By SPENCER BATES
PHILADELPHIA, PA — For the penultimate time in the regular season, the St. Bonaventure men’s basketball team will hit the road, this time gearing up to face a Saint Joseph’s side with eyes on a top four spot in the standings.
The Bonnies collected back-to-back wins for the third separate time in Atlantic 10 play, defeating UMass and Duquesne in their last two games and will take that momentum into Philadelphia where they will try to complete their first three-game win streak of the league portion of the season. A task that Schmidt acknowledged hasn’t been easy, not just for his team, but for anyone in the A10, considering the difficulty that comes with playing on the road.
“It’s really hard to win on the road, so it’s really hard to put three or four or five in a row,” Schmidt said. “But at the same time, you got to defend better, rebound better, you got to take care of the ball better. On the road, when the game starts, it’s 10-0, you’re down. That’s how much better you have to play on the road. That’s the challenge. Now, we’re talking about Saint Joe’s and how well they’re playing, how well they can score the ball. It’s a difficult task.”
At the center of everything for the Hawks is Erik Reynolds II, currently playing in his fourth year with the program and having his fourth straight season averaging double figure points per game (16.7). But alongside him are two other more-than-capable scorers in Xzayvier Brown and Rasheer Fleming.
Together, Reynolds and Xzayvier Brown (16.5 ppg) are two of the A10’s top 10 in points per game. The only other team to have more than one player in that top 10 list is Saint Louis. But Fleming is not far outside those rankings, as he ranks 12th and provides 15.1 points per game.
“They probably have three of the top 15 players in the league in Brown, Fleming and Reynolds,” Schmidt said. “They’re really, really good. They can really score the ball, they got length … they play a much better defense. They’re a talented group, and they’ve been talented for a number of years. Their coach is doing a really good job with them.”
One of the biggest factors contributing to the success of the Saint Joe’s trio is their experience. Each has been in the system for more than a year, Reynolds being in his fourth year, Fleming in his third and Xzayvier Brown in his second. And the understanding they have of the program’s specific brand of basketball has paid dividends on the court.
“They’ve been in the system for three or four years, and they’re just really talented,” Schmidt said. “Fleming is (6-foot, 9-inches), and there’s talk about him being a second-round pick. They’ve been in that system for two or three, and in Reynolds’ case, four years. So the more opportunities you have playing in one system, the better you’re going to be. They read screens really well and they can all score. And when you can score the basketball, I don’t care what you’re running, you can win in this league.”
And like in preparation for the other great shooting teams that Bona has faced this season, Schmidt admitted that it will be impossible for them to completely shut down all of Saint Joe’s weapons. Instead, they will look to simply contain as much as they can, make it difficult for the shooters to get to their spots and hope for the best.
“You can’t stop them, you just got to contain them as much as you can and hopefully one of those guys doesn’t have a career night,” Schmidt said. “They’re all capable of going and scoring 30 points. You can’t let all three of them have good games. Hopefully, one or two play an average or below average game. But if they’re playing at their best, whoever they’re playing against is going to be in trouble because they’re that talented.”
And while the Hawks’ offense has proven to be devastating, its defense can be just as stifling to a team’s morale on any given night with the likes of Justice Ajogbor guarding the rim. Schmidt noted that the NBA-esc defense that they run will all but completely take away any back door cuts and force lower percentage shots to be taken.
“You can’t get anything to the basket, he’s a seven-footer, so they prevent that from happening,” Schmidt said. “They put more pressure on the perimeter and they force the pull-up jump shot, which is … one of the lowest percentage shots. That’s what they try to do. They try to take away the 3, they try to take away the layup, and they try to make you play a middle game.”
But Bona has seen this scheme before this season from Providence, Duquesne and, at times, Loyola Chicago. The key to unlocking the defense will be Noel Brown and whether or not he can break down their interior presence.
“It’s not like it’s anything new, it’s the whole NBA concept,” Schmidt said. “We got to be able to get the ball to Noel with seam passes, and Noel has to be able to play from the nail. It’s not like it’s something foreign to us, we just got to play to what they give us.”
And to that point, Schmidt gave his props to Noel Brown for the improvements he has made with his distribution. With five assists and just one turnover last time out against Duquesne, his selfless nature has led to him taking another step and the Bonnies will need him to have a similar output against Saint Joe’s, and for the remainder of the season for that matter.
“Noel has really improved on distributing, he doesn’t always have to get the ball at the nail and score the ball, he’s evolved,” Schmidt said. “He’s an unselfish player and we’re going to need him to do that against Saint Joe’s as well, because they play the whole drop defense. Noel has been a big part of this success that we’ve had this year, and hopefully he can finish strong.”
Noel Brown and the rest of the St. Bonaventure men’s basketball team will tip-off against Saint Joseph’s at 7 p.m. on Feb. 26 in the Michael J. Hagan Arena.
