By SPENCER BATES
PITTSBURGH, PA — For the first time since its inception, the St. Bonaventure men’s basketball team could not avoid the pillow fight — the colloquial term for the first round of the Atlantic 10 men’s basketball conference tournament.
The Bonnies finished one place above the basement of the conference, earning the No. 13 seed and the right to play the first game of the tournament.
Head coach Mark Schmidt had made it a point following the conclusion of the regular season to express his belief that the teams that win early on, have an advantage. They get more comfortable on the court, with the rims, with the environment as a whole.
And while Bona had its difficulties early, it eventually found a groove and stuck with it, grabbing that ever-important early win Schmidt was eyeing, defeating No. 12 seed La Salle 99-80 in PPG Paints Arena.
“La Salle beat us in game one, they were averaging five 3s per game, they made eight against us, they got to the foul line, they were 20-for-20 from the line, they killed us on the backboard … just physically, they beat us up,” Schmidt said. “And it got off to an ugly start today, they were beating us, again, down the lane. But I thought we gathered ourselves. When you make 13-of-24 from 3, it helps. When you look at the stats, from a numbers perspective, it was probably one of our better defensive performances. … Our offense was good but I thought our defense picked up as the game went along.”
La Salle was responsible for handing Bona its fifth consecutive loss to start the conference portion of its schedule this season. It was the first time since the 2007-08 season that the Bonnies had dropped each of their first five A10 games.
However, by the time the sides tipped off for round two, that first meeting was just shy of two months removed. Plenty changes in that amount of time and Schmidt’s crew delivered one of their best performances of the entire 2025-26 campaign.
Perhaps the most telling stat in their favor was the scoreline itself. Their 99 points scored was a new season-high, surpassing the 94-point outings they had against Richmond and Rhode Island. The Bonnies were a unified front in their first postseason game. They shot just shy of 57% from the field and over 54% from 3-point range, while picking up assists on over 63% of baskets.
“I think the most important thing is we were making the right play each time, or at least trying to,” Bona team captain Dasonte Bowen said. “When we do that, we’re a dangerous team. We got a lot of guys that can make shots. So when we’re moving the ball like that, and guys get hit or just catch and shoot openly, we’re going to make most of those shots. And that’s what happened today.”
St. Bonaventure’s Darryl ‘Buddy’ Simmons II (8) lines up a 3-pointer against La Salle. Simmons scored a team-high 21 points for the Bonnies in their win over the Explorers. (Hunter O. Lyle)
Bowen accounted for nine of Bona’s 24 total assists, nearly recording a triple-double as he finished with 16 points and seven rebounds as well.
Benefitting from a significant number of those assists was Darryl ‘Buddy’ Simmons II. He led the Bonnies with a team-high 21 points, hitting five 3s in the process. Alongside him on the scoring front, Frank Mitchell, who got off to a slow start, racked up 18 points and nine rebounds, just missing out on his eighth consecutive double-double, Cayden Charles, who had 16 points, seven rebounds and five assists and Daniel Egbuniwe, who tallied 13 points.
The kryptonite for the Bonnies all season has been late-game scenarios. When scores are close in games coming down to the wire, the Bonnies have been unable to pull out the win. That problem alleviates itself when Bona is able to maintain a substantial lead.
That was the case as the game wore on against La Salle. After flirting with a double-digit lead throughout the first half, the Bonnies shot out of the gates after the intermission, building and keeping its lead around the 20-point mark.
According to Schmidt, that was a direct result of the character his players exhibit.
“We’re 0-9 in games decided by five or less points,” Schmidt said. “As I told the team, we can compete and we can beat anybody when we play well. You take five games, you go 5-4, and you’ve got 20 wins. That’s the fine line between winning and losing. We haven’t made enough winning plays to come out on the right side. But it’s a clean slate. Everybody is 0-0 and now let’s go out and try to win some games. The kids responded. If you don’t have character guys, if you don’t have good guys when adversity hits, they can splinter. And they didn’t. We got good leadership, we’ve got good followers. We’ve had our ups and downs, but the kids have stuck with us.”
St. Bonaventure’s Frank Mitchell (00) rises up for a floater against La Salle. Mitchell tallied 18 points and nine rebounds for the Bonnies in their win over the Explorers. (Hunter O. Lyle)
La Salle’s offense was held to just over 43% from the field and just 25% from range. But a big factor in the Explorers falling far behind was the absence of Jerome Brewer Jr., who had 27 points and a perfect shooting game in round one against Bona, and Jaeden Marshall, who both picked up season-ending injuries down the stretch of the campaign. They were two of La Salle’s top three scorers this season.
“They scored 50 points against us (at their place),” Schmidt said. So they lost 50 points. So, it helped us. You have never seen a good team with bad players. They have two really good players and one of those guys didn’t miss a shot all game (earlier this season). So that helped.”
In their place, Rob Dockery stepped up. He led the Explorers with a game-high 33 points on 11-for-22 shooting and a perfect 11-for-11 at the stripe, along with 10 rebounds.
With the win, St. Bonaventure moves on to face No. 5 seed George Mason in the second round.
The Patriots defeated the Bonnies twice in the regular season, but with that critical early-round win, Schmidt hopes that his players can start learning to win at the most important time of the season.
“Jack Nicklaus once said, and it’s stuck with me for a long time, ‘you learn how to win by winning,” Schmidt said. “You’ve got to put yourself in a position to win and you’ve got to win. You can practice special situations all you want. You’ve got to be able to pull one out. And once you pull one out, it’s confidence. When you’re in a situation where you keep on losing, it’s like, ‘here we go again.’ How do you stop ‘here we go again’? You’ve got to win again. … You have to learn and you do it by doing it.”
St. Bonaventure will tip-off against George Mason at 2 p.m. on March 12. The game will be broadcast on USA Network.
