By CHUCKIE MAGGIO
St. Bonaventure enthusiasts and Richmond die-hards alike can commiserate for 40 minutes when the Bonnies and Spiders meet on Friday night.
This Friday Night Showcase figured to be a “Game of the Year” candidate when the Atlantic 10 preseason poll was released, with Bona and Richmond ranked first and second. The teams returned nearly everyone of consequence from last year’s rosters, leading Spiders scorer Blake Francis the lone graduate. The Bonnies and Spiders stand 12th and 28th respectively in KenPom’s “experience” metric, seventh and 20th in “continuity.”
A thriller like the one that took place at the Robins Center last Jan. 2, when Bonnies guard Kyle Lofton made the game-winning 3-pointer with two seconds remaining, could still be in the cards. Neither program, however, has met expectations with the league schedule at its halfway point.
While Bona has alternated wins and losses over the last 2.5 weeks, Richmond has not defeated a team with an A-10 win percentage over .500. The Spiders suffered one of the most lopsided defeats of the A-10 season when they fell 83-56 to Saint Joseph’s at home in their conference opener, a game they were favored to win by 11.5 points.
Richmond’s four-year core of Jacob Gilyard, Grant Golden and Nathan Cayo decided to take advantage of a fifth year of eligibility but has a nearly identical record (14-8, 5-4 A-10) to last season’s mark (14-9, 6-5). Though not entirely its fault, as the 2019-20 squad was March Madness-worthy, head coach Chris Mooney’s trio is on pace to be one of the best in recent memory to not make an NCAA Tournament.
The Bona and Richmond stories are similarly confounding. The two most experienced teams in the conference, with two of the longest-tenured head coaches, are looking up in the standings at, among others, the least-experienced team in the nation in Dayton.
Neither team will shed the “disappointment” label by simply winning on Friday, but this home-and-home series (March 4 is the return game at Bona) could make a difference in determining who earns a double-bye in next month’s A-10 Tournament.
“You just watch tape and go back to practice and try to improve on things that we didn’t do well, like we do at every practice,” Bonnies coach Mark Schmidt remarked after the team’s loss to Davidson. “You look at the tape and you see what you did well and what you didn’t do well. Try to get better at the things you do well and improve on the things you don’t; that’s what we do every day.”
Rebounding is one area where the Bonnies are markedly more proficient than Richmond. Richmond is tied for 290th in the country in rebounds per game, with a negative-3 rebound margin. Over Bona’s five-game win streak over the Spiders, which started in 2018, it has outrebounded Mooney’s charges four times and tied on the boards on the other occasion.
When the Spiders are at their best, they are scoring enough in their Princeton offense to disregard crashing the boards. They are 11-5 when they score at least 70 points, 3-3 otherwise. Junior Tyler Burton is the fifth-leading scorer in the A-10 and is shooting nearly 40 percent from 3-point range.
Bona experienced the Princeton offense when it played Loyola Maryland on Dec. 8. The Bonnies struggled, albeit without Kyle Lofton, allowing the Greyhounds to shoot 50 percent from the field and drain 12 3-pointers in a game Loyola led at halftime. The performance was one of the first where Schmidt and his players expressed displeasure with intangibles like energy and connectivity, perhaps foreshadowing the inconsistency that was to come.
Count Davidson coach Bob McKillop as someone who believes SBU can right the ship. After escaping a furious comeback attempt on Tuesday night, McKillop heaped praise on Schmidt and the Bonnies.
“My goodness, they are terrific,” McKillop remarked. “They are so well-coached. And they compete, and they’re tough, and they’re interchangeable and versatile. What a terrific team they are, and for us to beat them here, that’s a big step for our team.”
St. Bonaventure hopes to display some of that toughness and competitive fire on the road at Robins Center Friday night, with a 6 p.m. tip scheduled on ESPN2.
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