A column by CHUCK POLLOCK, Wellsville Sun Senior Sports Columnist
Saturday afternoon, when Duquesne visits the Reilly Center, begins a critical 15-day stretch that will determine St. Bonaventure’s seeding in the Atlantic 10 Men’s Basketball Tournament.
Coach Mark Schmidt’s Bonnies could finish anywhere from the bottom six in the conference and be forced to play in the dreaded opening round or, though it’s a longshot, could also sneak into the Top 4 and earn a double bye.
Currently, the Bonnies, 18-9, are 6-8 in the A-10 after winning their first two league games then falling into a funk where they lost eight of 11 before getting a much-needed victory last Saturday at Massachusetts.
St, Bonaventure is tied for ninth in the conference with George Washington, which beat the Bonnies at the RC and at UMass, site of their most recent victory.
In the 15-team Atlantic 10, finishers in the 10th through 15th positions play in the three opening-round games March 12 at Washington D.C.’s Capital One Arena.
Could St. Bonaventure tumble to that tail-end group? It doesn’t seem likely though Duquesne hung a 75-57 defeat on the Bonnies in Pittsburgh courtesy of 14 treys.
That bid for a double bye?
Clearly, the Bonnies would have to win out to go 10-8 and have Dayton and or Loyola collapse to 9-9 or 8-10, hardly a likely scenario.
However, Dayton has the tougher schedule as it plays at Loyola and VCU while Loyola, besides Dayton is also at Saint Louis.
After the win at UMass on Saturday, the last time the Bonnies will face the Minutemen who are leaving the A-10 to join the Mid-American Conference, a decision necessitated by football, Schmidt was clearly thinking ahead to tournament seeding.
“We’ve got to get better,” he said. “We’ll give them a couple of days off (of the bye week) then get back to work. We play two games (Saturday at the RC versus Duquesne) and the fiollowing Wednesday at Saint Joe’s and then have (another) week off, so we’ve got to take advantage of the time getting healthy and getting better.”
(Chuck Pollock, a Wellsville Sun and Olean Star senior sports columnist, can be reached at cpollock@wnynet.net.)
