By SPENCER BATES
ST. BONAVENTURE — Last season, I wrote a column recounting the team’s experience in the non-conference schedule.
I noted how depth was somewhat of a question, but remained positive due to the versatility of the starting five and the level of defense it was capable of playing.
Well, we see how that turned out.
As bountiful as the non-conference season was for the Bonnies, the Atlantic 10 schedule was not entirely kind. Injuries stacked up, conference opponents exposed a lack of depth and everything culminated in the squad’s complete implosion in its NIT First Round affair against Kent State.
But it is out with the old and in with the new as just about every player that featured in that loss to the Golden Flashes has since departed. In their place is a group that has all the makings of one that can beyond eclipse what last season’s accomplished.
The key word being can.
Heading into conference play this season, I am much more hesitant to lean too far into the positives. The non-conference records are almost identical between the two years, one more loss this year being the difference, the top three scorers for the offense are recording just over three more points than last year’s top three finished averaging and despite how much the bench had produced early in the year, Schmidt seems to have fallen back upon a tight rotation.
But I am also not here to tell you that a St. Bonaventure Atlantic 10 title is an impossible task.
Therefore, I will do my best to dance the line, highlighting some of the biggest areas of excitement and concern for the Bonnies as A10 play approaches.
DEPTH
I’ll start in the exact same place as I did last year, with assessing this team’s depth. Adrian Wojnarowski’s first official recruiting class has been a special one — reeling in the big fish of Frank Mitchell from a power conference program and finding the diamonds in the rough like Cayden Charles coming from Div. II North Georgia.
While replacing an entire roster of players is something Woj noted he never wants to do again, his first attempt is a team to be excited about heading into conference play. Not simply because they have won a significant amount of games in the non-con, but because there is so little drop off in talent as you go through the roster.
For example, the top five scorers for the Bonnies this season are combining for an average of 58.8 points per game, an albeit slight drop off from where last season’s starting five, post-Dasonte Bowen injury, finished, having averaged an even 59 points per game. But the big difference lies within the next five players on the depth chart. Last year, of players that featured in at least 10 games, Schmidt got just 9.5 points on average from his bench. This year, he is seeing an average of 23.6 come from his reserves — a massive bump and a facet of the team that he has touted each time he gets a big performance from a non-starter.
Daniel Egbuniwe has been the face of the Bona depth this season, averaging the most points of the non-starters with 9.4 per game. He, along with Ilia Ermakov, Achille Lonati and Amar’e Marshall have all enjoyed breakout games this season.
It was Egbuniwe who burst onto the scene, defensively, against North Carolina, and offensively against East Carolina. Ermakov lifted the team to victory at Buffalo, Lonati was influential in the team’s win at FAU and Marshall stole the show in a win over Youngstown State.
Therefore, I am more than comfortable saying that if the depth of this team continues to provide at the level they did through the non-conference schedule, I think the Bonnies can make waves in the A10.
However, whether or not those spark plugs from the bench see the floor is not up to me.
Schmidt has been known to heavily shrink down the number of players he uses once conference play rolls around, playing a tight six or seven players on any given night, going deeper only when he absolutely has to. This team does not seem as though it is built that way. For the Bonnies to succeed, they need as many points coming from as many places as possible. They need to be hard to scout. So, the hope is that Schmidt refrains from cutting down the bench minutes.
Unfortunately, it seems as though those wheels may already be in motion. Over the team’s last three contests, there has only been one instance of a bench player, other than Egbuniwe, who has carved out his role as the sixth man of this team, seeing double figure minutes.
I can understand that part of it is relying on your best players when games come down to the wire, but there is simply too much talent on this roster to keep condemned to the bench.
CONSISTENCY
Tying in with the topic of depth is what I believe is the team’s second-biggest question entering the A10 campaign: the level of consistency the team is playing with.
I get that basketball is a game of runs. It is impossible to play perfectly for an entire game. There will be mistakes, turnovers, missed opportunities and botched plays. But it is one thing to not play well or have a dry spell for a few minutes each game, but when those moments elongate into entire halves of underwhelming play, that is troubling.
Once again, take the last three games of the non-conference schedule. Colgate, Ohio and Le Moyne, three teams that had a combined record of 14-16 at the time they faced the Bonnies, each pushed the team to the limit.
While they only lost one of those three games, an 88-83 overtime defeat to Ohio, they trailed at halftime in each. They were left down by 13 against Colgate, two to Ohio and five to Le Moyne.
The spin of this can be that the team managed to buckle down and still pull out solid second-half performances that were nearly good for three more wins, but the fact of the matter is that those games should not have been nailbiters at any time.
All the credit to the Raiders, Bobcats and Dolphins. This is in no way a knock on those programs, they saw their chances and took them. Instead what I am saying is that those three games are not indicative of a team that had ranked North Carolina in a one-point game as recently as Nov. 25.
Schmidt has said it himself, “we’ve got to play 40 minutes. Against the teams we are about to play, starting with VCU, if you play a half, it’s not going to be enough.”
The only way that this gets fixed is if the team undergoes a mental refocussing, because while you may be able to afford a few poor minutes against smaller programs, the likes of VCU, Saint Louis, Dayton and the other big hitters in the conference will smell that blood in the water and start to circle.
GRIT
That brings me to the last point that I will make about this team.
Now, I don’t want to sound so negative. In fact, I’m extremely optimistic about what this A10 schedule will have in store for the Bonnies and one of, if not the biggest reason why is its grit.
Mentally, this team has a whole different feel from last season. Of course last year had Melvin Council Jr. lighting up the Reilly Center and galvanizing the team with his ‘dawg mentality.’ But this year it is not just one player carrying the torch.
Before the season started, I asked a number of players what goals they had in mind for this season. The phrase that popped up time and time again was “no agendas.”
Of course, it is one thing to say that — they were talking to a reporter after all — it is another to truly believe it. And from the looks of things, that herd mentality seems to have soaked into the roots of the team.
From Charles and Egbuniwe not shying away from taking accountability following the recent poor starts to games to Frank Mitchell going back and forth with Schmidt mid-game to conversing with smiles across their faces right afterward there is a clear connection within the ranks.
One of the phrases that Schmidt used over the course of last season, specifically after a loss, was that they can’t splinter. After setbacks they need to grow closer together as opposed to drifting apart. I believe a splintering is exactly what we all saw in their NIT First Round loss.
There was so little sense of togetherness other than the glowing smiles and radiant energies of Council and Noel Brown.
There have been troubling times as of late. The key, with the most important games of the season on the doorstep, is to not let it snowball.
Of course, I could be eating my words once again come next year. The things that are worrying me now may be complete non-factors the rest of the way and problems that have not even crossed my mind may arise. But I will gladly admit my stress was all moot if the Bonnies find themselves challenging for a conference title this season.
The first step on their perilous journey to doing so is an away date at VCU set for Dec. 31 at 2 p.m.
