By SPENCER BATES
ST. BONAVENTURE — Two big factors have contributed towards the St. Bonaventure men’s basketball team’s 0-4 start in Atlantic 10 play: late-game execution and opposing guard play.
Last time out, against Saint Joseph’s, Bona struggled early on but eventually found a vein of success that catapulted them to a seven-point lead with 8.5 minutes left. But in the time that remained, it was out-scored 21-10, which included an 8-0 run with two minutes remaining to turn what was a four point Bona advantage into a four point loss.
For the Bonnies, it marked their first 0-4 start in conference play since the 2007-08 season.
Still, while head coach Mark Schmidt did note that they made mistakes down the stretch that cost them the game, he was able to find a silver lining in that his side took care of the ball better overall, cleaned the offensive glass and defended with a renewed sense of passion in the second half.
“We played hard and I thought we executed until the very end,” Schmidt said. “We got up by seven, and then we screwed up an out of bounds play and had a ball go over our heads. They hit two 3s and (our lead) went from seven to one pretty quickly. But I thought overall, looking at the tape, we got better. We took care of the basketball, did a decent job with 17 offensive rebounds. We didn’t do a good job in the first half of defending. I thought we did a better job in the second half. Hopefully we can continue to do that.”
Over the course of the St. Joe’s game just two Bona players finished with a positive figure in the +/- category: Dasonte Bowen at +2 and Andrew Osasuyi at a whopping +12.
Osasuyi garnered the praise of associate head coach Sean Neal after the game, who noted that the freshman from Milan, Italy has improved drastically as the season has gone along. Schmidt agreed, adding that he is still a bit rough around the edges but hopefully will be an asset alongside starting center Frank Mitchell deep into the campaign.
“He’s getting better, he still needs strength, he was hurt a little bit, so that knocked him behind, but he’s getting better,” Schmidt said of Osasuyi. “He’s athletic, he’s getting in better shape, he’s playing a little bit longer, he can block shots, he can rebound. He still loses the ball a lot of times, gets the ball knocked out of his hands. But he’s coming along. He’s not there yet. But hopefully, as the season goes along, we get into February, we can rely on him a little bit more, and we can play both him and Frank together.”
In that 07-08 season, the Bonnies started 0-6 in conference play. They will hope to avoid creeping any closer to that number in its next game at La Salle.
For the second time in as many games, Bona will face off against a Philadelphia team with a new man at the helm. Following former head coach Fran Dunphy’s retirement after the 2024-25 season, La Salle hired former Radford coach Darris Nichols, who has the Explorers with a 5-13 record this season and 1-4 in the A10.
Schmidt noted that while his team’s upcoming opponent may be on a bit of a difficult run at the moment, having won just one of their last eight games, they remain a threat due to their physical nature and ability to crash the glass.
“They play hard, they use a lot of ball screens, like most teams are doing, they’re an aggressive team, they play downhill, try to get to the foul line and try to get offensive rebounds,” Schmidt said. “They’re big and physical, and (Nichols has) done a really good job with them. They’re struggling shooting the ball and it’s hard when the ball is not going into the basket. But they go to the offensive glass, they get the ball to the paint, and they’re playing good defense. They went down and beat a good Rhode Island team (by being) the more physical team. He’s done a really, really good job and I’m really impressed.”
Through the non-conference portion of the season, the Explorers were a dominant force in the rebounding department and at the free throw line. But their control over those areas has diminished since the A10 portion of their campaign began. Nevertheless, Schmidt has stressed to his team that they cannot allow their game to be the one that puts them back on the right track.
“(La Salle is) negative five in the league in rebounding the ball, and that’s probably one of the reasons why they’re 1-4,” Schmidt said. “They did a good job in the non-conference of rebounding the ball, a really good job in the non-conference of getting to the foul line. They haven’t got to the foul line as much, even though they’re making 16 free throws a game, but they were getting to the foul line 30 times (per game) in the non-conference. So they’re a very physical team, and we got to make sure that we’re physical without fouling. Keeping them off the foul line and rebounding is always a big part of winning basketball games.”
Carrying the torch for La Salle so far this season has been Jaeden Marshall. Averaging a team-high 12.4 points per game, Marshall has been the go-to guy for Nichols’ squad. However, as of late he has received some help from fellow guard Rob Dockery, who has emerged as a reliable second option, averaging 12.2 points and 6.2 rebounds per game and shooting 52.8% from the field in five league games.
But the personnel La Salle has at the guard position does not change anything for Schmidt, who has continued to stress that in order to keep opposing guards quiet, they have to keep them in front.
“Every team has really good guards in the Atlantic, 10,” Schmidt said. “So it’s going to be the same thing, we got to try to keep the ball in front of us. Contain and contest, it’s the same thing over and over again. The last four teams that we’ve played have all had good guards. The next 14 games are going to have good guards. So we got to be able to keep the ball in front of us. I thought we did a better job in the second half (against St. Joe’s) of doing that, we did a better job of contesting 3s against St. Joe’s, and we’re going to have to do that tomorrow.”
St. Bonaventure will look to pick up its first A10 win of the season at La Salle on Jan. 17 at 2:30 p.m. with the game set to be televised on USA Network.
