By CHUCKIE MAGGIO
Bob Lanier did his best not to think about the fact that St. Bonaventure’s Feb. 25, 1970 game against Canisius was his final home appearance. He admitted, however, to looking at the clock throughout the contest to see how much time he had left in the then-University Center.
“Man, it’s been really great playing here before these fans,” Lanier told reporters. “I’m going to miss it.”
The roar Lanier and roommate Bill Kalbaugh heard when they checked out of a blowout victory that day may have been replicated 48 years later, when Jaylen Adams, Matt Mobley and Idris Taqqee were honored before a triple-overtime epic against Davidson. Those three rendered the public address announcements moot, drowned out by 4,865 boisterous fans.
“It’s bittersweet,” Adams recalled Wednesday, “just knowing it’s the end to your career in that building but you get one more chance to put on a show for the home fans.”
“Senior Night emotions,” Taqqee added Thursday, “are a beautiful thing.”
Such is Senior Night at St. Bonaventure, a day with dueling emotion and responsibility. The send-off typically comes with conference tournament seeding or postseason tournament stakes attached and does again this season, when the Bonnies honor Jalen Adaway, Jaren Holmes, Kyle Lofton, Osun Osunniyi and Dominick Welch.
Bona can clinch the No. 4 seed in the Atlantic 10 Tournament, a double-bye to Friday’s quarterfinal round and a 20-win regular season with a victory over Richmond on Friday night (7 Eastern Time, ESPN2). If Richmond wins, Bonaventure can still earn the fourth seed if VCU defeats Saint Louis at Belk Arena on Saturday.
The Bonnies, seeking to avenge their 71-61 loss to the Spiders on Feb. 4, are staging a postgame senior ceremony this year and conducting business as usual beforehand.
“It’s pretty self-explanatory,” Bonnies coach Mark Schmidt remarked. “They’ve been in a million of these games. Dom and Shoon and Kyle have been playing since their freshman year so they’ve been in a lot of big games. I would assume they’ll approach it the same way as they’ve approached all the games.”
Osunniyi is still being announced as a “game-time decision” with his ankle injury. Richmond is smarting from a lack of rim protection itself, though not injury-induced, after surrendering a game-winning inbound lob to Dayton’s R.J. Blakney at the Robins Center on Tuesday. The loss eliminated the Spiders from double-bye contention, but they remain one of the best road teams in the conference, with a 7-4 overall record in true road games and a 5-3 mark in league play.
The Bonnies defended some of Richmond’s usual suspects well a month ago, holding Jacob Gilyard, Grant Golden and Nathan Cayo under their season scoring averages. Leading scorer Tyler Burton, conversely, posted a career-high 36 points.
Burton struggled against Dayton, tallying just three points in 23 minutes of playing time after missing each of his five field goal attempts. The performance ended an eight-game double figure streak for Burton, who produced a career-high 36 points against Bona. The 6-foot-7 all-conference candidate is shooting just 27.8 percent (5-for-18) from 3-point range since he sank three from beyond the arc against the Bonnies.
“He’s hard to guard,” Schmidt acknowledged, “so hopefully we can do a better job than we did against him down there; gave him a career night, so hopefully he doesn’t have that. But he’s a really good player and he’s a hard guard. He can score at all three levels; he can attack the offensive glass. He’s gonna be difficult again.”
Another difficulty, naturally, will lie in the frontcourt if Osunniyi is again unable to play. Abdoul Karim Coulibaly could be tested from a foul standpoint against crafty veterans Golden and Matt Grace, while Schmidt explained that Bona cannot run offense through the inexperienced Oluwasegun Durosinmi.
Osunniyi, while not the top scoring big in the country, is factoring more in the offense than he did over his first three seasons and is fouling less than he ever did previously. His absence is felt in multiple facets, not just his shot blocking.
“(Durosinmi) understanding the plays, we couldn’t run too many plays with him out there,” Schmidt noted. “But that’s understandable; he hasn’t played. I thought initially, anybody would have some nerves. I thought when he went back in there the second time, he did better. But it’s a difficult situation, to put him in there against VCU in front of that crowd and so forth. I thought he handled himself well.”
SBU won its last three home games against Richmond and five of the last six. Holmes, Lofton, Osunniyi and Welch combined for 59 points when the programs last met at the Reilly Center. Each player averages double-figure points against Richmond, as does Adaway.
St. Bonaventure has earned 38 Reilly Center victories since the 2018-19 season began, holding a .745 win percentage in its home confines.
If the Bonnies can pull off No. 39 tomorrow, they will extend a streak of seven consecutive Senior Night victories dating back to 2014 (the team had no seniors last season).
Schmidt maintained that every game is important, but a high-stakes Senior Night win undoubtedly means a bit more.
“We just knew we had to handle business by any means, even if it meant going into triple OT while having half the team foul out,” Mobley recalled with a laugh. “At the end of the game, when everything’s settled in, that’s when you realize what just happened. That’s when all the emotions of senior night start to kick in.
“Do your job first, celebrate and reflect after. That’s what we all bought into.”
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