By CHUCKIE MAGGIO
Daryl Banks III scheduled visits to St. Bonaventure, the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Robert Morris University and Loyola Marymount University after entering the transfer portal. He canceled the latter three.
“I only took the Bonaventure visit,” Banks explained, “because I was leaning towards it and I knew that this was the right place for me. I didn’t see the point in having to go to the other ones.”
The leading scorer of the most compelling NCAA Tournament Cinderella story decided then, before returning to Jersey City, N.J., that he’d swap the Saint Peter’s blue for St. Bonaventure brown next season.
The Bonnies have lost over 30 points per game with the departures of Jalen Adaway, Jaren Holmes and Abdoul Karim Coulibaly, with SBU’s other seniors yet to finalize their plans. The team’s coaching staff turned to a double-figure scorer who can make baskets from multiple levels, even dropping a game-high 27 points in the Peacocks’ NCAA Tournament first round stunner over Kentucky.
“They were just telling me how much of a need I was for them, how much of an impact they think that I’ll have for the team,” Banks recalled of the pitch that brought him to Western New York. “Wanting to play professionally, too, the pitch that they had with that. And then the atmosphere of the school, just everything about it is what I wanted to hear, is what I was looking for when I went into the portal.
“It was perfect for me.”
The odds of Banks contributing to Bonaventure’s reload, much like the odds of leading a school with a $37 million endowment past the big, bad, blue blood Wildcats, appeared slim when he entered high school as a 5-foot-5, 130-pound freshman. The Patrick School alumnus saw a major junior year growth spurt, growing from 5-foot-7 to 6-foot-1.
Banks did not lead The Patrick School in scoring during his time there, tallying fewer points than future Clemson guard Al-Amir Dawes and, ironically, former St. Bonaventure guard Alejandro Vasquez. Banks chose Saint Peter’s over Wagner, his only other Division I offer, and ultimately rewarded head coach Shaheen Holloway for taking a chance on him. Holloway parlayed the team’s success into a six-year contract to coach alma mater Seton Hall.
Banks’s journey closely resembles the unheralded path many Bonnies take before entering the program. Though not the small, underrecruited prep player anymore (Banks, now listed at 6-foot-3, said there are tall men in his family so “I knew I wasn’t gonna be 5-5 my entire life”), the similarities between the schools and programs resonated with him.
“Coach Schmidt said he always goes for guys that are kind of under the radar,” Banks noted. “They might not get the highly-recruited guys coming out of high school, but someone that plays with a chip on their shoulder. And that’s something that we prided ourselves with at Saint Peter’s, so it’s kind of that same mentality that they have and I had over here.
“It really just fits perfectly with what I play the game with, with a chip on my shoulder. It’s literally just neck-and-neck; it’s the same thing, just a different level.”
While Bonaventure associate head coach Steve Curran took the lead in Banks’s recruitment, the program’s New Jersey ties also played a role. Banks and Quadry Adams, who hadn’t known each other previously, worked out together during their spring break two weeks ago. Adams told Banks about how much he was enjoying his Bonaventure experience, posting a short clip of his recruitment efforts to Instagram. Banks also spent time with star senior Kyle Lofton on his visit. Lofton told his fellow Jerseyan that his four years at Bonaventure have been the “best years of his life.”
Already leaning toward the school, seeing the campus for himself to bust some stereotypes (“You always hear things, like, ‘Oh, it’s in the middle of nowhere,’”) and having those conversations with potential teammates of similar backgrounds solidified Banks’s decision.
“They had a big impact on my decision, because I knew of them; I knew they came from where I came from,” Banks acknowledged. “Just the familiarity with them and what they told me, I just knew.”
The Peacocks compiled a 54-35 record in Banks’s three years.
“I think we’re gonna be a really good team,” Banks assessed. “We still have pieces coming back and some players, we’re still awaiting their decisions, see what they’re doing and how that process is gonna go. But I think we should still pick up right where we left off.
“I think we’ll take that next step and get into the tournament next year, as well. Making some noise in it, not just making it.”
He has certainly accomplished that goal once before.
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