It’s a milestone year for St. Bonaventure men’s basketball … as in a century’s worth.

This season the Bonnies’ program will celebrate its 100th anniversary.

Bona hoops began in the 1919-20 season and since the 1943-44 campaign wasn’t contested due to World War II, the upcoming year marks No. 100 for Bonnie basketball.

And one of the highlights of Bona’s season-long celebration will be the naming of the 20-member All-Time Team based, in part, on an internet vote by St. Bonaventure’s fan base.

It was flattering to be asked to be part of the three-member panel that selected the 60 players from which the all-time team is to be chosen … though voters can still nominate their own choice(s) who are not listed.

Besides yours truly, who started covering the Bonnies as a columnist in the 1972-73 season — Larry Weise’s final campaign as coach —  the other two are Bona play-by-play man Gary Nease, beginning his 25th year behind the microphone, and former Times Herald SBU beat man, Mike Vaccaro, now the lead columnist for the New York Post, and the unquestioned expert on St. Bonaventure basketball history.

Voting began today by going online to GoBonnies.com/Vote. The list of 60 players is there, plus space for fan’s added nominees.

And, in case a member of the Bona faithful doesn’t have access to the internet — voting via the site ends Sept. 1 — ballots will be offered at selected home games early in the season.

Fans may vote for only 20 players and the four teams selected will be based on their voting plus ballots from the media, members of the athletic department and those connected to the program over the years.

As one of the three people charged with coming up with the base list of 60 players, it’s worth noting, the process is difficult. And it’s even tougher reducing that group to a final 20.

St. Bonaventure’s media guide lists 439 players who have worn the Bona uniform over the years. But the actual number is closer to 500 as no player is named before the 1927-28 season, meaning none are listed from the program’s first eight campaigns.

Then there are the eras.

Rebounds and assists weren’t part of the NCAA’s statistical base until the 1950-51 season. Steals didn’t become part of the stats until the 1985-86 campaign and the three-point field goal wasn’t added until 1986-87.

Clearly, there’s a group of players, pre-1985-86, who didn’t benefit from either steals or trifecta statistics.

Of the 60 players listed on the voting site, 35 were automatic … the ones currently in St, Bonaventure’s Athletic Hall of Fame.

That left 25 other selections and that’s where it got tough.

The Bonnies have had 43 1,000-point scorers and two of them — Harry Moore (1,462, 15th overall, but with post-career legal issues) and Matthew Wright (1,073, 41st) — didn’t make the list.

But there were other tough decisions as well. Kevin Houston had one of the great scoring seasons in school history, but was a single year as a Bonnie enough? We didn’t think so. It was  different with Matt Mobley (1,209 points, 28th) and Marcus Posley (1,126, 31st) who made incredible contributions in a mere two seasons.

And what about a Jim Baron who’s mostly missing in any statistical significance but was as great a leader as the Bonnies have ever had, to say nothing of being the co-captain of the 1977 NIT Championship team?

Those are the type of difficult choices when paring a list of 60 Bonnies down to the best 20 of all time.

Here’s the alphabetical voting list of 60, with fans having the option of adding their own players to the possible selections.

1. Jaylen Adams 2. Miles Aiken 3. Elmer Anderson 4. Jim Baron 5. Earl Belcher 6. J.R. Bremer 7. Michael Burnett 8. Bill Butler 9. George Carter 10. Norman Clarke 11. John Connors 12. Demitrius Conger 13. Fred Crawford 14. Caswell Cyrus 15. Mal Duffy 16. Ken Fairfield 17. Matthew Gantt 18. Greg Gary 19. Marques Green 20.Glenn Hagan 21. Delmar Harrod 22. Paul Hoffman 23. Essie Hollis 24. Carl Jackson 25. Mark Jones 26. Bill Kalbaugh 27. Bill Kenville 28. Bob Lanier 29. Michael Lee 30. Rocky Llewellyn 31. Youssou Ndoye 32. Rashaan Palmer 33. Patricio Prato 34. Nii Nelson-Richards 35. Andrew Nicholson 36. Garland Mance 37. Whitey Martin 38. Brendan McCann 39. Shandue McNeill 40. Matt Mobley 41. Barry Mungar 42. Ken Murray 43. Marcus Posley 44. Glenn Price 45. Bob Rozyczko 46. Greg Sanders 47. Rob Samuels 48. Bob Sassone 49. Jim Satalin 50. Ahmad Smith 51. Sam Stith 52. Tom Stith 53. Courtney Stockard. 54. Sam Urzetta 55. Peter Van Paassen. 56. David Vanterpool. 57 Tim Waterman 58. Larry Weise 59. Tim Winn 60. Dion Wright

(Chuck Pollock, a Times Herald senior sports columnist, can be reached at cpollock@oleantimesherald.com)