ST. BONAVENTURE — For a coach rarely at a loss for words, the answer was tellingly short.
Jim Crowley’s young St. Bonaventure women’s basketball team suffered its second straight loss to open Atlantic 10 play, this time in a rout at the Reilly Center Thursday afternoon. So, what could his six freshmen, who all played big minutes, learn about A-10 basketball from an 82-48 defeat to Rhode Island?
“How hard do you have to play,” Crowley succinctly responded.
Asked to elaborate on effort, Crowley explained what he’s not yet seeing.
“I saw effort. I saw a comfortable effort,” he said. “At this level it’s got to be an uncomfortable effort, and it’s something you can talk about a lot, it’s something you can even show on film, but it takes a commitment and a habitual work to do it. And I’ve got to do a better job of getting us there.”
The Bonnies (4-9, 0-2) have lost three straight since their last home game, a 76-68 win over Niagara on Dec. 17. In their last five games, Crowley’s used five different starting lineups. They’re still searching for consistent, quality play midway through his second year back leading the program.
Rhodey outrebounded Bona by a 53-21 clip. While 17 of those 53 were offensive rebounds, there was a simple cause for the rest: missed shots. Bona was just 16-for-56 from the field, whereas URI was 35-for-67.
“We missed a lot of shots,” Crowley said. “There’s a lot of opportunities and we’re not getting to the offensive boards like we can. But right now, the last three games in particular, we’ve missed a lot of shots and some of them are good shots, some of them are not so good shots, but we’re missing a lot of shots so there’s a lot of opportunities for rebounds.”
In the first half of Thursday’s game, Bona’s offense never found a rhythm. The Bonnies shot just 3-for-28 from the field in the first half, trailing the Rams 36-13. Freshman Mackenzie Pettinelli made it a 16-9 game, making three free throws after drawing a foul on a 3-pointer with 1.9 seconds on the first-quarter clock. But URI scored the first 13 points of the second quarter, holding Bona without a point until freshman Zoe Shaw’s 3-pointer with 2:48 remaining ended a more than seven-minute drought.
“I thought specifically in the second quarter it was a lot of catch and dribble, which is when our offense just dies, and it did,” Crowley said. “The ball wasn’t moving and there wasn’t a lot of options for pace to get downhill. Everything was catch and dribble, which limits your options once you do that and do that sideways.
“Again, it’s preparing for that, it’s knowing this level. We’re going to see it again on Sunday, high-level athletes coming at us, and good teams know when they’ve got you on your heels — and they knew — and they just kept coming,” Crowley said. “So that’s something we’ve got to keep working on. We’ve got to get more post touches too. We get some decent stuff out of that. We’re just not getting enough and we’re certainly not getting enough screens either.”
In the second half, Bona found some offense, but gave up points at an even faster pace, outscored 46-35.
URI has now won its last seven meetings against the Bonnies. Coach Tammi Reiss’ Rams have finished A-10 play with a winning record each of the last four years, including two WNIT seasons in 2022 and 2023.
Rams center Harsimran “Honey” Kaur, a skilled finisher and strong post presence at 6-foot-4, presented a big mismatch in the post, scoring 19 points with 15 rebounds, four assists and two blocks. But Crowley thought his team played the A-10 Player of the Week relatively well; it was some of the fast-break points he had a problem with.
“Honestly, I didn’t think we did bad on her, in all fairness,” Crowley said. “She’s coming off 27 against Saint Louis. She’s 45% from 3. We didn’t give up anything there. I think she had one direct-line drive and then she had probably two that were low. Other stuff, we were there and she made contested shots. I thought we could have done a better job as a team of bothering her. But she’s playing really well right now. Really, really well.”
If the game had a bright spot for Bona, it was clearly Shaw. The 5-foot-7 freshman guard from Melbourne, Australia, scored 17 points, shooting 5-for-8 on 3-pointers, some off the dribble, some spotting up. Shaw tied her young career-high and had her fourth straight game with 10 or more points.
“She’s finding some consistency,” Crowley said. “Honestly, she’s probably been our most consistent kid over the last month, month and a half. So that’s a positive thing. And I thought Hannah Richardson gave us some good minutes too. So hopefully she continues to grow. I mean, these guys are gonna, they have to, keep getting their opportunities, so it’s our job as coaches to get them better, to learn from this stuff to prepare better, to understand what’s coming and how to handle it and to improve from it.”
Their next chance to improve comes Sunday afternoon (3 p.m.) at George Mason (11-2, 1-1).
