By SPENCER BATES
ST. BONAVENTURE — St. Bonaventure men’s basketball coach Mark Schmidt entered the 2024-25 campaign 16 wins away from the 400th of his career.
So, when his team churned out 14 wins in its first 15 games, the celebrations were in sight.
But then came Atlantic 10 play.
After starting 2-0 in-conference, the Bonnies won just one of their next six games.
But, despite having to wait a bit longer than he would have hoped, considering his team’s early-season run of form, Schmidt reached the 400 mark, doing so in convincing fashion, with a 75-53 thrashing of Dayton at home.
“It’s all about the players,” Schmidt said. “The 400 wins, it’s all about the players. I can put guys in situations, but they have to do the job. As I told the team, it’s 400 wins, but it’s a lot of losses too. It’s a credit to the administration from when I first got here all the way through, to my assistants to the players.”
And it was his players, a grand majority of whom have not even known the program for more than a season, that set the tone immediately, kicking off Schmidt’s 400th win in superb fashion.
After some early back-and forth, the Bonnies dashed ahead, putting together an 11-0 run in under three minutes, leaving the Flyers behind. The first-half lead continued to balloon for the hosts, who, at a time, had 12 points between themselves and their guests.
Much of the Bonnies’ lightning-fast start can be attributed to Lajae Jones, who was the engine for the Bona offense on the night. While his, and the game’s first shot of the night was a miss from deep, it clearly did not rattle his confidence as he proceeded to drain his next five consecutive 3-pointers in the first half, three of which came in that early 11-0 run.
Joining in on the party was Jonah Hinton and Noah Bolanga who fed off the energy Jones was emitting and hit some big 3s in the first half as well, combining for nine points.
Dayton did claw some of those points back before the halftime interval, but Bona showed that it was not done imposing itself on offense with a near-immediate 16-1 scoring run to open the second half.
The lead extended to as many as 25 points for the Bonnies in the second half.
Jones’ hot hand did eventually cool down, but he still managed to finish 6-for-10 from deep on the night and with a game-high 23 points. Melvin Council Jr., who presented Schmidt with the coveted Bona Belt for his 400th win, finished with 18 points and provided a different look offensively than Jones did, scoring most of his baskets at the rim.
“Melvin has it, whatever that it is,” Schmidt said. “He plays with that joy and that’s why he’s good. The Lord blessed him with gifts to play the game, but he plays with joy and that’s how you score some points.”
No other Bona players finished with double figures against Dayton, but the combined efforts of Bolanga, Hinton and Noel Brown — the former setting a new career-high of nine points — compiled 26 points together.
But it was more than just the sheer volume of baskets Schmidt saw fall that pleased him, it was how efficiently his players got them.
“We had open looks; we didn’t force many 3s,” Schmidt said. “We have good shooters and they were able to knock down shots tonight. We were driving and kicking and getting open looks and were able to knock them down.”
Bona will look to stay on the winning side of things and Schmidt will get the opportunity to seek win 401 on Feb. 1 when it faces Fordham at 12:30 p.m. at the Reilly Center.
