FAIRFAX, Va. — Mark Schmidt bolted from his office to the practice court, immediately calling for his players to begin a fast break drill.
Practice was mere seconds old, but there was no time to waste. The next chapter in the Bonnies’ 2017-18 season begins tonight in Northern Virginia.
Bona has pushed the “restart” button on a couple of other occasions this year: When it returned home following a three-week absence in the non-conference, when it began league play in late December, when it recently came back from an 0-4 start on the road.
Still in search of its first A-10 triumph away from the Reilly Center, it’ll do so again tonight when it meets George Mason inside EagleBank Arena.
Yeah, the Bonnies (14-6, 4-4) would prefer to play at home, where they’re 8-1 on the year. But they’re eager for the latest opportunity to get this road monkey off of their collective back.
“It’s just something we haven’t done well to start off conference play,” senior Jaylen Adams acknowledged. “Coach has been stressing we need to treat this as a new season on the road. It’s time to really crack down on the road and get some wins. If we want to do what we want to do, we understand we have to win road games.”
From an Xs and Os standpoint, there’s one clear component that needs to be better if the Bonnies are going to end their skid: Defense. They’ve allowed an average of just 64 points on 38 percent shooting at home while surrendering 85 points on nearly 50 percent shooting on the road.
That’s an astonishing difference.
But there’s also a mental obstacle to overcome, Adams admitted. It’s an unflappability the Bonnies possessed in the non-conference, when they beat Maryland, Buffalo and Syracuse away from the RC.
“Don’t come out tentative,” the senior point guard said. “When we’re on the road, we tend to come out with a little less energy. We don’t have the students and the fans behind us. I think it’s up to the leaders and the captains to kind of bring the energy and set the tone from the start.”
Bona regained its footing with a pair of home wins last week, the last a 70-52 triumph over George Washington. That allowed it to jump from 11th in the conference standings into a tie for sixth, just a half game out of the top four, with 10 contests still remaining.
Aside from momentum, Schmidt’s team also has history – and the odds – on its side. Bona is 4-0 against the Patriots since GMU joined in the A-10 in 2013-14, including a pair of double-digit victories inside EagleBank Arena. Tonight, it’s an 7.5-point favorite against the Patriots, who have lost three straight, including an 80-68 road loss to GW, and sit tied for 10th in the A-10.
The Bonnies have heard enough about their road struggles over the last month. They know that, at this point, it’s replaced what they did in November and December as the defining narrative on the season.
Proving that they can take care of George Mason and win a few of these five remaining road games has almost become personal.
“I feel like we underachieved on the road to start off conference,” said Adams, who is closing in on the Top 10 in program history in scoring, needing just 76 points to tie Mark Jones for 10th all-time (and that’s with missing a total of 17 games to injury). “I feel like we all have the same idea in the locker room, that we need to be better. We tightened some things up, won two home games. We’ve got to take this energy on the road.”
Much like Bona, George Mason (9-12, 3-5) is led by a pair of high scoring guards: Otis Livingston II, a preseason all-conference third team selection, averaging 16 points and shooting 41 percent from 3-point range, and Jaire Grayer, at 15 points and eight rebounds and shooting 39 percent (52-of-135) from deep.
The Patriots, who own league wins over Saint Joe’s, Saint Louis and on the road at UMass, have been strong offensively, with four double-digit scorers in the starting lineup and ranking fifth in conference play in scoring (75.4 points). They’ve been among the A-10’s worst teams defensively, however, ranking last in scoring defense (82.5 points) and 12th in field goal percentage ‘D’ (46.5).
Again, like Bona, Mason doesn’t have a lot of depth, with only seven players logging more than 16 minutes per night. But for the Bonnies, it’s a golden opportunity to stretch its current win streak to three games with yet another road game, against Duquesne, on the horizon:
The Patriots are currently the sixth-lowest ranked team on Bona’s schedule in the RPI (No. 212), ahead of only the Dukes (220) and Fordham (261) in the A-10.
“They’re an aggressive young team,” Adams said. “We’ve got to be ready defensively – (they’ve got a lot of) drivers. Defensively, we just gotta attack them. It’s more of the same on ball screens, so we gotta adjust to it.
“(With GMU) it’s probably those two guys – Grayer and Livingston, two good young guys. They’re both good at getting to the rim, they’re both good scorers, period, so I think we’ve got to be able to play team defense (tonight).”
