By CHUCKIE MAGGIO
As it was, the St. Bonaventure men’s basketball team only had a week to return to basketball activity and prepare for its season opener against St. Francis University. Toss COVID-19 into the mix, and the challenge grew greater.
Bonnies coach Mark Schmidt explained Friday that multiple players tested positive for the virus in the days after the first team member’s positive result put the program on pause on Nov. 19. Because players were testing positive at different times, they returned from quarantine on different days.
“We’ve only had three days of having 10 guys, and one of them being a walk-on,” Schmidt remarked, “so it’s been really challenging. The first two or three days we had six or seven players, and you’re just trying to get them back into shape. It’s really hard when you stop doing everything. It’s like preseason starts all over again, and that’s been the challenge. I think our guys have done a good job, but it’s unknown.”
A Bonnies team projected to have a deep roster of talented players may need that depth when the Red Flash visit the Reilly Center at 2 p.m. Bona is playing its first contest of the year, the latest the program has started a season since it opened against Georgetown on Dec. 16, 1975. St. Francis, on the other hand, has already played five times.
“You really don’t know what you have,” Schmidt assessed. “It’ll be a test.”
Bonaventure has faced a recent history of Opening Day losses, dropping the last three. The last time it started 1-0, ironically enough, was defeating St. Francis in 2016.
That St. Francis team, one could argue, was stronger than the current group. After the Red Flash topped Pittsburgh on the road in their first game, earning an 80-70 victory, they lost their next four games by a combined 74 points. UMBC vanquished them by 15 in their only home game, while Virginia, Liberty and conference opponent Mount St. Mary’s won by 25, 16 and 18, respectively.
The Red Flash, No. 274 in Division I in scoring entering Friday’s action with just 63 points a game, lost firepower when senior guard Ramiir Dixon-Conover was injured during the UMBC game. Dixon-Conover led all scorers in the Pitt victory, tallying 21 on 5-of-9 field goal shooting and a 9-of-11 clip from the foul line. St. Francis has averaged just 16 foul line attempts as a team in his absence.
Mark Flagg, a 6-foot-9 senior forward, has led the scoring since Dixon-Conover was sidelined. Flagg averages 12.8 points a game and shoots 64.1 percent from the floor. He recorded a 13-point, 14-rebound double-double last time out.
Supplementing Flagg are junior forwards Myles Thompson and Bryce Laskey, who have 91 combined points and 14 combined three-pointers. Thompson led all returning scorers with 10.2 points per game on 46.9 percent shooting.
The Red Flash won 22 games last year but lost backcourt mates and leading point producers Isaiah Blackmon and Keith Braxton to graduation. That team, second in the Northeast Conference, featured the No. 31 offense in the nation (77.7 points per game).
One team is rebuilding, while the other is expected to contend for a conference title. But Schmidt, who has expressed concern about not having a scrimmage or exhibition game to judge his team, knows winning won’t come easy.
“The concern is the conditioning, getting comfortable with the basketball again and the skill level,” Schmidt said. “I don’t think they’ll forget how to play, but you haven’t touched the ball in 18 days. Now you’re going out and practicing two or three days and then playing a team that’s already played five games. Like I said, it’s challenging. But it is what it is. We’re not the only team in the country that’s going through this, so we’re gonna try to do the best job we can.”
“It’ll be interesting, after that first TV timeout, how our guys are feeling; they might be hyperventilating,” Schmidt joked. “It’s new for everybody, so I can’t tell you how it’s gonna be until it happens.”
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