ST. BONAVENTURE, N.Y. — It’s a funny feeling, these words being associated with the St. Bonaventure men’s basketball team in late November.
But I suppose it’s to be expected — in some capacity — given what it accomplished last season and the preseason sentiment among some in that locker room that it could be even better this year.
“The Bonnies” … and “what they need to do to make the NCAA Tournament.”
The perfect example of the two different prisms through which to view this 2016-17 campaign unfold came a week ago after the Bonnies’ first game in the Lone Star Showcase.
Bona, which had entered the season with a cascading optimism among its fan base, had just fallen to a good Arkansas-Little Rock team on a neutral court to skip to 1-2. It was weird; a good Bona team (on paper) that was below .500 through the first three games since the 2-26 disaster in 2005.
One way to view that two-game slide was that it was merely a pair of early-season setbacks to two good teams away from the Reilly Center. This is probably the more sensible route. Florida has now officially broken into the Associated Press Top 25 (at No. 24) and currently ranks No. 11 nationally in the Ken Pomeroy ratings.
It would have been unfair to expect the Bonnies to beat a Top 25 team on the road in their second game of the season. And still, they almost did, falling in the final minute.
Little Rock had returned all but two of its top contributors from a team that went 30-5 and advanced to the second round of the NCAA Tournament last season. It’ll likely be in the running for another Sun Belt Conference title this season.
Again, neither was a bad loss. And aside from an inability to close out either contest down the stretch — which, with this program, is a concern — the Bonnies’ second-half performances in each seemed to indicate that, by any reasonable metric, they’d be “fine” again this year.
The other way to view those two outcomes?
Well, if we’re (fairly or unfairly) putting the “bubble” burden on this team from the outset, they were two hugely missed opportunities.
While no official reason was ever given to Bona or the Atlantic 10 as to why coach Mark Schmidt’s team, despite an RPI of 29 and a share of the league championship, was left out of the NCAA Tournament last season, the half-hearted indication from committee chair Joe Castiglione was that the Bonnies “didn’t beat anybody” in the non-conference.
(Bona’s best non-league win came against No. 91 Buffalo, which went on to win the MAC Tournament title. It lost its three other games against Top 125 teams — against Syracuse (40), Hofstra (57) and Siena (123).)
If that’s the way we’re choosing to view things on Nov. 29 — if we’re expecting the Bonnies back on the bubble in March, which would be an impressive accomplishment for a program that has been there only twice in the last 30-plus years — then they’re already in some trouble, having lost what will likely go down as their two best opportunities at a signature non-league triumph.
And that’s a harrowing way of looking at things less than three weeks into the season: that Bona, at 3-2 following a pair of blowout victories over Central Michigan and Pepperdine, may already be in “trouble.”
My suggestion heading into December? Let the 2016-17 campaign breathe a little bit.
The Bonnies were 3-2 last winter (again, with losses to two very good teams) before embarking on one of the winningest regular seasons in program history. It wasn’t until a 4-0 start in conference play and another push through early February that fans and media types began to see that team in a Tournament light, and perhaps the same patience is needed with its successor.
It’s just hard to do that when the Bonnies themselves said that this year’s team could be even better.
One of the narratives heading into last week was that the Bonnies “absolutely had to go 3-0” in the Lone Star Showcase in order to … I don’t know what exactly. Three must-wins before Thanksgiving? That’s one tough standard.
The thought now is that Bona has to “win out” the rest of the non-conference in order to remain in contention for an at-large berth. Probably, yes, if that’s the barometer by which we’re judging this team. But not even last year’s record-setting bunch could escape the non-league with just those two early-season losses.
Based on what we’ve seen so far, Schmidt’s team will likely be pretty good again in 2016-17. How good? We don’t really know yet. The best course for both team and fans would probably be to worry less about the bubble right now and more about the two massive games in front of it this week: against likely Top 100-ish teams Siena and Buffalo, both in the Reilly Center.
Move to 5-2 with those victories, and perhaps they’ll be onto something.
-Olean Times Herald
