By SPENCER BATES
SAINT LOUIS — The St. Bonaventure women’s basketball team is back in action after their hectic Thanksgiving break tournament at Cleveland State.
And while this may be the very beginning of December, lying in wait for the Bonnies is their first Atlantic 10 Conference game, on the road at Saint Louis.
Certainly an early conference game is daunting, but after seeing his team compete at, arguably, its highest level, with consistency, over the course of their three MTE games, head coach Jim Crowley is optimistic heading to the Gateway to the West.
Bona had just narrowly fell to a strong Cleveland State team in the first game of the CSU Invitational before surviving a tough opponent in Radford and blowing the doors off the gym against Valparaiso in order. And in Crowley’s own words, the three games, which took place over the span of just four days, provided him and his staff with the chance to see how much resilience was in this team.
Turns out, a whole lot.
“I thought we saw individual and collective responses to different situations, which was really good,” Crowley said. “We saw how teams would try to attack us and we saw some areas that we can continue to take advantage of and grow. I thought all those (lessons) were really beneficial to continuing to learn about ourselves and learn how people will go at us and what we can take advantage of and how we can continue to improve.”
One of, if not the brightest star for the Bonnies over the course of the tournament was Brianna Barr-Buday. The freshman from Grand Island missed just three shots from the field over the three games, in the latter of which she put together a career-high 16-point performance on 7-for-8 shooting.
“We’re looking for a consistent scoring threat in the paint, and she gave that to us over the course of the tournament,” Crowley said. “We’re really proud. She didn’t play against Albany, and a lot of folks may sulk (after something like that), and she didn’t. She just kept working. It was a good matchup for her against Cleveland State and she was a good matchup for Valpo. We needed a little burst against Valpo and she gave it to us. We needed physicality against Cleveland State. Now, it’s just about tightening up some other things and continuing to improve.”
Now, Saint Louis promises to be a new test. Conference games carry with them added weight and intensity. But according to Crowley, while they will have to deal with the challenge of traveling a decent distance, the strength of the opponent should not be much of a worry due to the strength of the schedule they have already faced.
“The travel is much different. Everything we’ve done has been pretty localized,” Crowley said. “We’re going to a whole different time zone. We’re getting on a plane. We’ve got to deal with those things. But (in terms of the game) I think we’ve played a couple games that have had a similar feeling to an A10 level. I thought the Cleveland State game did, I thought parts of our other games did. So we’ve seen that. It’s just about being ready for the intensity of the start.”
The Billikens record currently stands at 2-6, and while that may seem like a mismatch for the 7-2 Bonnies on paper, they have played some staunch competition as well and have kept their recent losses close. Their two wins have come over Northern Iowa (62-58) and SMU (70-67).
“Saint Louis, their record’s deceiving,” Crowley said. “All of their games have been close. They’ve been right there. They have a lot of individual talent. So, everything we’ve done we just got to do a little further away and be a little bit more consistent, which is what you want to do at this time of the year anyway. You’re focused on consistency, and this is a really good test to see where we’re at with that.”
Crowley noted that Saint Louis is going to want to bring pressure right off the rip, setting the tone with suffocating defense against his team’s biggest stars. This will, of course, cause significant problems if allowed to happen. But thankfully, that is where that resilience and the adaptability of this team, which was hardened over the break, comes in.
“They’re going to attack us off the bounce and in the paint, they’re going to attack us with their defense, ball pressure and denials,” Crowley said. “I’m sure they’ll get after both Aaliyah (Parker) and Laycee (Drake) in different ways. So we are just getting ourselves ready for some different things, because different things will be available because of that.”
The big hitters for SLU are its quartet of guards. Alexia Nelson (14.8), Zya Nugent (14.6) and Zhykera Brown (10.9) all average double-figure points per game with Jahda Denis just on the outside looking in with 7.9 points per game.
“It’s a very unique lineup to match up with,” Crowley said. “We’ve got to team-defend really good individual players, and we’ve got to make sure we’re not bailing them out with fouls, we’re not giving away easy ones in transition. We’ve got to really be disciplined in our lanes and disciplined with our footwork to make sure that we’re defending as a group and really limiting their clean looks.”
But for as much as the Bonnies’ defense will have to keep those guards in front of them, they would be remiss to forget the 6-6 Alyssa Koerkenmeier in the paint, who is averaging 6.1 points and 8.1 rebounds per contest.
“We got to make sure she guards us,” Crowley said. “We got to play with some good pace, we’ve got to be ready to move the ball offensively, to put her in screening situations, transition situations where she has to guard. They’re going to go to her early, and we’ll see where we’re at as far as taking her away.”
St. Bonaventure will get its first taste of Atlantic 10 action this season at Saint Louis on Dec. 3 at 8 p.m. EST.
