By Nick Konotopskyj
Sports Assignment Editor
Marcus Posley with the ball, Bonnies down two points. Ten seconds left in the Atlantic 10 quarterfinal matchup with the Dayton Flyers. The man who sent the Bonnies off with two walk-off wins earlier in the year was looking for the trifecta when he got stripped of the ball, ending the team’s season.
Posley and the rest of the Bonnies, who finished seventh out of 14 teams in the A-10 in 2014/15, are back and ready to improve on a solid campaign from a season ago. They finished with an 18-13 record (10-8 in conference), which ties for the most conference wins in team history.
The Bonnies enter the 2015/16 season with a lot of talent but certainly some question marks. The biggest weakness, at least right now, is what the team will do about its lack of size. Other than freshman forward Derrick Woods, who stands at 6’9, the rest of the roster is 6’7 or smaller.
Losing the 7-foot center, Youssou Ndoye, will be huge because his defensive presence and his improved offensive game from his senior season when he averaged a double-double.
Luckily for the Bonnies, they have one of the strongest back-court duo’s in the conference. Point guard Jaylen Adams and shooting guard Marcus Posley were huge contributors in their first seasons in brown and white. Adams suffered a broken finger in the second half of last season, causing him to miss the final stretch of the season.
Posley led the team in scoring with 16.7 points per game, and it can be expected that a lot of the scoring burden will be placed on his shoulders this season. With Posley and Adams facilitating the offense and doing a lot of the outside scoring, they also have veteran experience on the interior with senior forward Dion Wright and junior forward Denzel Gregg.
Gregg came off the bench for the Bonnies much of last season, but his role got larger once Adams was gone. He contributed in a big way in Brooklyn, especially on the defensive end of the floor. His athleticism jumps out more than anything, like the reverse slam he threw down in the wild upset against the ranked Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) Rams.
Wright was used sparingly in both his freshman and sophomore years. However, Wright’s breakout seasoncame in his junior campaign. The Carson, California, native averaged 13.5 points/game and seven rebounds, good for third on the team in scoring.
These past couple of seasons, coach Mark Schmidt has been known to keep his rotation very short. Most division one teams generally run an eight-or nine man rotation to avoid athletes playing too many minutes, but not Schmidt. The starting five of Adams, Posley, Cumberbatch, Wright and Ndoye saw the floor for the majority of games with only Denzel Gregg getting significant minutes off the bench.
It was no surprise that the Bonnies were near the bottom of bench scoring a season ago in all of Division One basketball. It will be interesting to see if Schmidt sticks with this same game plan or if he goes deeper into his bench this yeario.
Posley, Adams, Wright and Gregg all are expected to be starters on this year’s team considering they were all huge pieces to last year’s team. A big question facing Schmidt in these next two weeks is who that fifth starter will be?
Does he opt to go bigger with Derrick Woods in at center, or does he go for a line-up similar to the Dayton Flyers with four guards out at once? Another thing to consider is the lack of depth on this team. Other than the four main scorers listed above, this is a team that comes in without much experience.
The injury bug has already bit redshirt freshman Jordan Tyson and true junior Courtney Stockard, so it is vital that the Bonnies remain as healthy as possible with both of those guys out long term.
Last week, St. Bonaventure was ranked eighth out of 14 schools in the Atlantic 10 basketball preseason rankings. The Bonnies open up the season with a home exhibition game in the Reilly Center Nov. 7 at 4 p.m. against Mansfield University.
konotonr12@bonaventure.edu
