It’s a matchup that had fallen off the schedule the last three years, but is still the second most frequent in St. Bonaventure men’s basketball history.

The Bonnies have only played one other opponent — Canisius — more than they have Niagara University, with Wednesday’s trip up to the Gallagher Center the 161st meeting between these two Little Three rivals.

Before the short hiatus, Bona got back on the winning side, 87-70, at the Reilly Center in 2019 after two straight Niagara wins, preceded by a six-year Bona streak from 2011-16. But it’s typically been a competitive series in Schmidt’s tenure, evidenced by a 7-6 record for his teams against the Purple Eagles.

“It’s a Little Three or Big 4 game, and Bonaventure and Niagara have been playing for a really long time,” Schmidt said. “It’s a good rivalry. It’s a rivalry because both teams have won. So we’re looking forward to the challenge.”

It’ll be Bona’s second trip up North to play a fellow Western New York team in four days, following an 80-65 win at Buffalo on Saturday.

NIAGARA FINDS itself in a similar position, record-wise, to that UB team Bona ran away from in the first half on Saturday. Picked ninth in the preseason MAAC poll after a 16-15 season last year, Niagara is 1-5 overall with two narrow losses in the conference last week: 72-67 to Saint Peter’s and 75-68 to Quinnipiac.

Fifth-year NU coach Greg Paulus, the former Duke guard, rebuilt his team through the portal, with five returning players and seven incoming transfers this year.

Freshman guard Ahmad Henderson II leads Niagara at 15.2 points per game, backed by forward Yaw Obeng-Mensah, a UMBC transfer, at 11.5 points per game. Niagara also has a 7-foot center in sophomore Harlan Obioha.

“Really aggressive,” Schmidt said of Niagara’s playing style. “Greg does a really good job with them, they run really good stuff. Henderson, the point guard, is extremely quick, can really score the ball, the big guy inside is a mountain. They’re a good team.

“The four-man, Mensah, is like the kid Chatman for Buffalo, (a) really athletic four-man, can shoot it, take you off the bounce. They’ve got some really good pieces and they run really good stuff and they’re really aggressive and they try to go downhill and get the ball into the paint a lot.”

CENTER CHAD Venning scored his season high and tied his career high with 23 points against UB. Just as importantly, he stayed out of foul trouble and played his second-most minutes of any game this season at 27:06.

Staying on the court remains a big key to getting productivity out of the Brooklyn native and preseason Atlantic 10 Third Team pick.

“He has to stay out of foul trouble, which has been a concern and a problem,” Schmidt said. “Chad’s a good player. When he gets the ball in his spots, he can score. It’s just trying to keep him in the game so he can do the stuff that we need him to do inside. We try to get the ball to him inside, and against Buffalo he did a really good job for us.”

The big game lifted Venning’s scoring average to 13.0, second only to Mika Adams-Woods’ 13.7 on the team.

Bona guards Charles Pride and Kyrell Luc are still dealing with ankle injuries, both considered “day to day.” With both out on Saturday, Bona used just seven players, with Barry Evans stepping into the starting lineup for Pride and both Daryl Banks III and Adams-Woods playing the full 40 minutes.

Until Pride and Luc return, it could mean a heavy workload for those two.

“They’re used to it,” Schmidt said. “So it seemed like they were OK coming out of it. We’ve had a couple good days of practice so I don’t think it’s something to be concerned about.”

Bona has one of the oldest rosters in the country, with three fifth-year guards (Adams-Woods, Pride and Banks), and plenty of returning experience from last year. But developing some continuity and chemistry remains a challenge, now disrupted by injuries.

On Saturday, everything seemed to click in a 39-21 first half. But Schmidt took issue with a sloppier second half where Bona didn’t close out the Bulls as well as it could have.

“We’re getting better,” Schmidt said. “We’re still going through those inconsistent times, lackadaisical times where we don’t take care of the basketball and we missed some assignments defensively. But I think we’re getting better. Guys are getting more comfortable. Now, we haven’t had the whole team for a number of games now, so that hurts us a little bit.

“But I think our guys are understanding what it takes to be successful. We’ve got to defend and rebound and take care of the basketball. At times we’ve done that. Against Buffalo we did it really well in the first half, in the second half we weren’t very good. So we’ve got to become more consistent in everything that we do and that’s the challenge.”

Schmidt challenged his team, all five players on the court together, to play a complete game for 40 minutes against Niagara.

“It’s not easy to do, to keep your concentration and your enthusiasm and your effort in every play, but that’s the challenge,” Schmidt said. “We don’t have a shot-blocker, we don’t have one guy that’s going to go out and get 40 points for us. We’ve got to do it as a team and we’ve got to do it collectively at both ends and that’s what we practice for and what we’re trying to achieve. We’re certainly not there yet.”