ST. BONAVENTURE, N.Y. — It was the bright side, if you’re willing, to the cancelation of both the Atlantic 10 Tournament and NCAA Tournament in March:
At least this didn’t happen in 2018, when the St. Bonaventure men’s basketball team spent virtually all of that season in contention for the Big Dance, heard its name called on Selection Sunday and earned an all-time win over UCLA.
At least these current Bonnies, aside from Amadi Ikpeze, will have not just one, but two more opportunities to win an A-10 title.
On one of the darkest days in the sport’s history, there was some solace to be taken in the fact Bona, circumstantially, didn’t suffer the same fate as league rival Dayton, which had a potential storybook ending, and the memories that come with it, cruelly cut short by the COVID-19 pandemic. Given that the 2020-21 season, at that point, was still nearly eight months out, the worst, at least from a hoops standpoint, was over.
But, is that still so?
For the duration of the summer, the focus collegiately has been squarely on the fate of football; however that campaign played out, or didn’t, would be one of the telling factors of the future of college basketball.
If that’s true, the first blow was dealt on Tuesday with the major, but mostly unsurprising, news that the Big Ten and Pac 12 had pulled the plug on their fall football seasons. That, by itself, was a sobering enough indication of just how tenuous the nature of athletics continues to be, of how strong a grip the coronavirus continues to have.
The bigger threat to hoops, however, appeared later in the same announcement and almost went unnoticed amid the shock brought on by the cancelation of major college football: The Pac-12 has postponed ALL sports through the end of the year, becoming the first conference to make a decision that will affect the winter.
Of course, that’s only a single league, one that has no bearing on the Bonnies’ schedule (as it stands) for this season. It left many to wonder why the Pac-12 felt compelled to draw such a conclusion now, in mid-August, with even the start of practice still another six-plus weeks away.
Then, too, it’s essentially become the expectation (but certainly not the hope) among coaches —Bona boss Mark Schmidt included —that the season will start in January and include league games only.
It was the initial signal, though, of a wholly unwelcomed reality, one that would have been almost impossible to imagine in March, back when the league and NCAA tournaments were supposed to be the only college hoops casualty: the 2020-21 campaign, too, is almost certainly going to be altered.
From the beginning, especially collegiately (remember when the Ivy League was the first to cancel its league tournament and everyone else ultimately followed suit?), sports have been like Dominoes. All it’s taken is one major decision to create a ripple effect throughout that entity.
The Pac-12, however inconspicuously, may have just been the first domino to fall.
And if that’s the case, had the worst for Bona really come on the afternoon of March 12, when its season came to a sudden end in a Brooklyn hotel lobby? Unbelievably, it might still lie ahead.
Bona was already facing the prospect of a season with no non-league games and no fans inside the Reilly Center —neither of which have been confirmed, but both of which remain a distinct possibility.
At this point, considering the toll this global pandemic has taken, both inside the sports world and out, any basketball at all might be considered a victory.
But then, this isn’t last year.
A year ago, with a lineup consisting almost exclusively of freshmen and sophomores, and how dominant Dayton was, Bona might have been more easily able to live with the fact it still finished fifth in the A-10 standings and that its season might have been destined to end in Brooklyn, regardless. This year, though, with its top six players back and a couple of intriguing additions, expectations are undeniably higher, perhaps not quite as lofty as they were in 2017-18, but nearly as high as they continue to be under Schmidt.
Over the last 10 years, the A-10 has averaged 3.5 bids to the NCAA Tournament; in the last five, impressively, the Bonnies have finished with an average place of 3.8 (between third and fourth) in the conference standings. As we’ve seen firsthand, they’ve been at, or near, the cusp of the conversation on multiple occasions.
And that’s the way they’re generally being viewed heading into this season.
Bona was picked by both bustingbrackets.com and, more recently, CBS’ Jon Rothstein to finish fourth in 2020-21, part of a recurring quartet, including Saint Louis (close to a unanimous No. 1), Richmond and Dayton. It also, per bustingbrackets.com, boasts five of the A-10’s top 50 players (tied with the Billikens and Spiders for most in the league), including four in the top 25: Jaren English (No. 25), Dom Welch (No. 23), Osun Osunniyi (No. 19) and Kyle Lofton (No. 4).
That means it’s expected to at least be in the mix for those 3-3.5 bids again this winter, especially now that it’s a year older.
Bona, though, is a team that has historically used the non-conference to not only garner quality wins, but to visibly get better before the start of league play. The non-conference itself is critically important to the non-power leagues, such as the A-10, to set itself apart and be included on Selection Sunday.
What happens if Schmidt’s team doesn’t get those games this year, doesn’t get an entire four months to improve, in a season where there might be truly something special to play for? It could make for a truth even more unfortunate and undeserving than the one it faced in March.
(J.P. Butler, Bradford Publishing Company group sports editor, can be reached at jbutler@oleantimesherald.com)
