ST. BONAVENTURE, N.Y. — For those most closely associated with the Brown & White, this is three years in the making.
Ever since conjuring the idea of entering a St. Bonaventure alumni team into The Basketball Tournament (TBT), the popular summer hoops event with a $1 million winner-take-all grand prize, organizers wanted not only to see a Bona squad in the field, but also use it as a vehicle for an offseason return to campus.
For three years, fate intervened. In 2019, a Bona TBT team was still but a thought on paper. In 2020, it was denied its first crack after the field was reduced from 64 to 24 teams due to the pandemic. And last summer, even after being admitted for the first time, it was still unable to come back due to the Reilly Center being renovated.
This year, however, they’re finally getting that chance. This time, that Bona squad will get to be both part of the TBT field AND experience the kind of local fan engagement that had eluded them in the past. And that opportunity comes this Wednesday when the team hosts Brown & White Night in the RC.
OPEN TO the public, with free admission, Brown & White Night will serve as a homecoming for a handful of former Bona standouts, and other high-level Division I players, and a way for fans to see the alumni team — Brown & White — before it heads to Syracuse for a first-round matchup against The Nerd Team on Friday at 5 p.m. at the JMA Wireless Dome.
Already a massive logistical endeavor, that was made even more so by creating a kind of on-campus training camp leading up to this year’s tournament. But for organizers, led by general manager Derek Howard, it was worth it to have different eras of Bonnies back in the RC.
“We’ve got guys like (Da’Quan) Cook, who was here in 2007,” Howard noted. “So we’ve got guys who stepped foot on campus (coach Mark) Schmidt’s first year all the way up through the current team that Schmidt just recruited (currently present for summer school). So that will be really cool, just having them all back here.
“We’ve been wanting to for 3-4 years, so we want to make the most of this night.”
TO ACCOMPLISH that, they’ve created an eventful itinerary.
The night, which begins at 6:30 p.m., will feature a 3-point contest, an intrasquad scrimmage and an autograph session/player meet and greet. But each of those comes with an added wrinkle.
The 3-point event is actually called the “33-point contest,” mirrored after the one held in the real TBT. Players will start at halfcourt and, when the whistle blows, dribble to the spot they want around the 3-point arc with a rebounder. The first to make 11 in a head-to-head matchup wins. Whoever emerges from the team event will represent Bona in the TBT contest, which awards $33,333 to the winner.
From there, they’ll stage an intrasquad scrimmage, which is expected to feature three eight-minute quarters and an “Elam Ending” fourth, which adds eight points to the winning team’s total to create a target score rather than the traditional running clock — the same fomat the TBT uses.
Tentatively, that will pit a “Brown” team of Cook, Courtney Stockard, Dion Wright, Michael Davenport, Marquill Smith (San Francisco/West Georgia) and Corey Sanders (Rutgers) against a “White” squad of Marcus Posley, Youssou Ndoye, Karrington Ward (Eastern Michigan), Garrett Nevels (Hawaii), Idris Taqqee and Denzel Gregg, the latter two of whom will serve as assistant coaches in the TBT.
Fans (at least the first 150) will receive a free program and team poster, and t-shirts will be thrown out as part of the 33-point contest. The night will conclude with an autograph session, at which fans can use their poster or bring their own memorabilia to be signed.
IN TERMS of attendance, Howard, understandably, isn’t quite sure what to expect. But he’s hoping that the first-of-its-kind nature, the mid-summer timing and the allure of some big Bona names will entice the community to come out.
“I hope so,” he said. “I have no clue; it could be 20 people, it could be 500. But when you think about guys like Marcus, Courtney and Dion, these are fan favorites that we think people are looking forward to seeing again.”
For this, though, attendance is almost secondary to the sentiment. Because in many ways, this is as much a Bona basketball reunion — and the continued bridging between generations — as anything else.
Former managers will be back to help with day-to-day activities. Dave Moore, Schmidt’s former longtime right-hand man, is back as head coach. Schmidt himself is expected to be part of the week in some capacity, and the plan is for the Brown & White to scrimmage the current team at some point, as a way to both foster relationships and help make the 2022-23 squad better (more on that in an upcoming story).
That, too, is what helps make all of this “worth it.”
“They’re all really pumped,” Howard said of the returning Bonnies. “They get to hang out with Schmidt, the assistants. It’ll be cool to have them all reunite. I think it’ll also be good for the new (current) guys, seeing how well we take care of our own.”
And as he reiterated, “This is the big night to have fans come back and see all these guys. Because you don’t know if it’s ever gonna happen again.”
(J.P. Butler, Bradford Publishing Company group sports editor, can be reached at jbutler@oleantimesherald.com)
