ST. BONAVENTURE — It took a few years in Jim Crowley’s first go-round as St. Bonaventure women’s basketball coach.
Crowley took over as head coach in 2000-01 after working as an assistant coach for multiple seasons under Marti Whitmore. He left for Providence in 2016 as the program’s all-time winningest coach.
With some patience, Bona built a conference contender. Crowley’s team didn’t climb to a winning record overall until 2006-07 (16-16) and in the Atlantic 10 until 2008-09 (9-5). But from there, the results took off, including four WNIT appearances and two NCAA appearances and three tourney game wins.
Crowley came back to Bona in 2023 for a rebuilding job and, struggling with depth especially at the end of last season, his team went 4-26 (1-17 A-10). In Year 2 of his second stint, he sees his task as less about pressure to succeed than a responsibility.
“I feel like these guys have bought into that too, and that’s exciting,” he said of his ‘24-’25 team. “If you’re competitive, that’s what you want. You want the opportunity to do things that people don’t believe you can. That’s like the greatest thing in sports, maybe, one of the best things in life, when you know something that other people don’t know about yourself and about a group, and then you get to show them.
“And it’s responsibility, because so many people care about this program, and both alums and community people. They’re used to, they’ve come to enjoy, a certain level of the product. I think they saw some of that last year, and that will carry over, just hopefully with a few more bodies to it.”
After a 71-57 exhibition win over Division II Daemen last week, the Bonnies open their new season officially on Saturday, welcoming Binghamton to the Reilly Center at 1 p.m.
Bona returns five players, four of them in their fifth collegiate season: Payton Fields, Nadechka Laccen, Dani Haskell and Isabellah Middleton. They, along with junior Tamar Voor de Poort, are joined by nine newcomers, including six freshmen.
The influx of young talent not only brings new blood to the team, but much-needed depth. Bona had 10 players last year and finished with just seven healthy and available in March.
But beyond depth, Bona can try different things in practice with a fuller complement of players.
“Competitiveness in practice and reveals in practice,” Crowley said of the advantage of having 14 players. “There were times where we’d get to a game and we’d be playing, maybe someone bigger or longer or faster, and we hadn’t seen that, and maybe we’d see it in a game, then we wouldn’t see for two more weeks. So we didn’t know how to handle it, or who could handle it, or what plays to react to off of that. That was happening in the summer already, like we were all sudden, I remember in the summer someone’s 3-point shot got blocked, like the first week of practice. That didn’t happen last year.
“So now, OK, well, that’s how you can grow from it. Or just we can run different looking defenders at Bella, where she wasn’t seeing those ‘til games last year. So now, hey, someone bigger can go against or someone smaller, and how to handle that matchup. (There’s) obviously the depth of a game and the variety of lineups and stuff, but the daily reveal is a really big part that’s helpful.”
Last season was hard: “really hard,” Crowley added. But Crowley didn’t see his team roll over much, if at all.
“They tried to play the way we wanted to play and we did a lot of things right. It didn’t always equal the ball going into the basket,” he said. “To the group that’s back, they bought into that and have carried that over and. We just were talking yesterday … they have the advantage that they know their game within how we play, and we know their game within how they play, which is a really good advantage. So wins and losses was extremely difficult last year, but the resiliency and the persistence to stay with what we were growing — and we saw it even more as we watched film like, hey, we did exactly what we wanted to do here, the ball just didn’t go in the basket.”
Case in point, Crowley brings up: Bona had conference champion Richmond in a 12-point game in the second half on Senior Day last March. They got four looks: a layup, open 3-pointer, another layup and another 3, thanks to three offensive rebounds. All four missed. The process was good, if not the results.
“Like we did everything right, the ball just didn’t go in the basket,” Crowley said. “So clearly, we have to continue to do things right, but we believe we’ve added some ability to put the ball in the basket. Some, hopefully.”
Also encouraging is how quickly the returning Bonnies took the newcomers under their wings and embraced both the help and competition they brought.
“From day one, they grabbed them and took them in and said, ‘hey, these are some of the things you’ve got to make sure you’re doing’ and I think they recognize, they went through it last year so they know, hey, we need bodies,” Crowley said. “We need help. We need more depth, so you’ve got to get ready fast. So they’ve been really good with that and to the freshmen, credit there’s some talent there, so being confident to let that out, and then being confident enough to handle the mistakes, because there’s going to be plenty. So what’s next? And again, credit to our older kids, that they’ve helped coach them through that.”
(Editor’s note: This is the first in a two-part column series previewing St. Bonaventure’s 2024-25 women’s basketball season. Today, a look at coach Jim Crowley in his second year back with the Bonnies.)
