By CHUCKIE MAGGIO
Mark Schmidt made his message loud and clear when he addressed his newly crowned Atlantic 10 champions on Saturday afternoon.
“Now, we don’t want to end the season with a loss,” Schmidt remarked, as captured in a video from the team’s official Twitter account. “You should be hungrier now to finish the season with a win at home; to go undefeated at home; to take care of business against Dayton.
“We accomplished a goal of winning the Atlantic 10 title… Now we want momentum going into the Atlantic 10 Tournament.”
The Bonnies are 9-2 in March regular season games and 5-1 in regular season finales since 2015. To the point of momentum, 12 of the A-10’s last 20 NCAA Tournament participants won their regular season finales.
Even in this rare case where there are no seeding implications attached to the last game before tournament play, 13-3 Bona does not lack motivation. A win on Monday would snap its five-game losing streak to the Dayton Flyers, its longest skid against any A-10 program.
Teams have won the league tournament after a finale loss; SBU did it in 2012, while Saint Louis did it against the Bonnies in 2019.
Schmidt’s group unsurprisingly wants to avoid that path.
“We have more to do,” Schmidt explained Sunday. “We’ve gotta keep on rolling. We accomplished one goal, and that was to win the Atlantic 10 regular season, but we want to win the Atlantic 10 Conference Tournament. And the best way to do that is to go in there with momentum. We want to be 4-0 going in. We know it’s gonna be a tough game tomorrow, but our whole mindset is we won something, but we want to continue to win.
“I guess ‘won, not done,’ you know? It’s just how it is. Our guys are really competitive and Dayton’s a really good team and a national caliber of a team. It would be great to finish it the right way. You always want to win your last home game, on your court.”
The Flyers’ average post-Obi Toppin campaign is a product of inconsistency on both sides of the ball.
Dayton swept its Saint Louis home-and-home series, defeating the Billikens by 23 last Friday, for two of its eight A-10 wins. The Flyers bested Davidson at Belk Arena and topped George Mason by the same 74-65 score twice. Anthony Grant’s squad also owns a non-conference win over March Madness hopeful Ole Miss.
UD, however, followed the most recent Saint Louis thumping by allowing 97 in a loss to St. Joe’s on Wednesday, the most points a team has surrendered in A-10 play. The Hawks made a season-high 18 3-pointers at Hagan Arena and Taylor Funk and Ryan Daly nearly outscored Dayton’s starting lineup by combining for 61 points. The eruption marked Dayton’s worst defensive performance, at least in terms of points against, since Rhode Island dropped 97 in 1997.
The Flyers and Pac-12 member Oregon State are the only teams in the country with at least two Quadrant 1 wins and two Quadrant 4 losses, according to the NCAA NET ranking. Dayton lost at home to No. 195 La Salle and away to No. 323 Fordham.
Unlike St. Bonaventure’s balanced attack, Dayton is reliant on senior point guard Jalen Crutcher offensively. Crutcher, an all-conference candidate, averages over 21 points on over 50 percent shooting in Flyer wins and just 15.2 points on a 42 percent clip in losses.
Toppin didn’t lead the scoring against SBU last year; Crutcher did. The Memphis native, who is very unlikely to use his fifth year of eligibility and return to UD next season, has posted better scoring numbers on the road this year and has at least one more chance for a signature win.
“They’re just a really good team,” Schmidt assessed. “You don’t beat Saint Louis by 23 by not having a good team. They’re really good, really good. And when they have one of the best players in the league, when he plays well they’re nearly unbeatable. Well-coached, and they’ve been successful for a long time in this league. There’s a reason for that, so we’ve got our hands full.”
Crutcher is flanked by 3-point threat and backcourt mate Ibi Watson, with two formidable post players in Mustapha Amzil and Jordy Tshimanga. Amzil is one of the league’s top freshmen, while the senior Tshimanga accepted a major increase in minutes and leads the team in rebounding.
Dayton enters the Reilly Center 3-5 in road contests, while Bonaventure is seeking a perfect 9-0 home record. The Bonnies accomplished some of their biggest wins in the confines of home, with the VCU comeback and the first half of the Davidson series standing out on their résumé.
“Being undefeated at home was a goal of ours; it’s always a goal of ours,” Schmidt commented. “I just think in order to compete for titles in the Atlantic 10 you’ve gotta protect your home court and steal some on the road. We have another chance to protect our home court (Monday).”
A little over 13 months ago, Jaren Holmes stood outside the UD Arena visitors’ locker room and assured the media that the Bonnies were fine. SBU had fallen to the No. 7 team in the country by 26 points a half hour earlier, victim to a 22-5 Flyer run before halftime. Bona had lost lopsidedly for the second straight contest without star center Osun Osunniyi, who was nursing a concussion.
“We’re gonna move on to the next one,” Holmes said quietly. “We’re gonna stay together as a team, as a brotherhood; and we’re gonna get better. And we’re gonna be exciting.”
The Bonnies have improved in thrilling fashion. Now their objective is to finish the job.
Leave a Reply