Amadi Ikpeze answered quickly and with conviction.
Mere minutes after his St. Bonaventure men’s basketball team had downed Saint Joseph’s on Wednesday night, the senior center was asked what he thought the next two days of practice would be like preparing for Saint Louis.
“Physical,” he responded, without hesitation, “because we know how Saint Louis plays. We know they want to go inside, we know that they attack the glass. So I think we need to have the mindset of we’ve got to be the bully.
“We’ve got to come in and punch them in the mouth, as Coach (Mark Schmidt) would say, and, from the jump, just win that game and get that double-bye.”
For Bona, there’s no shortage of motivating components heading into tonight’s regular season finale against surging Saint Louis (8 o’clock, WPIG-FM, WHDL-AM, Stadium-TV) inside Chaifetz Arena.
That coveted final double-bye chief among them.
For the second-straight season, Bona and the Billikens, after Richmond’s victory over Duquesne on Friday night, will meet head-to-head for the No. 4 seed on the final day of the regular year.
The Bonnies (19-11, 10-6), then, can punch their ticket to next Friday’s A-10 Tournament quarterfinals with a victory (a loss, meanwhile would drop them to fifth and into Thursday’s second round).
Additionally, they can avenge last year’s bitter 55-53 loss to Saint Louis in the A-10 championship, a game it led by 15 points before halftime, and secure their fourth 20-win campaign in the last five seasons.
Make no mistake: Schmidt’s team understands the value of finishing the regular season on a high note and making the A-10 Tournament a more manageable three-games-in-three-days affair. At the same time, however, it refuses to view tonight as the end-all for its tourney prospects.
Though it would remain on the same side of the bracket as top-seeded Dayton win or lose, it’s keeping in mind the following truth: Winning the league tournament at No. 5 or lower has been done before.
“In the last five years, there have been two teams that weren’t in the top four that won the tournament,” said Schmidt, citing VCU’s win in 2015 and Saint Louis’, as the No. 6, just last season. “So it’s not like you have to get a bye to have any chance of winning it; that’s been proven in the last five years …
“We know it’s a tough game — we’re not expected to win. Our thing is to prepare as best we can, and to go out there and try to play our A-game. And if we can, then we’ll have a legitimate chance. If we don’t, then we’re going to be the (fifth seed).”
In the same situation a year ago, Bona beat the Billikens 66-57 inside the Reilly Center for the No. 4 seed.
If it’s going to make it back-to-back years in the fourth spot, it will have to topple one of the hottest teams in the conference.
Saint Louis (22-8, 10-6) has won four-straight, all by double digits, including an 80-62 pasting of VCU and an impressive 72-62 road triumph over Rhode Island, and five of the last six overall. It will also be highly motivated after remaining in contention for fourth based on Richmond’s victory on Friday (if Duquesne had won, SLU would have been eliminated due to the Dukes’ regular season sweep of the Billikens).
Saint Louis’ lineup currently features just two players who contributed in its A-10 championship win over Bona last March, but they’re good ones: preseason all-conference selections Jordan Goodwin (15.5 points, 10.4 rebounds), who went for 16 and 14 against the Bonnies in the title contest, and hulking junior center Hasahn French (12.2 points, 10.1 rebounds).
But its M.O. remains the same: It’s one of the most physically imposing teams in the league, it’s strong defensively and it rebounds, leading the A-10 by a wide margin at plus-6.4 (Bona sits No. 2 at plus-3.7). Goodwin, despite being only 6-foot-3, and French currently ranks Nos. 1 and 3 in the league, respectively, on the glass.
“Their style of play doesn’t change because that’s how they play,” Schmidt noted. “They’ve got more shooters than they had last year. They push the ball much more than they did last year. But the physicality is a constant …
“They’re physical, they try to keep the ball above the foul line; it’s hard to get the ball inside and back guys down. They’re good because that’s what they’re good at. We’ve got to do all the basic offensive things — the ‘coach talk’ stuff, but you’ve got to do it. It’s not going to be a high-scoring game; hopefully we can make (one more) 3 and win the game.”
Coach Travis Ford’s team boasts a third double-digit scorer in junior college transfer Javonte Perkins (15 points).
Bona, meanwhile, which had won nine in a row over SLU before falling last March, figures to be pushed by the following factors: the feeling of having to walk off the Barclays Center floor last year with blue and white confetti falling into its face and the desire to start this year’s tournament on Friday.
“The physicality of them, we’ve got to do a good job of limiting them to one shot,” Schmidt said. “A lot of it is allowing the ball into the paint, then you have rotations, and it’s hard to box out when you have rotations.
“They’re not a very good foul shooting team — they know that — so they do a really good job of getting second shots off of foul shots, so that’s a big key, as well. But rebounding, no matter who you’re playing, if you don’t win the battle of the backboard, you’re going to have a hard time winning.”
