By Kyle Zamiara
Sports Editor
A historic men’s basketball season came to a close last Friday in Nashville, Tenn., when the Bonnies lost to Florida State in the NCAA Tournament’s second round, 66-63.
Despite the loss, the Bonnies wound up 20-12 (10-6) on the season, won the Atlantic 10 Championship for the first time and made the Big Dance for just the sixth time in team history.
The Bonnies will lose senior forward Andrew Nicholson, redshirt senior forward Da’Quan Cook and graduate student Zach Moore, but will return three starters and senior guard Michael Davenport, who sat out
the year after sustaining a left-shoulder injury against Canisius Dec. 10.
Junior swingman Demitirus Conger is the top returning scorer on the team, averaging 12.1 points and 6.1 rebounds. The Brooklyn native received A-10 All-Championship Team honors after putting up 22 points,
10 rebounds and eight assists in the Bonnies’ semifinal win against Massachusetts March 10.
Cook said he tried to help rebuild the program and hopes his teammates will keep building it.
“As far as being a leader and captain of the team, I showed them how much it would take to get to this point, how much it will take to keep building on this point,” Cook said. “And (my teammates) coming up as
juniors and sophomores, it shows that the work ethic that I put in, I left something great for them to follow behind.”
Cook finished his career as a Bonnie with 567 points, 377 rebounds and 23 blocks. Cook also had two double-double performances as a Bonnie, both in 2010, against Niagara and Binghamton.
Coach Mark Schmidt said he’s pleased with how his team performed in its final game of the season.
“(Florida State’s) the fifth-best defensive team in the country,” Schmidt said. “We were right there with them. There’s no negatives about this game. We lost, but we gave a great performance.
“I am so proud of our guys, and there’s some questions about what happened at the end of the game. We played a heck of a game. And did we make enough baskets? Absolutely not, but Florida State is a great
team. They won the ACC tournament. The last time I found out, the ACC is pretty good.”
Nicholson, the A-10 Player of the Year, finished second all time in points (2,103), fourth in rebounds (887) and second in blocks (242)in program history.
Schmidt praised his All-America candidate for resurrecting the program.
“The program is back because of Andrew Nicholson,” Schmidt said. “When I’m dead, 50 years from now, he’s going to go down as one of the greatest student-athletes to ever play at St. Bonaventure, if not the
best. Because where we came from, he took a chance with us and where we were five years ago, where we were nine years ago; and where we are today, it’s him.”
