It wasn’t the outcome for which it was looking.
But here was the good that came from the St. Bonaventure men’s basketball team’s 84-80 loss to Canisius on Saturday night:
Away from home, in their first true pressure-packed moments of the season, the Bonnies made a late free throw to tie it, then got a stop on the Griffs’ final possession to force overtime. They fell behind by eight in the last minute of OT, but battled back to make it a two-point game in the closing seconds. They came within a missed free throw of potentially winning it in regulation.
Yes, Bona failed to close it out when the game was there for the taking. But it received its first taste as a young team of what’s required to pull out those kinds of tight, tense contests down the stretch.
That’s the kind of experience it’s hoping to build upon going forward. And that’s what it’s hoping to apply just three days later in what would could well be one of its toughest non-conference tests of the year: Tonight’s “neutral floor” matchup with South Dakota State (8 o’clock, WPIG-FM, ESPN+-live stream) at the Sanford Pentagon in Sioux Falls.
“Experience always helps,” coach Mark Schmidt said. “I thought we dealt with it pretty well (on Saturday) even though we had a lot of Bonaventure fans at that game. … We had a chance; one foul shot miss from us having a chance to win.
“We’re proud of the effort the kids gave at the end. We’re young, it’s harder to win on the road, you have to play that much better. We didn’t do that against Canisius. We’re gonna have to play better if we want to beat a team of South Dakota State’s caliber.”
IN PREVIOUS years, against a mid-major power, this was the perfect resume-building opportunity. For these Bonnies (1-1), it’s a chance at their first true building-block victory of their era.
SDSU lost its top two guys, both former Summit League Players of the Year, but returned three starters and its top reserve from a historic 2021-22 campaign in which it went an impressive 30-5, including 18-0 in league play, and won both the Summit regular season and conference titles en route to an NCAA appearance.
The Jackrabbits, who have finished first in the Summit in all three seasons under coach Eric Henderson, were chosen to finish second in the league in 2022-23. They currently sit No. 122 in the KenPom rankings, third-highest among Bona’s non-conference foes (behind only Notre Dame and Iona; with the Bonnies actually at No. 128).
FOR BONA, the goal of course is to win, but it believes, regardless of the outcome, it’s the kind of game that will only help it in the long run.
“They’re an Atlantic 10-caliber team,” Schmidt maintained. “Any time we can play a team like this on the road, it’s gonna help us. It’s gonna show our guys what that level is all about. Really nobody has played an Atlantic 10 game yet, so they’re gonna have that experience (tonight) and that can only help us as we go forward.”
SDSU returned its entire starting backcourt, including Zeke Mayo (13 points, 6 rebounds), a preseason all-league first team selection, and Alex Arians (12 points, 5 assists). Also back is reigning Sixth Man of the Year Luke Appel, a 6-8 forward and fellow preseason first-team honoree who has yet to play this year. Then, too, the veteran Jackrabbits have plugged in a pair of solid “bigs” in Matt Dentlinger (17 points), a key reserve from last year, and freshman forward William Kyle III (13 points).
South Dakota State dropped an 81-80 overtime heartbreaker to Akron in its opener, but rebounded with a 68-66 triumph over defending Mountain West champion Boise State, in which Dentlinger made the game-winning layup with one second remaining, last Wednesday … both of those coming on the road.
A YEAR ago, the Jackrabbits led the nation in 3-point percentage (.445) and finished 17th in total treys (326, 9.3 per game). And though they’ve gotten off to a modest start this year, at 11-of-33 over two games, they have the same makeup for such an offense.
“They’re good, they’ve got a culture of winning,” Schmidt said. “They’ve got good guards, they’ve got two really good big guys inside that are a force that make you double team and do some different things, and their guards can get open shots. They run some simple, but really effective offense; they try to go inside-out.”
Of the need to improve in that area from the Canisius game (the Griffs finished 11-of-22), he added, “Canisius didn’t really beat us with the guards, we lost because their 4s and 5s hit five threes against us. We gotta do a better job of closing out and keeping the ball in front of us. But it’s a big challenge against (SDSU); they’re a really good ballclub.”
Bona scheduled this game in July — its first-ever against SDSU and the program’s first trip to the Dakotas — as a way to challenge its young team against a quality foe in something of another early showcase setting.
What has it learned from its first two games that it can bring into tonight: mostly, that it needs to be better from both an effort and fundamentals standpoint.
“We’re going to have growing pains, that’s just how it is right now,” said Schmidt, whose team did welcome back guard Moses Flowers from concussion protocol against the Griffs (he finished with two points on 0-for-5 shooting in 15 minutes). “But I thought we handled some adversity against St. Francis, I thought we handled some adversity against Canisius. We didn’t play great … (but) I think we have some young talent that’s just still trying to figure out what to do and how to do it.
“Hopefully the longer the season goes, the better we’ll get.”
