By CHUCKIE MAGGIO
The last time the Associated Press booted a St. Bonaventure men’s basketball team from its Top 25 ranks, Bona’s self-proclaimed “Soul Patrol” of Matt Gantt, Greg “Bubba” Gary and Carl Jackson responded by leading a seven-game win streak.
That 1970-71 team, which stood 10th in the poll a week earlier, dropped a 13-point home game to Villanova before a televised 21-point loss at Duquesne. Bob Lanier did not walk through that door, but SBU’s 9-2 run to close the regular season resulted in an NIT third-place game victory over Duke.
The current St. Bonaventure squad is looking for a similar response after its 90-80 defeat against Northern Iowa last Saturday and subsequent fall from the media poll.
“We were never caught up in the rankings. They don’t mean anything,” Bonnies coach Mark Schmidt remarked Tuesday. “We’re just trying to get better every day, prepare as best we can for Coppin State. All that other stuff, the noise, the media stuff, we don’t listen to that. We go about our business.”
The next order of business, before a sold-out rivalry game against Buffalo on Saturday, is a matchup with Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC) member Coppin State on Wednesday night at 7.
The 1-9 Eagles, coached by 2002 Final Four Most Outstanding Player Juan Dixon, have played the most games of any Division I team thus far. Their win over future Bona opponent Loyola Maryland and loss at Virginia preceded three consecutive one-possession losses during Thanksgiving week: a 65-62 loss at Horizon League favorite Cleveland State; a 76-75 loss to Canisius in Buffalo; and a 70-68 loss at East Carolina.
Ken Pomeroy’s website is dubious about a fourth nail-biter, predicting Bona to win 81-56, but Coppin State’s recent form was enough to give Schmidt pause.
“This team’s good. They struggled early; the last three games… they’ve lost by a total of six points,” Schmidt noted. “So our guys are totally focused on Coppin State. They understand they have talented players. They’re playing much, much better as the season has gone on. The last three games shows that; they could have won the last three games.”
The Eagles’ “Big Three” of sophomore guard Jesse Zarzuela, junior forward Tyree Corbett and freshman guard Nendah Tarke has accounted for 55.8 percent of the team’s scoring. Zarzuela, who attempts over seven 3s a game, made four of his nine 3-point attempts against Cleveland State. Tarke recorded two double-doubles over the three-game stretch and notched a season-high 20 points in the other. Five of Corbett’s 13 rebounds in his 13-point, 13-board double-double against Cleveland State came on the offensive glass.
Bona’s most glaring flaw against Northern Iowa happens to be one of Coppin State’s keys to an upset: CSU’s 27.3 3-point attempts a game are tied for the 36th-most in the country.
“We’ve got a lot of weaknesses- defensively, offensively,” Schmidt acknowledged. “We try to make those weaknesses strengths as we go through the season.”
SBU won all four of its games following losses last season after compiling a 5-4 record after defeats in 2019-20. Coppin State has not defeated a current Atlantic 10 opponent since George Washington in 2008 and in many ways represents a “get-right” game for what will be a heavily favored Bonnies team.
“No one wants to lose,” Schmidt acknowledged, “but it’s not like we lost to a terrible team. [Northern Iowa] played extremely well. You can always take something away from losses, make sure the guys are on point with what we’re trying to do, but it depends on how you take it.
“You deal with adversity in two ways, one positively and the other way is just, you lay down. We’re certainly not gonna lay down.”
Wednesday’s game will be broadcast on ESPN+.
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