ST. BONAVENTURE, N.Y. — There was no on-court celebration. There were barely congratulatory high-fives.
As the final horn sounded in the St. Bonaventure men’s basketball team’s 79-68 triumph over La Salle on Tuesday, the Bonnies almost didn’t even react. Yeah, it was a necessary win, but the sentiment seemed clear: The real showdown takes place Friday.
In the last three days, the magnitude of this matchup between the two hottest teams in the league has almost given way to hyperbole. Some have called it the biggest game in the Reilly Center’s 51-year history.
But when Bona meets Rhode Island tonight in a sold out, nationally televised contest in the RC, there’s nothing hyperbolic about the quality of the matchup … and what’s on the line for the Bonnies.
Coach Mark Schmidt’s team (19-6, 9-4) enters on a seven-game win streak and tied with Davidson for second in the Atlantic 10 standings. Rhode Island (21-3, 13-0), meanwhile, up to No. 16 in the Associated Press Top 25, has won 16-straight – tied for the longest winning streak in Division I – and sits comfortably in first.
A win would give the Bonnies a much-needed signature conference triumph and likely propel them back onto the right side of the NCAA Tournament bubble. As it stands, they’re the first team out in Joe Lunardi’s latest ESPN projection.
That’s the narrative on the outside, where this game has been slowly zeroed in on since Bona began this stretch in late January. With so much at stake, what’s the mindset on the inside?
“We’ve got to play,” Schmidt said. “We know who’s coming in here, we know how good they are. We know we need to play our A game. But in the big picture, it’s just the next game on the schedule. We can’t look ahead, we can’t look behind. We’ve prepared, and now we have to play well to win.”
Added senior guard Jaylen Adams, whose recent rise has been at the root of the Bonnies’ resurgence: “We’ve just got to cancel out the noise, treat is as we’ve been treating all the other games.
“We understand (tonight) is going to be a tough game, so we’ve just got to be ready to defend and be together.”
In a matchup of the two highest scoring teams in the league – Bona is No. 1 (77.6) and URI No. 2 (77.3) – defense will likely make the difference.
Last month, the Bonnies scored 73 points against a URI defense that also ranks No. 2 in points allowed (66.4). Now at home and with Adams and Matt Mobley playing as well as they are, offense likely won’t be a problem in this one. Bona, however, surrendered 87 points, including a 16-2 run to start the second half, as part of that unsightly road stretch to start the conference campaign.
That’s what allowed the Rams to pull away for an easy victory.
It knows that in order to have any chance of beating URI, a slight favorite, in the rematch, it’ll have to play better defense.
“I think that was probably the biggest factor in the game,” said Adams, referring to that poor start to the second half. “We were fighting uphill for the rest of the game from there on out. We’ve just got to play the whole game like we did that 36 minutes, and we should be fine.”
Addressing his team’s performance as a whole, Schmidt added: “We’ve got to play better at both ends. We didn’t play well offensively. We turned the ball over too many times. We didn’t play nearly as good down there for us to win, and if we do that again, we’re going to lose.”
Tonight marks the Bonnies’ first game against a ranked opponent since February of 2016 against Dayton. Schmidt’s team has fared well against such foes of late, winning its last four going back to 2013-14.
To make it five in a row, it’ll have to handle Rhode Island’s deep backcourt, experience and physicality.
Senior guard Jared Terrell (18 points), a likely first team all-conference selections, is one of the toughest players in the A-10 and the engine that makes URI go. Sophomore point man Jeff Dowtin had a superb game in January, totaling 18 points and nine assists. Bona may catch a break in the fact that redshirt senior E.C. Matthews (13 points) is questionable after bruising his knee in a win over Richmond Tuesday (coach Dan Hurley said he could miss the Bona game, but likely no more than that).
Bona knows, however, if there’s one team that could replace Matthews, it’s the Rams, up to No. 6 in the Ratings Percentage Index, who have three more solid guards (Stanford Robinson, Jarvis Garrett and Fatts Russell) in the fold.
For Schmidt’s team, this is undoubtedly a pressure situation. If it loses, it would likely either need to win the A-10 Tournament, or at least win out and make the championship game to have any chance of reaching the Big Dance.
This was the game that was circled on fans’ calendars when the schedule came out in the summer and its the game that means everything now.
That chatter? Much as they were in early January, the Bonnies are trying to tune it out.
“You can’t worry about what people say,” Schmidt said. “When we were 2-4, people were saying that we were done. You’ve got to worry about what’s going on in that locker room. We have really good leadership, guys that understand what they need to do to have success.”
“People on the outside, it’s great that they’re excited. That’s not going to have any bearing on the game and how we play. We’ve got to block out the house and do what we’re supposed to do, and that’s prepare as well as we can and play our A game.”
