By SPENCER BATES
ST. BONAVENTURE — There was one statement that Mike MacDonald repeated throughout his introductory press conference as the new St. Bonaventure men’s basketball head coach:
“Because, it’s Bonaventure.”
It was a statement that encapsulated what he sees as his approach to recruiting, retaining and building upon the legacy of the program.
“It doesn’t matter if it’s a non-conference game in December, on the road or at home, people care,” MacDonald said. “If it’s a coaching search, people care. And that’s what makes this place special. There are a lot of people who care about St. Bonaventure, who want to see St. Bonaventure succeed. I understand that and we will work very hard to make this place successful.”
Perhaps the biggest draw to MacDonald for the search committee was his track record of retaining players in the current era of college basketball.
The portal rules all and money talks in this day and age, and yet MacDonald was able to maintain a strong foundation and build a perennial Div. II power at Daemen University. The key to doing that at the Div. I level, he believes is to lean into what makes the University, and the men’s basketball program itself, great.
“The grass is not always greener, and I think you have to have a spot where people enjoy playing with each other, playing for your coaching staff, where they feel like they’re getting better and they can realize that they can achieve what they want to achieve by being in your situation,” MacDonald said. “That’s what we’re going to have to do.”
Four players from this past year’s Bona team have entered the portal, testing whether or not MacDonald’s analogy rings true. MacDonald reflected on the complexity of the portal at the mid-major level, noting that not only is it difficult to keep players who do well, but also the ones who don’t.
“We’re in an era where, if you average four or five points, you’re out of here because ‘I didn’t average enough.’ And if you average 15 to 20 points, you’re out because you average too much,” MacDonald said. “It’s a little bit weird, but I think it’s going to change. I think it will come back and people will realize, ‘I have a good situation. I’m in a special place.’ And that’s what we want to show them.”
St. Bonaventure Vice President and Director of Athletics Bob Beretta noted that he and the rest of the search committee had compiled a list of traits that they took with them into each and every meeting they had with prospective coaches — a shortlist which he said surpassed 20 candidates. MacDonald was the only one checked off every box.
“(We wanted) someone that would create that environment where our young men want to come to the gym and get better every day and just eat, live and drink basketball around their academics,” Beretta said. “Whether it’s a student, a student-athlete, a staff member, a member of the faculty, a member of our administration, those that want to be here, flourish here. We knew that Coach Mac had a tough decision because he was living in an incredible situation at Daemen. But we also knew that he would embrace this opportunity.”
St. Bonaventure men’s basketball head coach Mike MacDonald (right) and St. Bonaventure Vice President and Director of Athletics Bob Beretta (left) field questions from the media during MacDonald’s introductory press conference on April 8. (Hunter O. Lyle)
MacDonald is the only coach in the nation to have over 100 wins at each level of collegiate athletics. He’s experienced it all over the course of his coaching career, which began locally at Olean High School. The lessons he’s learned since then have stuck with him and he intends to put them to use in his return to the Div. I level.
“I’ve kind of coached backwards in some ways,” MacDonald said. “I was a Division I head coach at 30, and I was let go when I was 40. Then, all of a sudden I went down to Division III and people would say it was going down, but I thought it was great for me because I could work on coaching. I think you become a better coach by coaching. … At Division III and Division II, you don’t have all the bells and whistles. I saw the locker room here and almost fell over. That’s bigger than all the locker rooms I’ve been in combined in the last 15, 20 years. But, you have to take what you have and you have to work with it. You can’t worry about what you don’t have, what’s missing, and that’s what we’ve been good at, focussing on what you have. That’s what we’re going to try to do here.”
An ‘88 alumnus of St. Bonaventure, MacDonald has roots in Western New York. Between Olean, Canisius, Medaille and Daemen, MacDonald knows the basketball landscape of the area. The community, which he praised numerous times throughout his press conference, was a big draw for him.
“I still have lifelong friends here, I mentioned Jeff Anastasia, Joe Guenther, people like that who I have known for years and I’ve always stayed in touch with,” MacDonald said. “Olean’s a special place, it was a big part of my development as a coach and it got me my first start in coaching at the high school level. So, for me, this is like a homecoming, coming back to where I went to school, but also coming back home.”
The decision to leave Daemen was not an easy one according to MacDonald. He gave pause, taking a moment to quell some emotions, before ultimately thanking the several members of the Daemen Athletic Department that helped him throughout his tenure with the Wildcats.
Admittedly, coaching at his alma mater was not something he ever anticipated. But now that the opportunity has presented itself to him, he intends on making the most of it.
“It’s very humbling,” MacDonald said. “This is something I never thought would happen in all my life. But by the grace of God, things kind of work out and this has been a whirlwind for the last 10 days, but it’s a whirlwind that I’m very appreciative of and very lucky and very thankful for.”
MacDonald is the 20th head coach in the history of the men’s basketball program at St. Bonaventure.
