ST. BONAVENTURE, N.Y. — It could well be one of the defining moments of the St. Bonaventure men’s basketball team’s season.
And that isn’t hyperbole.
Bona has lost four-straight games for the first time since 2018, three of those by double figures, effectively burying a feel-good 6-3 start. It’s taken a step back offensively and stalled individually. It’s fallen to No. 202 in the NCAA’s NET rankings, a mostly unheard of figure over the last decade.
In addition, the Bonnies lost a practice day over Christmas break while dealing with delays brought on by the recent blizzard in Buffalo.
Bona (6-7), though, has had 10 days since it last took the floor, more than enough time to unplug, distance itself from its current skid, which culminated with a 62-52 road loss to Northern Iowa, and do some soul-searching. It’s had time to figure out what kind of team it wants to be from here.
THE BONNIES, in as wide open and underwhelming a year for the A-10 as any, have both the time and opportunity to turn their season around, to make of it what that 2018-19 squad did four years earlier. The first step in that direction can come today when they play Massachusetts (2 o’clock, WPIG-FM, ESPN+-live stream) in their conference opener inside the Reilly Center.
“We had one less day because the kids got caught in the snow storm,” coach Mark Schmidt acknowledged, “but we just go back and try to get better in all areas. We have a lot to improve on, and that’s what we try to do.”
Now, they’ll attempt to display those improvements against a team that very much resembles its own.
A YEAR AGO under Matt McCall, the Minutemen wanted to outscore opponents. They shot a ton of 3-pointers and played little defense (that much was on display last February, when Bona beat UMass 83-71 despite the latter’s 16 treys). Now, however, UMass is under the direction of the fiery Frank Martin, the former Kansas State and South Carolina boss who took the Gamecocks to the Final Four in 2017 (and accepted the Amherst job after Schmidt came close to doing so, but ultimately declined last March).
And these Minutemen are built in his likeness.
UMass defends well, holding foes to 65.7 points per game, rebounds, currently ranking third in the league in boards per game (39.0) and grinds it out offensively. It’s used those components to make its initial move back up the A-10 ladder, presently sitting 9-3 with victories over Colorado, Charlotte and South Florida and a two-score loss to in-state rival UMass-Lowell. In that way, it’s won how Bona has often done under Schmidt.
“It’s blue-collar,” Schmidt said. “All that glitters isn’t gold. Frank is a no-nonsense guy, and his team plays like that. It’s old-school, but Frank and I are on the same wavelength — it’s the right school.
“It’s physical basketball, the team that wins the paint is gonna win the game. You watch his team play and they take on his personality.”
DESPITE THE coaching change, UMass has some familiar faces. Back is the starting guard tandem of T.J. Weeks Jr. (10 points) and preseason third team all-conference point guard Noah Fernandes (11 points). The latter has missed the last five games with an ankle injury but, per Martin, is expected to make his return against Bona. Those two combined for 33 and Fernandes handed out 12 assists last year in the RC.
Martin, however, has molded his own look, adding, among others, Miami and Louisville transfer forward Matt Cross (12 points, 7 rebounds) and former Hofstra big man Isaac Kante, and getting much more out of third-year UMass holdover Dyondre Dominguez (9 points).
Schmidt’s preferred word to describe the Minutemen? Physical. He used it four times in his answer about how they play.
“They’re a physical team,” he said. “They got Weeks back and Fernandes, who are two really good players. They’ve got grad students, seniors …
“They try to get the ball into the paint, they rebound the heck out of the basketball, they deny one pass away. They’re just a really physical team, which is different from what they were last year. They’ve got some returners and they’ve got some veteran portal guys. Men; 24-, 25-year-old men that play really physical.”
BONA HAS owned the UMass series of late, having won nine-straight and 13 of 15 since 2012. It’s also fared well in league openers under Schmidt, taking 10 of 15 overall, including seven of the last nine. Today marks an opportunity to not only extend those streaks — and get back to .500 — but to right itself where it’s enjoyed most of its success this winter: Bob Lanier Court.
And that means breaking from its funk offensively, as Bona has failed to reach even 62 in four of its last five games. Of course, that will be a challenge against UMass’ stingy defense. And that’s a component Schmidt touched on as it relates to Moses Flowers and Barry Evans, whose production has been rising and fading, respectively, over the last few weeks.
“The concern is when we go with Moses, we get so small,” Schmidt said. “We have to move Daryl to the ‘3’ and … teams are scouting us now, so they’re not playing certain guys and our spacing is a little bit messed up because of it.
“Moses allows our spacing to get better, we just become really, really small. But he’s playing with more confidence, we need him to come off the bench to score for us, put the ball in the basket and he’s done that better in the last couple weeks.”
Of Evans, he added: “They’re (playing off him), so it causes us to have a little bit of problems with spacing and getting the ball inside.
“Barry, when hesa active and going to the offensive glass, he’s a very effective player. He’s gotta continue to do that, he’s gotta work on deficidences. … Barry’s on a little bit of a learning curve right now, but he’s gonna be a really good player for us.”
