PITTSBURGH, PA — This season has been far from easy for the St. Bonaventure men’s basketball team.
After collecting an 11-2 record through the non-conference portion of the season, there was significant hope going into Atlantic 10 play that Bona would threaten to cause a racket in the conference.
The sharp deviation from its winning ways was enough to cause whiplash.
The Bonnies lost six of their final seven games of the regular season to finish 4-14 in-conference and lost their first five games to start A10 play for the first time since the 2007-08 season.
The last of those five defeats: a 78-74 loss to La Salle on Jan. 17 — the team that Bona will face in its first round game in the A10 conference tournament.
In that loss, it was the typical late-game struggles that condemned the Bonnies. After they knotted up the scores at 49-49 with just over 12.5 minutes left, they were out-scored 18-10 over the following eight minutes of action. They shaved the deficit down to just three points in the dying moments, but the Explorers’ perfect day at the free-throw line made the difference as they put away the contest at home.
As a team, La Salle went 20-for-20 at the stripe, a stark comparison to Bona’s 5-for-9 from the charity stripe. Spurring on the Explorers’ effort by going 6-for-6 from the line was Jerome Brewer Jr. who, himself, had a perfect day all-around. Brewer racked up a game-high 27 points on 9-for-9 shooting, three of those makes coming from range, and grabbed six rebounds, four on the offensive glass.
Jaeden Marshall, La Salle’s leader in points per game with 12, accrued 23 points in that game as well.
But Brewer and Marshall will both be unavailable for round two with the Bonnies after they picked up a season-ending injuries late in the campaign. In fact six players for the Explorers have picked up campaign-ending injuries this season.
Rob Dockery has La Salle’s second-highest points-per-game average with 11.8 and has more than picked up the pace since the injuries to his teammates started to rack up. Over his last five games, Dockery is averaging just shy of 22 points per game.
He will be the top priority for the Bona defense in their A10 tournament-opening game.
Frank Mitchell had a big game for the Bonnies in round one vs. La Salle this season, scoring 26 points while grabbing seven rebounds and dishing four assists. With Brewer out, look for Mitchell to have a major impact in the game. Alongside Mitchell, Daniel Egbuniwe had 19 points, Dasonte Bowen had 12 and Cayden Charles had 11 in the first meeting between the sides.
St. Bonaventure head coach Mark Schmidt announced that he will retire following the conclusion of this season, his 19th with the program, after his team’s regular season finale loss to Davidson on March 7. He will look to keep his tenure going for as long as possible and go out on a high note with a run in the conference tournament.
No. 13 seed St. Bonaventure will tip-off against No. 12 seed La Salle at 11:30 a.m. on March 11 in PPG Paints Arena with the winner moving on to face No. 5 seed George Mason. The game will be broadcast on USA Network.
