By SAM WILSON

Special to the Era

Less than 48 hours after the St. Bonaventure men’s basketball season came to a quiet NIT end, the offseason is in full swing.

The first commitment of the ‘Woj Era’ arrived midday Thursday in the 6-foot-10 form of Joe Grahovac. A power forward out of Fullerton College, Grahovac was the Southern California junior college player of the year and even caught the eye of pro teams, according to ESPN NBA draft expert Jonathan Givony, who tweeted Grahovac, “drew a steady stream of NBA scouts to watch him this season. Should have a major impact in the Atlantic 10 next season.”

Indeed, Grahovac’s highlights show a player who stands out and not just for his Bill Walton-esque curly red hair and beard. He cuts the frame of a modern big man: shooting, passing, handling the ball, getting to the rim and blocking shots on the other end. Grahovac has quite the unusual story, too, only a freshman this year at age 23, a late bloomer if there ever was one who played very little high school ball.

Bona welcomed Grahovac to campus last month and he watched the Super Bowl Sunday game against George Washington at the Reilly Center next to general manager Adrian Wojnarowski. The Bonnies lost the game 62-52, but a few stragglers in the student section stayed to welcome Grahovac as he walked off the court with Woj, with one student offering a sheepish, “I’m sorry.” The recruit smiled and answered with an “it’s OK …” Clearly, he wasn’t dissuaded from joining Bona, despite reported interest from multiple power-four schools.

“Big Joe” arrives at a pivotal point for the program. Bona was exactly middle of the pack

Jerry Trass/ Olean Times Herald in the Atlantic 10 this year. Under the current NIL and transfer rules, fans are conditioned to expect a big chunk of the roster, sometimes nearly all of it, to change every spring and then see what Mark Schmidt and his staff can come up with on the fly. So will Grahovac join those players he watched play GW, or a whole new group?

Encouraging signs are there about some key members returning.

Dasonte Bowen, the point guard who started 10 games before sitting out the rest of the season with a foot injury, posted a graphic to social media Thursday: “Back with the Bonnies.”

That such a graphic needs to be posted is a sign of the times, though a reassuring one for fans who only caught a glimpse of Bowen’s impact on the team in non-conference play.

Senior Chance Moore, however, intends to enter the transfer portal. So will freshman Ebrahim Kaba, who redshirted this year.

Moore will need an NCAA waiver for his fifth year, having played five games as a freshman, to continue his college career here or elsewhere.

A report from On3sports stated Moore “will keep the option of returning open,” though the longer a player remains available, the less likely he is to return, especially at SBU. Last summer, Schmidt said he has a 24-hour rule: once players enter the portal, they have that long to alert the staff if they want to return.

“There’s no way a kid is gonna put his name in the portal and try to look for other schools and now he’s not happy with those schools and so he wants to come back to Bonaventure,” Schmidt said in a Reunion Weekend talk with Bona legend Jim Satalin. “Our program is too special for that.”

Who else will stay?

Who will go? It’s almost a whole new season from a fan’s perspective. For some, the flurry of news might make Tuesday night an afterthought. A season that started with such promise — a 14-1 start, some short-lived AP poll voting — ended with a whimper. With six healthy and available scholarship players, Bona couldn’t keep up its early pace and lost an NIT firstround game on its home court 75-56 to Kent State.

One Bona co-captain, center Noel Brown, bid farewell to the Reilly Center. The other, Melvin Council Jr., stopped short of guaranteeing he’ll be back for his fifth year, but sounded inclined to stay.

Council was the steadiest Bonnie all season, even playing out of position after Bowen’s injury. His return could give the Bonnies much-needed backcourt continuity.

“I know people are going to try to throw me a lot of money, NIL money, and I’m not in it for the money,” Council said.

“I’m in it for the culture and the fans and the family. So that being said, I just will have a talk with my mom and my dad, but most likely I do feel like the best thing is to come back and play another year at St. Bonaventure because I fell short against VCU (in the conference tournament) and our point guard went down, so I just want to give it back to the community and try to win the A-10.”

(Sam Wilson, a Times Herald sports correspondent, may be contacted at swilson@ oleantimesherald.com)