By SPENCER BATES
ST. BONAVENTURE — The St. Bonaventure men’s basketball team finished the 2024-25 season with the second-lowest points-per-game average in the Atlantic 10.
At just over 68 points per contest, the Bonnies were only above Richmond in the category.
Well, it has been a long offseason with a lot of new faces coming into the team, and if their 101-40 win over Alfred University is a tell of how the team is set to operate this season, then it looks as though the days of little offense are long gone.
“One thing that we struggled with last year was shooting the basketball,” head coach Mark Schmidt said. “One of the goals was to bring guys in that can put the ball in the basket and I thought we shot the ball really well today. I think when you get into these situations where it becomes a little bit of a blowout, if you don’t have good guys, if you don’t have unselfish players, it’s the time where you’re going to try to get yours and become selfish. … I thought our guys did a really good job of sharing the basketball and making an extra pass.”
It was a masterclass in offensive firepower from the Bonnies, all of whom were led by the hot hands of Darryl ‘Buddy’ Simmons II, who netted a game-high 24 points, and Cayden Charles, a transfer from Div. II North Georgia, who recorded a 21-point, 10-rebound double-double.
But not only was Simmons scoring, he was doing so with incredible efficiency, shooting 6-for-7 (4-for-5 from 3) in the first half and finishing 9-for-13 (6-for-10 from 3). According to him it all comes down to confidence.
“I try to have confidence every game I play,” Simmons said. “I try to have the most confidence because of how hard work off the court and on the court with my position coach, just watching film, and getting shots up before practice. Confidence is key.”
St. Bonaventure’s Darryl Simmons II (8) splashes home a 3-pointer during the Bonnies’ blowout win over Alfred University on Wednesday. (Hunter O. Lyle)
But even as Buddy was shining in the spotlight, it was impossible not to keep another eye on Charles, who popped up in all the right places against the Saxons.
“Cayden is blue collar, he does all the intangibles, he’s a guy that every coach would love to have,” Schmidt said. “He’s not looking for his. He’s been really well coached in high school and at the Division Two school he was at last year. He knows when to back-cut, he’s physically tough, he can defend, he can rebound.”
Alongside the duo, Frank Mitchell, Daniel Egbuniwe and Andrew Osasuyi each had double-digit performances.
However, the Bonnies were not simply one sided. In fact, a significant portion of their offense came from Schmidt’s favorite source: the defense.
Bona netted 38 points off turnovers, 26 fast-break points, came up with 14 steals and forced 23 turnovers to Alfred’s eight. Of course, Schmidt knows these numbers are inflated a tad due to the opponent, but he is still pleased with the outcome.
“I thought our defense on the ball was decent,” Schmidt said. “I thought our ball-screen defense has to be a little bit better. I thought our rotations weren’t as good as they needed to be. But we got 38 points off of turnovers, 52 points in the paint, and we should, we’re an Atlantic 10 team playing against a Division Three team, so we should physically dominate them. But at the same time, last year we played them and we were only up by eight at halftime.”
The emphasis on defense that Schmidt has is not lost on his players either, including the high-scoring Charles, who admitted 100-point outings are not going to be all that common. But if they want to run up the score as much as they have shown they are able to, it will come down to effective defending.
“Schmidt, all he says is, ‘defense is a constant,’ and that’s going to be our identity this year,” Charles said. “The reality is we’re not going to score 100 points each game. So that defensive intensity has to be there. That’s scouting, that’s watching film, being in the right positions, and playing team-defense, not just as individuals. For us, I think we did a good job executing that, and that’s going to be the standard for us going forward.”
Frank Mitchell (00) closes out on a defender in the first half of St. Bonaventure’s rout of Alfred University. (Hunter O. Lyle)
An understanding made all the easier considering how close this Bona team has grown over the course of the preseason. All the way down to the final minute against Alfred, the bench was up, cheering and celebrating for their teammates, a symptom of the significant chemistry in the team.
“I think our team has been growing a lot,” Simmons said. “We’ve all been connecting on and off the court. We have a good bond. … I feel like the connection is what makes a good team and … it’s not really about being (close) on the court, it’s really about being (close) off the court, having the right connections, and just being there for your brothers.”
Reality was on the mind of Schmidt too after the game as he admitted his team will be in for a much tougher challenge on Monday when it officially opens the season up in Rock Hill, South Carolina in the Field of 68 Marathon. That being said, he knows what it means to be able to show off and show out in front of home fans for the first time this season.
“It’s Alfred, it’s not Bradley,” Schmidt said. “But first impressions are everything. This was the first time that our student body, our community, saw us play. So it was important for us to show them what type of team we have. Hopefully this is a beginning, we got a long way to go, a lot of things to fix, and we have three days to do it, but it was a good first step.”
St. Bonaventure will officially tip-off its 2025-26 season on Nov. 3 against Bradley University at 11 a.m.
