The St. Bonaventure Bonnies are in the NCAA Tournament.
They got an at-large bid. (They also have to play a play-in game, but who cares; we made it to the big dance!)
The small-town team from Olean, New York (I know, we’re actually in St. Bonaventure, New York), who 16 years ago had a basketball scandal tear apart the program, has found its way back to the NCAA tournament, where in 1970 the Bob Lanier-lead team made it to the Final Four.
Being the third-smallest Division I school in the country, with the school website listing 1,635 undergraduates, us Bonnies typically have the odds stacked against us. With the 2016 snub and being put in a play-in game despite an RPI of 24, the small-school mentality makes us work that much harder to get noticed.
Our school, tucked away between the Allegheny River and the Enchanted mountains, is a great example of the underdog conquering the bigger guys.
St. Bonaventure proved that Tuesday night with a victory over UCLA, the 11-time national champs. The win, the first since that 1970 team, sends the team to Dallas. While Texas is quite a bit farther than Dayton, the amount of “We’re going to Dallas!” tweets I’ve seen since the win makes me believe I’ll still be able to hear “Let’s Go Bona’s” drowning out the announcers.
Last night’s game, and this entire season, has cemented for me how special St. Bonaventure University is.
Beginning about as badly as possible with a loss to Niagara, albeit without Jaylen Adams, definitely stung. Then Maryland happened. Then Syracuse. But then we were 2-4 to begin conference play. We recovered, and we beat a ranked Rhode Island team, then took down Davidson in three overtimes on senior night. Time and again, the Bonnies proved themselves.
And yet, with a 25-7 record, tying the school record for wins in a season, still our school is underestimated.
The outpouring of support at the games in Washington D.C. and Dayton, Ohio from students and alumni alike, gives you just a taste of what being a Bonnie is like.
It’s hard to explain the feeling of attending a school like this. This basketball season is proof of how passionate and supportive Bonnies are (and continue to be after graduating
Students trekked six hours to D.C., some working desperately to coordinate rides and turning the Capital One Arena into the Reilly Center.
Then when Selection Sunday came around, same thing: Everyone on campus was trying to find a way to get to Ohio for the game, constantly refreshing their email to see if they had won the lottery. Some of my friends left the Reilly Center watch party and went straight to book a room in Dayton; no ticket yet, no travel plans, but already knew they were getting there somehow.
Where else would you find this level of support for a basketball team, let alone at a school with such a small student body? That’s the beauty of Bonaventure basketball.
And since the UCLA win, all people have been talking about is finding a way to the game; somehow, some way, Bonnies are going to make their way to Texas to watch their team play.
Mark Schmidt dedicated the UCLA win to Bob Lanier, but I’ve decided this season is dedicated to everyone who underestimated us, to everyone who thought the A10 would be a one-bid league, to the committee who snubbed us in 2016, to Tori from VCU, and anyone else who doubted what the 2018 St. Bonaventure Bonnies were capable of.
Photo courtesy of espn.com
