By SPENCER BATES
ST. BONAVENTURE — Learn and adapt.
That has been the name of the game for the St. Bonaventure women’s basketball team throughout its 2025-26 season.
In its first Atlantic 10 fixture of the season, the Bonnies struggled with late-game execution at Saint Louis. In their very next A10 game, they came up with the big plays late to pull off a dramatic win over George Washington.
They then ran into the high-powered offense of Richmond in a game in which they conceded a season-high 80 points. But in their next game, at Duquesne, they sharpened up on the defensive side of the floor, conceding less than half that number (38 points) in a win.
They traveled to face league-leaders Rhode Island — one of, if not the most experience-laden team in the conference and played a solid first half, trailing by just one point. But a second-half burst by the Rams ultimately put that game out of reach. But in their most recent affair, a 57-48 win over Saint Joseph’s, they took what they did right in the first half against Rhody and extended it for a full-game effort.
Last season, repeated mistakes were the downfall of head coach Jim Crowley’s side which, amidst a flurry of injuries, was unable to find consistency in conference play. But through just six league games, his team has more A10 wins than it managed all of last season — and while the road ahead is still long and daunting, the ability for his players to be so adaptable has been nothing short of a major asset.
“It’s always a frustration for anybody, players, coaches, if you have a lot of repeat mistakes, and we are still, without question, a work in progress, but this group has a really good ability to respond in a positive way,” Crowley said. “Whether it’s correcting things and playing a full game or a defensive thing or an offensive thing, they’ve really done a nice job. It’s a credit to them, obviously, as people, but also to the leadership group that we have and what they do.”
In its win over St. Joe’s, two Bona players eclipsed the double-figure mark in terms of points scored, those being Aaliyah Parker and Laycee Drake (11 and 10 points, respectively).
But perhaps what impacted the game just as much as her scoring was Parker’s willingness to put her body on the line.
Numerous times Parker either threw herself at the opposition defense, or put herself in a position to take contact the other way with physical defense. It was clear she was feeling the effects of some bumps and bruises, but her effort never dropped as she took a strong charge that forced a Hawks turnover with time dwindling.
“I’ve been fortunate to coach a lot of competitive people. She’s as competitive as anyone I’ve coached,” Crowley said of Parker. “When it’s game time, she takes it to a whole nother place. But I think a lot of her leadership (comes from) … she’s really open and accepting of her teammates. I think that helps a ton with the leadership. Then again, when it gets to crunch time, game time, on offense or defense, she’s got another place she goes to and is basically like, ‘come on, we’re going.’ And our team knows to get on board.”
But it was far from just the Parker and Drake show. Bona had eight different players score at least five points against St. Joe’s, one of whom was Elyse MacDonough, who has jumped into that starting five in place of Ivona Djikanovic, who has missed the last two games with an injury.
Playing an average of 27.2 minutes over the last five games, Crowley noted he has seen the freshman from South Burlington, Vermont grow exponentially in terms of her confidence.
“Elyse is just very determined and that’s a great attribute; she’s going to figure out a way,” Crowley said. “She struggled with some defensive things as she adjusted to the college game, but her defense Wednesday night was off the charts. She plays really hard. I thought she had a couple really good looks in the fourth quarter too. She’s starting to find her spots and recognizing how to play off her teammates. She just keeps getting better. She’s really coachable and she plays hard. And if you play hard and you’re coachable, that’s a pretty good combo.”
Crowley will need another full game effort and for those alongside Parker and Drake to step up as they travel to face Fordham on Jan. 18 for their next game.
Learning lessons on the back of losses has been a big positive, but being able to learn on the back of wins would do nicely for the Bonnies who are in search of their first consecutive A10 wins this season.
But if they are to do so they will have to go through a tough Rams team that has found a rhythm as of late, without their leading scorer in Alexis Black.
Black left Fordham’s game against St. Joe’s with an ankle injury and has not featured in their last three games. But in her absence, multiple different players have stepped up, notably Carryn Easley, who scored 10 and 14 points in consecutive games against Richmond and Dayton.
“They’re going to play really hard,” Crowley said. “Bridgette (Mitchell) does a great job of getting them to play hard. They’re really aggressive defensively. They attack the boards relentlessly. Obviously, Black gives them another scoring option, a high-level scoring option. But Easley has stepped into that spot pretty nicely. Nine folks have a similar number of shot attempts in conference games. … There’s other people that can hurt you in different ways. … They had a rhythm, and then Black came out (of the lineup). Now, they’re finding another rhythm, and she’ll only add to that if she’s back.”
One of the biggest aspects of Fordham’s game is its willingness to crash the offensive glass. The Rams average over 16 offensive rebounds per game and Crowley knows that a team putting that much effort into offensive boards is going to be hard to stop, no matter what. The key is to make sure that they don’t run up second-chance points.
“They’re going to get them because they go so hard, so we’ve got to limit their scores off them,” Crowley said. “I thought we did that really well against Joe’s, they didn’t score a ton of points off offensive rebounds, and that’s the bigger thing. Obviously, you don’t want to give up 20 of them. But when you’re playing a team committed to it, and often we’re playing teams who have more length or athleticism than us, it’s about how do we limit their scores from them? How do we limit those chances? Can we make them have to work even harder in that possession? Which we feel can help us in the style we play.”
St. Bonaventure will look to push its record in A10 play positive for the first time this season at Fordham on Jan. 18 at 2 p.m.
