ST. BONAVENTURE, N.Y. — Talk about pulling the plug on an off-season of hype.
The tone seemed to be set before tipoff when Whitey Martin and Bob Sassone were introduced as honorary captains for the opener of the 100th anniversary season of St. Bonaventure’s men’s basketball program.
Martin’s No. 34 was long since retired as he was the point guard on the Stith brothers teams of the late 1950s and early ‘60s and Sassone starred for the Bonnies in the early ‘50s, then served as a Bona assistant coach for three decades.
But when coach Mark Schmidt’s team went out on the Reilly Center floor before a fired-up crowd of 4,305 at the Reilly Center, for lack of a better phrase, it laid an egg.
The Bonnies, a 12-point favorite, were handled by that same margin in a 65-53 loss to Ohio University. The Bobcats, coached by first-year boss Jeff Boals, who served two seasons as Schmidt’s assistant at Robert Morris (2004-06), led by as many as 16 and when Bona’s sloppy play continued down the stretch, many in the crowd began leaving early.
The Bonnies led only twice, that in the first three minutes, and making the nightmare even worse, with just under 16 minutes to play and Bona down, 46-38, sophomore center/forward Osun Osunniyi, after his second block, left the court escorted by two trainers. The preseason third-team All-Atlantic 10 selection sustained a leg injury of undetermined severity though it looked somewhat serious as he was unable to put any weight on the foot.
Boals, who coached the past three seasons at Stony Brook, admitted of the win, “It’s a great way to start (with a new program). Especially here, it’s a great atmosphere, as good as I’ve been in and I’ve played at Duke and Kansas.”
What flummoxed the Bonnies was Ohio U’s zone, which held Bona to 36 percent shooting … 3-of-19 on treys (16 percent).
“They weren’t hitting, fortunately for us, because they have some good shooters” Boals said Kyle Lofton (3-of-11) and Dominic Welch (2-of-12), “and that kind of took the crowd out of the game.”
Still, what made the win so impressive is that the Bobcats used only eight players as, according to Boals, “We’re down four scholarship players.”
For Schmidt it was a frustrating night as besides his team’s shooting struggles, there were some embarrassing defensive lapses that left the crowd groaning.
“I don’t think anybody played up to their capabilities,” he said. “(Ohio U) played really well … and we played decent at times, but didn’t do a good job of attacking their zone.
“And when you start missing shots, all of a sudden the basket starts getting smaller.”
Schmidt added, “You’re not going to win games when you shoot 3-of-19 from three and it’s hard to win when your better players don’t play well and that happened tonight.”
St. Bonaventure’s women’s team also fell, but the 68-56 loss to St. John’s of the Big East produced a different spin from the men’s.
And while Bona coach Jesse Fleming wasn’t going to call it that, a 12-point loss to the predicted second-place finisher in a higher-rated conference in the season opener has moral victory written all over it.
Sophomore guard Asianae Johnson opened her season with 18 points and junior forward Emily Calabrese added a dozen.
The telling statistics were Bona losing on fast-break points, 21-2, bench points, 22-5, and going 1-of-12 on three-pointers. But while they trailed by double figures for most of the game’s final 22 minutes, they were never down by more that 17 and were as close as nine late in the third quarter.
As Fleming viewed it, “There were some positives … we hung in there against a team that has the kind of speed that (Virginia Commonwealth) has in our league.
“But we also had a bit of a height advantage and thought we could win the rebounding battle, but didn’t (St. John’s had a 32-29 edge).”
He admitted, though, “The best thing about tonight was that we played harder, all the way, than we did any time last year.”
And that is a positive.
(Chuck Pollock, a Times Herald senior sports columnist, can be reached at cpollock@oleantimes herald.com)
