By CHUCKIE MAGGIO
The result made waves through the Atlantic 10, including, though not limited to, the team afforded two extra days of scouting.
The Saint Louis Billikens, who were considered league favorites before and during their month-long COVID-19 pause, met an upset-minded La Salle team in Philadelphia on Wednesday and fell 82-75. Once thought to be NCAA Tournament shoo-ins, the Billikens have now lost to the Dayton Flyers, who notably dropped a contest to conference doormat Fordham and suffered a 23-point drubbing at VCU, and the sub-.500 Explorers to start league play 0-2.
La Salle, meanwhile, has now picked off each of the top three teams in the A-10 preseason poll: Richmond, Saint Louis and Dayton.
“I think this is probably one of the toughest years, just looking at the league,” St. Bonaventure point guard Kyle Lofton remarked.
Bonnies fans are familiar with SLU’s situation; Bona needed a remarkable victory at first-place Dayton in the 2015-16 season to soften the blow of its own mid-week setback at Tom Gola Arena.
To this point, however, the Bonnies have avoided any similar résumé blemishes. Their lone loss is currently a “Quad 1” defeat in the NCAA’s NET ranking, as Rhode Island is No. 75 in the metric. They are 6-0 in “Quad 3” and “Quad 4” games, one of just two A-10 teams (along with VCU) who are undefeated in those quadrants.
“All the hard work the kids have put in and the way we’ve gotten off to a good start, they deserve some national recognition,” Bonnies coach Mark Schmidt said Monday, when the team was still expecting to play Saint Joseph’s. “But at the same time, they have to understand what got us here, and that we can’t listen to everybody and have everybody tell us how good we are.”
The Bonnies handled Saint Joseph’s, Fordham and George Mason- their three lowest-rated opponents according to NET- by an average of 19 points. They are still scheduled to host La Salle (a potentially important distinction, as the Explorers are just 3-7 away from Gola) and visit George Washington.
The 2019-20 Bonnies, on the other hand, compiled a 6-6 record against Quadrant 3 teams. Losses in that group were the home games against Duquesne, Ohio and Vermont and trips to Buffalo, Siena and La Salle. Unspectacular against upper-level teams, their .500 performance against average outfits precluded them from carrying a Top 100 NET rating.
Bona is crediting its preparation and mindset for its ability to dispatch less talented opponents. “Trap game” hasn’t made its way into the brown and white’s vocabulary.
“We’ve gotta continue to work,” Schmidt said. “You’ve gotta block out the noise and just worry about the next game. I think the notoriety is good, our players deserve that, but at the same time I think we have an experienced team that understands that all that notoriety, it could be fleeting. We’ve gotta continue to do our job, and those accolades will come.
“That’s the message to the players, is just to keep putting your head down and keep on working and don’t worry about what people are saying about you, positive or negative. Just to go about your business and think about the next game… that’s our focus.”
“It’s an ‘anybody can beat anybody’ league,” Lofton commented. “The same way we prepare for a team like Richmond or Saint Louis, we take every game the same way. Preparation is key for any team. No matter if they’re last in the conference or first in the conference, we attack it the same way.”
That focus has them in the league’s pole position.
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