Pete Thamel thinks St. Bonaventure was short-changed.
“Man, St. Bonaventure got hosed worse than Loyola,” the Yahoo Sports reporter tweeted Sunday, in reference to the Bonnies’ position in the NCAA field. “Welcome to the tournament, you face LSU’s loaded roster and then Michigan. Have fun with that, A-10 champs.”
And he’s right, to an extent.
In the Tigers, Bona is getting a team that has truly played to its lofty potential of late, winning seven of its last 10, including victories over No. 16 Tennessee and No. 8 Arkansas, and reaching the SEC championship game before falling to Alabama by one (80-79) in the title contest.
But Bona was always going to be in the 8-10 seed range (and therefore facing a difficult first-round matchup no matter) and, per most talking heads, shares a region with the most vulnerable No. 1 seed (Michigan) in the field.
LSU’s the one that might have been underseeded, given a No. 8 despite nearly winning what many considered the third-best league in the country and a first-round date with a Bona team that ranks No. 23 in the NET, but sits on the No. 9 line with an overall seed ranking of No. 39.
In that way, you could chalk them up as being even.
And that’s the way the Bonnies prefer to view it.
BONA, as it always happens when it makes these inspired runs to the Big Dance, knows that for the next few days this is going to be billed as a matchup between the-little-school-that-could against the big, bad bully from the Power 5 program.
But it also provided a reminder: It’s had some recent success against a handful of brand-name teams of late, including last year’s 80-74 triumph over Rutgers, which came without all-conference center Osun Osunniyi. Additionally, it ranks higher in both the NET and KenPom than the Tigers.
And, at the very least, it belongs in the same breath as its SEC counterpart.
“It’s not like we’ve never played these teams before,” coach Mark Schmidt reiterated in his pregame press conference Wednesday. “We’ve got teams in our league that could compete in the SEC. Our league doesn’t have to take a backseat to anybody.
“We know how good LSU is. We knew how good Syracuse and Maryland were. All those teams, they’ve got our respect. But we’re not going to sit and because they’re an SEC team that we’re going to take a backseat.”
He added: “We’re going to prepare just like we prepare for all the teams, we’re going to take it one game at a time and hopefully … from 1:45-3:45 (on Saturday), we play really, really well, because that’s what it’s going to take to beat a team like LSU.”
It’s a game, as most 8/9 contests are, that figures to be a toss-up.
LSU HAS been a consistent 1.5-point betting favorite over the last couple of days. Bona is actually the team to beat, per KenPom, given a 53 percent chance of prevailing in the closest spread of any first-round matchup.
And still, a majority of pundits seem to be talking as if a Round of 32 meeting between Michigan and LSU is already a sure thing.
ESPN’s Jay Bilas picked the Tigers, but did note that LSU was in for a battle, saying: “LSU is way more talented, but St. Bonaventure is really tough. If they’re not ready for a fist fight, the Bonnies can beat them.”
Notable college hoops writers Pat Forde (Sports Illustrated) and Andy Katz (NCAA.com) also sided with the Tigers.
Internally, Bona will almost certainly use the little chance it’s being given as a source of motivation when it takes the Assembly Hall floor on Saturday. Publicly, it’s handling it in much the same way it does preseason rankings and the buzz that comes with these standout seasons:
It’s blocking out “the noise.”
“I don’t think we worry about that, no matter if we’re playing LSU or somebody in our conference or anybody,” junior guard Kyle Lofton said. “We gotta come in with the same mentality. We gotta come in confident, ready to play, and if we do that and bring our hardhats, we’ll be in a good position to win.”
LSU WILL look the part of Goliath, in much the same way UCLA did with its 7-footers and Top 100 players three years ago in the First Four. The Tigers boast one of the top scoring trios in the country in Cameron Thomas (22.6 points), Trendon Watford (16.7) and Ja’Vonte Smart (15.9).
The Bonnies, though, were never remotely fazed by the Bruins, and this group certainly doesn’t figure to be by LSU. Then, too, Schmidt’s teams are actually 4-2 in their last six games against Power 5 opponents (with wins over Maryland, Syracuse and UCLA in 2017-’18 and that triumph over Rutgers last November).
Plus, recent history is on its side: All four No. 9 seeds won in 2019 (the last year for the NCAA Tournament) while three of four advanced in ‘18.
Bona reintroduced itself on a national stage in 2018 and joined that table again throughout much of this regular season (it finished No. 28 in the season-ending Associated Press Top 25 poll, just missing its first national ranking since 1971). And though simply advancing is the top priority, it isn’t lost on them how far a win this weekend would go toward further establishing the program nationally, providing even more proof that it belongs.
And that’s just as enticing a reward.
“This is definitely a spotlight game,” Lofton acknowledged. “I feel like all of our guys know that and … good players live up to these moments. You don’t shy away from these moments. And I know they have a lot of great players, so I know a lot of people will be watching this game, and I just want to get St. Bonaventure’s name even more on the map.”
