BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — Kyle Lofton shot a knowing glance to his left before covering his mouth and attempting to stifle a laugh.
The St. Bonaventure junior guard had just been asked if he had a favorite previous NCAA Tournament moment, one that figures to soon be replaced by a memory of his own.
“My favorite moment is the run Kemba Walker made in the (2011) tournament,” he said, referring to the former UConn star, who famously guided the Huskies to 11-straight wins to close the season — five to win the Big East Tournament title as the No. 9 seed and six more to claim the NCAA crown.
But, why the ensuing giggle?
That answer came at the expense of Bona assistant and former Pitt standout Tray Woodall, who was standing within earshot of Lofton and whose Panthers were one of UConn’s victims in the Big East quarterfinals.
FOR MOST, it’s been a challenge adjusting to the bubble-type environment mandated for this all-Indiana NCAA Tournament. Bona, for instance, bussed from Dayton to Indiana on Sunday night, was quarantined until Tuesday and conducted its first workout in a hotel ballroom before finally getting to take the Assembly Hall floor on Wednesday.
Said Lofton, “I feel like we come downstairs one, two times a day. We’re really upstairs on our floor in our rooms and they bring us our meals. We just really gotta stay in our rooms and stay distanced from everyone.”
But while some teams have begun complaining about the conditions (“I just hope it’s not so bad for these kids that they want to lose so they can go home,” one anonymous coach from within the bubble said), Bona, as you might imagine, is making the most of its NCAA experience.
“Everything’s good,” coach Mark Schmidt maintained. “The food’s good, they’re treating us like kings, we’re just excited to get going, to get back into the basketball schedule and practicing, getting ready for a great LSU team on Saturday. All our energy is on preparing as well as we can for LSU.”
Other notable soundbites from Bona’s pregame media availability on Wednesday:
Could Bona potentially take advantage of LSU’s guard-heavy lineup with Osun Osunniyi inside? The Tigers play one true bruiser — 6-foot-7, 245-pound junior Darius Days, and even he’s perimeter-oriented, taking 121 3s this year. Osunniyi won Most Outstanding Player at the A-10 Tournament after averaging 14 points, 10 rebounds and four blocks.
“Yeah, we got some height advantage with ‘Shoon, but the kid’s 245 pounds,” Schmidt noted, before joking: “‘Shoon will probably be 245 pounds when he’s 58 like I am.
“We’ll try to go inside with ‘Shoon and try to get him going to the basket and some screen-and-rolls and stuff … that will be a part of the game plan. I’m not sure if ‘Shoon’s gonna be able to back in 245, but we’re going to certainly go inside-out either by the pass or by the dribble.”
The Bonnies won’t look past Fordham on a Wednesday in mid-January, let alone a Top 25ish SEC team on the biggest stage of the season. Schmidt, again, emphasized that point when asked if his team had begun to think about a possible second-round matchup with No. 1 Michigan.
“Yeah, no, you can’t do that,” he said flatly. “We’re treating this like (an A-10 game). We’re not worried about who we’re playing next Wednesday, we’re worried about Saturday. LSU’s really good … they’re really, really talented. They lost by one point to Alabama in the finals of the SEC, that’s all you need to know.
“And if our focus isn’t on LSU, then we’re pretty dumb, and I don’t think we’re that dumb. They deserve all of our attention and they’re going to get all of our attention.”
Bona was able to celebrate its Atlantic 10 Tournament championship with about a thousand fans inside Dayton Arena, but won’t have the same type of in-person crowd support at Assembly Hall. The home of the Indiana Hoosiers will allow about 500 fans for NCAA games, but that will be limited to immediate family and friends of teams and staff.
Schmidt, however, had a message for the multitudes of Bona fans who will undoubtedly be watching from home:
“It’s a shame what we’re dealing with (in the pandemic), but basketball’s just a little, small piece of it. Basketball’s basketball, but we’re talking about life and death, so you have to keep things in perspective. But if you’re just talking about basketball … we miss the fans. When we were at Dayton, and we had, whatever it was, 3,000 fans in the stands, it was fantastic, just to have some noise in there.
“We miss them, but I know they’re there, they’re supportive, they’ll be watching on TV and they’ll be pulling for us. It’s a special, unique thing that we have at Bonaventure; basketball is really important, it’s the fabric of the university, it holds the alums together and gives us something to do. I know they’ll all be out at 1:45 (p.m., Saturday) in front of their televisions cheering us on.”
Saturday’s game will be a bit of a homecoming for junior forward Jalen Adaway, one of the Bonnies’ three A-10 All-Tournament Team selections. Adaway is from Logansport, Ind., about two-and-a-half hours from where Bona will meet the Tigers at famed Assembly Hall, widely considered one of the most iconic venues in college basketball.
(J.P. Butler, Bradford Publishing Company group sports editor, can be reached at jbutler@oleantimesherald.com)
