona alums, inside Belk Arena:

It will go down as both the most unforgiving stretch of the season and the team’s biggest missed opportunity.

Yes, the Bonnies were forced to play the league’s four highest-ranked teams (per KenPom, aside from themselves) on the road within fives to start the conference campaign. And in retrospect, perhaps they shouldn’t have been made to do that.

But that also came with a chance to all but lock down an NCAA Tournament bid and get those tough games out of the way early, and Bona came up wildly short.

The good news is that the schedule gets notably easier from here, with only two games remaining (out of 12) against KenPom top 100 opponents — at home against both the Wildcats and Rhode Island. It’ll play an opposite stretch of four games of out five in the Reilly Center coming up in February.

The bad news is that even if it does get rolling, there are very few opportunities for quality wins remaining and what it’s done to this point won’t be enough.

The Bonnies have lost three straight to the Wildcats following a pair of victories in 2015 and 2016, and all three have been killer setbacks:

In March of 2016, they dropped an overtime heartbreaker in the quarterfinals of the A-10 Tournament, a loss that might have kept them out of the NCAA Tournament. Last year, a loss to the Wildcats kept them from closing the season on a five-game win streak and securing a first-round bye in the league tourney. And this year, they fell in a game they needed to salvage any real chance of an NCAA at-large.

With Friday’s loss, the Bonnies are 0-4 on the road to start league play for the first time since 2013-14. It’s the first stretch in which they’ve lost four of five games since late in the 2014-15 season, when then-freshman point guard Jaylen Adams was lost for the year with a hand injury.

After entering the conference season as the best defensive team in the league statistically, Bona has quickly become one of the A-10’s worst.

Though six league games, it ranks 10th (of 14 teams) in field goal percentage defense (46.7 percent), sixth in 3-point field goal defense (it had previously been No. 1) and 13th in scoring defense (79.3 points).

That’s an odd and remarkable fall for a team that limited nine of 12 non-league opponents to 67 points or fewer. It’s the single biggest reason it’s been unable to win on the road in January: It’s given up an average of 84 points in four contests.

Davidson’s 14 3-pointers were the most surrendered by Bona since it allowed 15 to Canisius in a 107-101 overtime home loss last season. The 3-point is once again starting to become an issue for Schmidt’s team, which entered the game 18th nationally in defending it: It’s allowed an average of nine treys in six conference games.