By CHUCKIE MAGGIO
Less than 24 hours removed from their season-opening victory in Cleveland, Jaren Holmes and Kyle Lofton were back in the Reilly Center Wednesday- as floor cleaners.
The St. Bonaventure women’s basketball team was missing some managers for its home opener against Binghamton, while the Bearcats’ managers didn’t make the trip to Bona. Managers will normally be responsible for cleaning the floor during timeouts and breaks in play this year, as “Tier 1” personnel (players, coaches, managers, support staff members and officials) are the only ones allowed on the court due to COVID-19 protocol. So Holmes and Lofton grabbed mops and volunteered to pitch in during the Bonnies’ first victory of the season.
After months of practicing, a would-be home opener canceled due to COVID within the opposition and that light maintenance duty behind them, the captains are finally slated to lead their team onto Bob Lanier Court for a game on Saturday. SBU hosts the Hofstra Pride for the second straight season, with a 2 p.m. tip scheduled.
Hofstra, despite longtime Bona adversary Joe Mihalich taking a medical leave of absence from coaching, enters Saturday’s contest with a 3-2 record and two-game win streak. After averaging 73 points in a three game stretch against Fairleigh Dickinson, Iona and Stony Brook, the Nassau County squad erupted for 96 points on 54.9 percent shooting in Tuesday’s win at Monmouth.
The programs are meeting for the fourth time in the last six years, with familiarity aplenty.
The Bonnies, gassed up by the presence of the 1970 Final Four team’s attendance, blew past the Pride in a 73-45 victory last year. Hofstra’s leading scorer through five games is one-time Bonnie Tareq Coburn, who’s produced 103 points in 162 minutes. Bonaventure also offered 6-foot-7 center Isaac Kante out of Putnam Science Academy before he committed to his first college stop at the University of Georgia.
Seven of the 11 players who appeared for the Pride in last year’s matchup returned to the defending Colonial Athletic Association champions. They compiled a 20-4 record after they left the Reilly Center, winning both the regular season and conference tournament titles before the pandemic canceled their NCAA Tournament run.
Coburn and 6-foot-2 backcourt mate Jalen Ray combined for 57 points against Monmouth. Coburn hit 14 free throws for half of his 28 points. Ray made nine of his 15 shots, including four 3-pointers, in addition to going 7-for-7 from the free throw line.
“They’re a aggressive team, athletic team,” Bonnies coach Mark Schmidt remarked. “They play 2-3 zone, so they play a little bit different, so we have to be able to attack that zone. But there’s a reason why they’re picked to win the Colonial again. They’re really talented; they’ve got really good guards and a good big guy.
“The game is not going to be like it was last year. We played extremely well, we shot the ball extremely well, it was just one of those games. But they bounced back pretty well and won the league… Those kids know how to win.”
Tempo will be a focus of the matchup, as Schmidt didn’t feel the Bonnies’ offense played at a quick enough pace in the win over Akron. Bona’s possessions averaged just 15.1 seconds, making it one of the fastest teams in college hoops thus far, but the team is committed to continue running in hopes of cutting that number down further.
“We want to get offense off of our defense,” Schmidt said. “We’ve always wanted to score in the first 12 seconds of the shot clock. We’ve just gotta push the ball. It’s hard to run when the ball goes through the net, but if we can get some stops and some turnovers, any good offense wants to attack when you have numbers.
“It’s hard to score, or harder to score, when you’re attacking a set defense. So our job is to push the ball in transition and get the defense outnumbered or backpedaling. At times we did that against Akron and at times we didn’t… We’re gonna try to push it as hard as we can, and if we don’t have anything then we’re gonna run some half-court offense.”
The Bonnies got comfortable from 3-point land against the Pride last year, as 44 percent of their made field goals were 3-pointers. Bona only made one of its 14 deep tries in the opener, with Dom Welch making one of six.
It took the Bonnies a few games to get their feet wet beyond the arc in 2019-20, as they shot 3s at a combined 7-of-46 clip against Ohio and Vermont before making 10 at Siena.
Schmidt knows his team will adjust accordingly if long-range shots aren’t finding bottom.
“Jump shooting is having good legs, and we’re not in the best of shape,” Schmidt commented. “And secondly, we didn’t have an opportunity to shoot in (Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse); we got there an hour before and tried to get some shots up, but playing in a bigger arena it’s more difficult to shoot (because) the backdrop is much different.
“We have good shooters and hopefully we can shoot it better. The positive was we scored 81 points and only three of them came from behind the arc. That’s a positive; the negative is we shot 1-for-14, we’ve gotta get better. But we have good shooters.”
Bona and Hofstra have played six times, with the Bonnies taking five victories. A Bonnies win would mark their first 2-0 start since the 2013-14 season.
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