ST. BONAVENTURE, N.Y. — We’ve been reminded of this particular wrinkle with each passing announcement.
“Just because (insert St. Bonaventure men’s basketball senior’s name) put his name into the transfer portal doesn’t necessarily mean he’s leaving,” some folks have been quick to point out.
And that’s true.
A player who has entered the portal, which, according to NCAA Champion magazine, was implemented in 2018 to “systematically manage the transfer process from start to finish, add more transparency from the process among schools and empower student-athletes to make known their desire to consider other programs,” can withdraw their name at any point and return to their original team. That’s what Saint Louis’ Yuri Collins recently did when the Atlantic 10 First Team point guard entered the portal only to triumphantly announce his return to SLU just days later.
And that’s what Bona fans are hoping will happen with the original “Big 3” of Kyle Lofton, Osun Osunniyi and Dominick Welch.
But the decision to stay put has become more of an extremely rare exception than the rule. And the longer that trio lingers in the portal, the less likely it seems that any will be back at Bona for a fifth season.
LOFTON AND Osunniyi both cracked Stadium insider Jeff Goodman’s list of the top 25 available transfers, published last month — Lofton at No. 20 and Osunniyi at No. 25. Unsurprisingly, both have drawn interest from, and been courted by, a laundry list of power five programs.
The former prep school teammates who then played four years at Bona together and have long been attached at the hip reportedly visited Florida together late last week. Florida is evidently among the programs pushing hard for Lofton, the three-time all-conference point guard who averaged 13 points, six assists and two steals per game last season. He’s also heard from the likes of Arizona and Seton Hall.
Osunniyi, meanwhile, visited Iowa State over the weekend, per CBS’ Jon Rothstein, the same Big 12 program to where former teammate Jaren Holmes recently committed, and lists Notre Dame, Texas and LSU as potential suitors.
By entering the portal and giving themselves this experience, those two and Welch have given themselves a taste — of the bells and whistles that power programs have to offer, of basketball on a bigger stage. And again, the more they see of these schools, and the possible NIL money that comes with them, the more probable it becomes that they’re wearing different uniforms for their final campaign.
But, barring any kind of verbal agreement they might have made with coach Mark Schmidt about returning to Bona (which may or not have involved an increase in NIL dollars), that’s understandable. They played four years here, led Bona to a dual A-10 championship, an NCAA Tournament appearance and the NIT Final Four and gave everything they had to this program. For most, there was little expectation that any would return for a fifth year anyway; if even one or two had, it would have been viewed as a pleasant surprise.
AND SO, in what has become an era of free agency in college athletics, Bona instead must focus on transforming itself, on adapting to the current climate (until there’s some actual structure to these new NIL and transfer rules) or be left to face a downslide.
And that’s what Schmidt and his staff have done, using the other end of the portal to its benefit.
Bona had already added a trio of guards in Saint Peter’s transfer Daryl Banks II, Hartford transfer Moses Flowers and Holy Cross transfer Kyrell Luc. All three are established players with strong resumes, most notably Banks II, who six weeks ago helped the Peacocks to the Elite 8 of the NCAA Tournament.
Now, it’s begun to address its vacancies in the frontcourt.
CHAD Venning, a Morgan State transfer forward, committed to Bona over the weekend, making the announcement on social media. A 6-foot-10, 280-pound forward, he’ll have three years of eligibility, beginning next season.
As a sophomore last year, Venning appeared in 26 games (with 11 starts), averaging 7.2 points, 3.0 rebounds and 1.0 blocks per game and shot 51 percent from the field despite logging just 13.8 minutes per contest. Counting the three remaining uncommitted seniors as gone, Bona now has eight scholarship players for next year with the addition of Venning and five more rides available.
Venning scored a career-high 17 points on 7-for-9 shooting and grabbed nine rebounds in a February win over South Carolina State. A Brooklyn native and product of Woodstock Academy, he’ll likely be expected to provide some instant minutes at the ‘5’ spot and give Bona a physical presence as both a rebounder and rim protector.
Yes, Bona will almost certainly be saying goodbye this week to its “Big 3” of the last four seasons. And with that, its retooling process for 2022-23 has really only just begun.
(J.P. Butler, Bradford Publishing Company group sports editor, can be reached at jbutler@oleantimesherald.com)
