By SPENCER BATES
PITTSBURGH, PA — Last season, the St. Bonaventure women’s basketball team finished with just six wins, two of which were in the first two games of the season and only a pair came in Atlantic 10 Conference play.
The Bonnies finished last in the A10 standings last season, and were picked to, once again, finish at the bottom of the table in the 2025-26 preseason poll.
But this is not the same Bona team. In fact, there is a palpable buzz around what the roster that coach Jim Crowley has compiled this offseason will be able to accomplish after addressing some of the biggest issues that plagued his team last year.
And perhaps the biggest leap that was made in the team is with experience and maturity.
One of the key trends of last year’s Bona team was that Crowley was trying to teach an extremely young team as they went through the season. This year, he has proven talent and experience in his squad. Enough where he noted he no longer has to be the one trying to galvanize the team at every moment and that his players are able to pick up on where they made mistakes on their own.
“The first couple days of practice, there’s a lot of things that go wrong, that’s just the nature of the first couple days of practice,” Crowley said. “And when those things go wrong, we recover a lot quicker. I think that’s just the maturity part that we’ve added. They understand that, ‘OK, we may have screwed up in the first half hour, but we’ve got another two and a half hours where we’re going to be better.’ Some people say it with their words, some people would do it with their actions, but really they’ve just been able to utilize that (maturity) to have more productive practices so far.”
One of those experienced additions to the team is Aaliyah Parker. A two-time All-MAAC honoree, unanimous MAAC Rookie of the Year in 2021-22, surpassed the 1,000-point and 500-rebound career benchmark as a junior and recorded the first-ever triple-double in MAAC postseason history as a sophomore.
But numbers aside, what Crowley likes most about Parker is the strength she operates with and the attention she commands while on the floor.
“Aaliyah is really talented, she’s got great feet, defensively, great anticipation, she’s physical, she can score around the rim, she’s a really good passer,” Crowley said. “But to me, the really, really valuable thing is that Aaliyah is Buffalo tough. Folks from Buffalo don’t back down to anybody. That’s something that I take great pride in having in our program and something we’ve been working to get back to. So, to add her with her talent and to know that she has that, it was a great gift for us.”
St. Bonaventure women’s basketball transfer guard Aaliyah Parker answers a question at the podium during Atlantic 10 basketball media day. (Hunter O. Lyle)
And according to Parker, she is already feeling the love at St. Bonaventure which has helped boost her confidence after dealing with an injury last season.
“All the support I’ve got, especially from my coaches (gives me confidence),” Parker said. “Just coming off an injury from last year and redshirting, the belief they had in me, the support they gave me to come in this year and have such an impact. Also, my teammates, and the support they give me as well.”
Laycee Drake, a proven talent from UAlbany and UMBC, is another player Crowley is amped to see take to the Reilly Center court for the first time. But simply, he admitted, just the sheer depth in talent from top to bottom in his roster has him excited.
Last season, injuries significantly hindered what Crowley was able to do with the team. When the bleeding started, there were few options he had to stop it. This year, he hopes to not have that problem.
“We think all of our young folks have a chance to help us,” Crowley said. “We have some people who have proven they can do it. Aaliyah, obviously, has proven she can do it at a pretty high level. Laycee Drake is someone who’s played a lot of basketball, … and is someone we’re really familiar with. Those two stand out pretty well. I think all of our transfers have a chance to impact us as they continue to work through things. … So if I was to say, who our first five or eight are right now, (I would have) the first two or three, maybe, then everybody else changes. And I think that’s a good thing, and I’m excited to see how that develops.”
Another area in which this team improved is simply in its physical size. Rebounding was difficult for the Bonnies last season, often losing the battle on the boards due to a lack of strength. This year, Crowley has brought in a number of imposing figures such as Iva Corluka, Brianna Barr-Buday, Kylie Buckley and Brillana Boyd, to pair alongside returner Gabby Robinson in an attempt to swing the rebounding battle in his team’s favor.
“It’s been a nice adjustment, ultimately, we’d like to play through the paint in a variety of ways, and we certainly don’t want to get our butts kicked every night rebounding like has been the case recently,” Crowley said. “Aaliyah gives us some of that, Laycee is a great rebounding guard, but (Corluka, Robinson and Barr-Buday), along with Kylie Buckley along with (Brillana) Boyd, we have physical presence in the paint, and that is something we haven’t been able to rely on as much the last couple years. … When we were established, we didn’t get pushed around, and we’ve got to make sure that we start with that, and I think we’ve brought some folks in on the perimeter and certainly in the paint that will help us with that.”
But Robinson will not only be key due to her ability to clean the glass. As one of the two key returners to the team from last season she and Mackenzie Pettinelli will be critical in terms of carrying over the traditions, norms and expectations that come with playing at St. Bonaventure.
“Gabby, I don’t know if I’ve had a player, recently, that has gotten better in 12 months like she has,” Crowley said. “She was producing pretty well for us at the end of the season, and then had an even better spring and summer. So that has been really exciting. Mackenzie played a lot of minutes for us … and played a lot of different spots, so she understands what we want to do. … I think they really put a good foundation into place for what we want to do. They didn’t like how last year went, and that’s one of the ways to get better quicker, is to have some people in the program who don’t really like how things were going and want to do something about it. I think both Mack and Gabby provide that for us.”
St. Bonaventure women’s basketball coach Jim Crowley answers a question at the podium during Atlantic 10 basketball media day. (Hunter O. Lyle)
By Crowley’s own admission, the first two years since his return to the RC has not been easy. Combined, he has just 10 wins since coming back. But the past is in the past, and from what he’s seen from his players in the early moments of the season, he is eager to see this new chapter unfold.
“The first two years (since I’ve returned) have been a real challenge, but we feel we put together a roster that fits how we want to play, has some added maturity and physicality, and just has a skill set that fits the game how we want to teach it and play it,” Crowley said. “We’re looking forward to getting going. The group has really been open to the challenges of building relationships quicker, the challenges of being a student athlete at Bonaventure, it’s a different experience, and they’ve been very open to that. It’s been a group that we’ve enjoyed quite a bit and are really looking forward to embracing the competition.”
The St. Bonaventure women’s basketball team will begin its season at home with an exhibition on Oct. 29 against Daemen University. It will officially start the campaign on Nov. 3 with a home matchup against Div. II Mansfield.
