ST. BONAVENTURE, N.Y. — By the time the final horn sounded in its 74-65 triumph over VCU in the Atlantic 10 Tournament championship, this much was starting to seem true of the St. Bonaventure men’s basketball team:

With both an A-10 regular season and tournament championship under its belt, with a third trip to the Big Dance in nine years and an undisputed claim as the best team in the conference, there’s almost nothing left for Bona to accomplish under Mark Schmidt.

Of course, that’s always come with the addendum of “within reason.” But even the bounds of what seems reasonable have extended well beyond where they might have existed even six years ago.

And besides, that sentiment, certainly for these current Bonnies, isn’t entirely accurate.

AT THIS point, there are two more obvious “firsts” that Bona could, and maybe even should, accomplish next season.

One is to win a game in the NCAA Tournament proper for the first time since 1970, when those Bonnies beat Villanova to reach the Final Four. The other is to achieve the program’s first national ranking since January of the following campaign.

The first of those goals is feasible. Bona nearly broke through in the 2012 tournament, when it came within a couple of minutes of knocking off Florida State, and after tough draws in both 2018 (starting in the First Four) and last month (playing the SEC Tournament runner-up in the 8/9 game), it seems due for a little bit of luck, and to have its moment, in the near future.

The second of those, as unfathomable as this might once have sounded, is already almost a lock.

A DAY after Monday’s national championship between Baylor and Gonzaga, the first official day of the offseason, any number of national outlets released their “Way-Too-Early Top 25 polls,” an increasingly popular springtime talking point, for next season. Bona appeared on just about all of them, and in almost every case, was listed in the Top 20.

You read that right. The Bonnies, at this point, are being almost universally viewed as a TOP 20 team for 2021-22.

Bona was ranked preseason No. 22 by Sports Illustrated and No. 20 by the Sporting News. It came in at No. 19 on lists from CBS Sports, the Washington Post and The Athletic’s Seth Davis. Ranking it even higher was 24/7 Sports (No. 17) and one of most notable college basketball reporters in the country, Stadium’s Jeff Goodman (No. 16).

But its highest way-too-early ranking came from ESPN, which pegged the Bonnies 15th. And here’s what the Worldwide Leader had to say about coach Mark Schmidt’s team, its highest-rated non-power conference program in the poll:

“It’s not easy to gauge how good the Bonnies really were this past season. They only played two nonconference games, against Akron and Hofstra, and then were hardly competitive against LSU in the NCAA Tournament. But they mostly rolled through the Atlantic 10 with only a few bumps in the road and looked dominant in the conference tournament. And Mark Schmidt has everyone back from that team.

“Kyle Lofton is a star in the backcourt, and all five starters — Lofton, Jaren Holmes, Dominick Welch, Jalen Adaway and Osun Osunniyi — averaged double figures. One of the issues Schmidt had was a lack of production outside his starting five. The Bonnies have addressed that early in the transfer market, adding high-major transfers Quadry Adams (Wake Forest) and Karim Coulibaly (Pittsburgh). Neither is expected to be a huge impact player, but if they can provide depth and versatility, that’s all Schmidt needs.”

IT’S NOT that it was a shock to see Bona in a preseason Top 25 poll.

It nearly broke in this season, earning the sixth-most points in the ‘also receiving votes’ category (good for 31st overall) in the penultimate Associated Press poll. With every key player back from a team that rolled to an A-10 Tournament title, it makes sense that Bona would start the year on the right side of that line next winter.

Then, too, the A-10 favorites, in recent years, have generally held a spot between No. 20 and 25 to start the season (think Dayton, Rhode Island, VCU and Saint Louis in the last half-decade), and Bona will almost certainly be that team in 2021-’22.

But still, given where it was early in Schmidt’s tenure, its size and all the challenges it continues to face, and overcome, it’s still nothing short of astounding to see the Bonnies viewed in such a light nationally.

And it’s nothing short of incredible that even after what they’ve accomplished in the last five years — the school-record 26 wins in 2018, a pair of trips to the NCAA Tournament, both league championships this winter — this program likely STILL, somehow, hasn’t reached its ceiling under Schmidt …

At least it is for someone my age, who, in March of 2000, when Bona met Kentucky in the first round of the NCAA Tournament, probably thought that this was as good as it got, and for whom nationally ranked teams were a thing of the distant past.

Now, a national ranking isn’t just a possibility, it’s an expectation.

How’s that for something that can still be accomplished in this shimmering Mark Schmidt era?

(J.P. Butler, Bradford Publishing Company group sports editor, can be reached at jbutler@oleantimesherald.com)