By CHUCKIE MAGGIO
Is Tuesday the day the St. Bonaventure Bonnies finally take the court to play against someone other than themselves?
The Bonnies, who saw their scheduled season opener at the Reilly Center on Saturday canceled a mere 90 minutes before tip due to a positive test result in St. Francis University’s traveling party, will visit Cleveland to play the Akron Zips at Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse at 2 p.m (ESPN3). The burning question for the gameless Bonnies, of course, is whether COVID-19 will affect their gameplan once again.
Bona, which withdrew from a planned four-game Thanksgiving weekend slate at Mohegan Sun’s Bubbleville due to positive tests among program personnel, is one of 23 Division I teams (excluding the Ivy League) that hasn’t played a game yet.
“It’s frustrating; it’s challenging,” Bonnies coach Mark Schmidt remarked, “but we’re not the only team that’s going through this. We’re just happy that we’re able to play, hopefully tomorrow against Akron. Our guys are looking forward to playing; they’re tired of practicing, tired of being in quarantine.
“As I said before the St. Francis game, it’s a challenging year. We understand that, but we’ve just gotta make the most of it. However many games we’re able to play this year, it’s almost like each game is that much more important, I guess, because we’re not gonna be able to play 27 games.”
The Zips were in the same boat until Saturday’s game against Division II Cedarville, a 97-49 home victory. They paused basketball activities on Nov. 24, sidelining them for the first two weeks of the season. Cedarville is a winning semi-local outfit, but simply served as a tune-up for Akron’s first D-I opponent.
The Zips won 24 games last season, the Mid-American Conference (MAC) regular season champions by two full games. Less than half of their scoring returned this season, however, as Tyler Cheese, Xeyrius Williams and Channel Banks- three of their top four scorers- all graduated.
Regardless of the offseason losses, Schmidt still knows what the Bonnies are up against. Two years ago, SBU met Akron in the Cayman Islands Classic, where the Zips won 61-49 against a short-handed Bona team.
“They’re very well-coached; they play extremely hard; they’re unselfish… And the other thing is they really shoot the ball; against Cedarville, their first game, they shot 40 threes,” Schmidt commented.
Akron’s star is senior point guard Loren Cristian Jackson, the reigning MAC Player of the Year. Jackson averaged 19.8 points per game, scored 35 points on three separate occasions in conference play and shot 42.8 percent from three-point range, the 14th-best clip in the country.
Jackson compiled 31 steals last season and had the third-best assist-to-turnover ration in the conference, recording 138 assists to just 72 turnovers.
The 5-foot-8 Chicago native stands seven inches shorter than Bona point guard Kyle Lofton, but he has thrived since transferring from Long Beach State after his freshman season. Jackson scored nine points and assisted on five baskets in 34 minutes of play. Schmidt called him “one of the best point guards in the country” on Monday.
“He’s the engine that makes them go,” Schmidt assessed. “They lost a number of guys off last year’s team, but they didn’t lose the engine. He makes them go. He’s got elite quickness, he’s an elite scorer. But not only a scorer; he’s not a pig. He gets in the paint, he’ll distribute the ball, he’s a big challenge.
“Our young guys, not all of them played; we had a lot of injuries two years ago. But the guys that did play against him, they saw; everybody saw, I guess, even if they were injured, they saw live… He’s really talented. They run multiple ball screens for him, so that we’re gonna have to do a good job on.”
Other Zips to watch include 6-foot-8 sophomore forward Ali Ali, who only produced 35 points all of last season but scored 12 in 19 minutes against Cedarville; Ali’s 6-foot-6 classmate Jermaine Marshall, who made all four of his shot attempts, including two three-pointers, in his Akron debut after transferring from Florida Southwestern State Junior College; and Camron Reece, a senior forward from Oakland who contributed just under six points in 16 minutes a contest last season and corralled eight boards in Game 1.
“If it was only Jackson,” Schmidt said, “and four non-shooters, it would be a little bit easier. But they surround him with good players, guys that can shoot the ball and a big guy inside. And they play defense. They’re a good team. They won the MAC last year and Coach (John) Groce knows what he’s doing. It’s gonna be a great challenge for us, especially in the first game where we haven’t done anything, no exhibitions. This is gonna be the first time we’re gonna play with the lights on and play when it matters.”
If there was any upside to Saturday’s cancellation, it gave the Bonnies a couple more practices with double-digit players available before they presented themselves to the public. They won’t be in the Reilly Center like they would have been that afternoon, but they will get the experience of playing in a new NBA arena.
Against Rutgers at Toronto’s Scotiabank Arena, the Bonnies embraced the big stage and spoke in glowing terms of the evening afterward. They won’t have the benefit of fans this go-around, but they will be excited for the opportunity to finally play a game, in a venue they saw plenty of on national TV for years during the NBA Finals.
“The NBA is what they dream of, and they watch all those games,” Schmidt said. “It’s a big-time arena, and the atmosphere won’t be what it’s like, but like I said before, it’s unique; it’s different. We’ve just gotta make the most of it. We’ve just gotta bring energy from our bench, from the guys that are out on the court; that’s it. That’s how it’s gonna be all year.”
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