By SPENCER BATES
ST. BONAVENTURE — The end of the regular season is on the near horizon for the St. Bonaventure women’s basketball team, but before it can start preparations for the Atlantic 10 tournament, it must first see off a challenge from Dayton at home.
And after a year of growth and development, coach Jim Crowley is hopeful that, as it is the final time they will be on the floor in front of a home crowd this season, his team will be able to put it all together.
“You can get caught up with the results or the process,” Crowley said. “We’ve had our issues at home, so I’ll be curious how we handle that, but we’ve come to understand the process.”
That process, and the ultimate picture of what Crowley wants to see from his team, has slowly, but surely become clearer over the recent weeks. Specifically, he has seen the most growth on the road amid the team’s struggles at home.
“You look at the VCU game and you see something, you look at our home game against Duquesne and you see something, our home game against Davidson, you see something,” Crowley said. “Then, you look at three of our last four: down at Davidson, down at La Salle, down at Duquesne, in those games we’re playing hard, we’re playing as a team, we’re following the game plan and we’re seeing people get better. So that’s where we’re at with things, and that’s the goal. Sometimes people are going to shoot the ball better, sometimes people are going to play better, but at least if you’ve played hard and you’ve played for your teammates, and you’ve executed the game plan, you did almost all you could.”
In the team’s last game, away at Duquesne, the score slowly snowballed away from the Bonnies in what ended up as a 74-48 loss, but again, the effort Crowley saw and the ultimate improvement of his side was evident as it cleaned the turnovers and sloppy, quick possessions that condemned the team the first time it faced the Dukes.
And Crowley was much happier with the offensive production he saw from his side last time out, seeing that his side did not do much to compound the issues it was presented with, one of which was the length of Duquesne.
“There was some length there and some physicality that I think impacted some of our shooting,” Crowley said. “We’ve had some games like VCU where we took a lot of contested shots. I thought we got some good shots, they just didn’t drop. … I don’t think we got to the rim as much as I would have liked, or to the free throw line like we did against La Salle, but we still weren’t taking a lot of contested shots, per se.”
How Bona handles length will be a question once again when Dayton comes to town with the likes of Arianna Smith helping lead the Flyers, averaging just shy of a double-double per game with 12 points and 9.8 rebounds per game.
“I mean, these guys go for every rebound hard, and Smith is one of the best (rebounders) in the league,” Crowley said. “So, it’s a great challenge, a great opportunity. Can we limit scores from the offensive rebounds? They’re going to get some. So can we limit how many baskets they get?”
But where Smith leads Dayton on the boards, Ivy Wolf leads the team in scoring, averaging 15.7 points per game. And while she has finished shy of double figures in her last two games, Crowley noted Wolf’s intelligence makes her dangerous any time she’s on the floor.
“She’s just a really smart basketball player,” Crowley said. “She can shoot behind the screen, she can knock down the open one, she can play off the bounce, she could pass. When we played them in the A10 tournament last year, she really hurt us. She’s just a good, smart basketball player.”
Bona will hope for a better overall offensive performance against Dayton and a possible key to that will be its shooters, Dani Haskell, Zoe Shaw and Mackenzie Pettinelli, the latter of whom led the team in scoring against Duquesne and has improved a great deal in the eyes of Crowley.
“(Mackenzie) can pass and she can shoot it,” Crowley said. “We’ve talked to her a lot about making sure that her first dribble is forward and she continues to get better at that … We become better when she stays aggressive. I think she knows that, and it’s just about getting over that first miss.
“Especially when you’re struggling as a team, (the question is) can you stay confident and stay willing to take those shots? And whether it be Dani, Zoe or Mack, all those guys are good shooters, as we get them open shots, they got to continue to be willing to take them.”
St. Bonaventure will tip-off its final game of the regular season against Dayton at home on March 1 at 1 p.m., one final chance, according to Crowley, to make a statement on its own floor.
“We’re hoping to see it at home,” Crowley said. “To be very honest, for a long time we haven’t put a full game together at home and there’s one last chance. So we would really like to see that.”
