By John Pullano, Sports Editor
The Reilly Center opened its doors to the 100th season of St. Bonaventure men’s basketball, which begins in less than two months, rocking a whole new look to honor the program’s centennial season.
Since 1966, the Reilly Center has been the home to the rich tradition of St. Bonaventure basketball. The center housed the university’s lone final four team in 1970 and has been the home floor for five other teams that made appearances in the NCAA tournament.
Being the home to several historical moments in Bonnie lore, the university’s communication and promotion programs went to work to celebrate the Bonnies many milestones the program has accumulated over the years.
The project, to give the Reilly Center a new look for the coming season, started in early July with a substantial amount of research.
“We looked through hundreds of pictures in our archives and created collages for the website,” said Scott Eddy, director of Athletics Communications.
After careful consideration of hundreds of photos and newspaper clippings, the communications department selected a particular number of photos to be made into a collage.
“We decided to take the collage, what we made and had online, and take it and evolve and change it around into the murals you see on the walls,” said Eddy.
There are three collages of images in the Reilly Center hallways. One commemorating the 1970 final four team and one commemorating the 1977 NIT championship team, both outside of the Reilly Center’s Hall of Fame suite. The third collage, of the greatest moments in St. Bonaventure men’s basketball history, can be found in the eastern hallway of the Reilly Center.
Following the collages, the communications department realized they could do more with the blank canvas that was the Reilly Center walls.
In an attempt to take the Bonaventure faithful through the years of Bonnie basketball, the communications department began the jersey portion of the decorating.
“Starting in chronological order from one hallway to the other, we lined the walls with designs of the old uniforms,” said Eddy. “There is a jersey that represents every one of the NIT teams and everyone of the NCAA teams, with some representing multiple teams in a few year span.”
There are currently 18 jerseys displayed, and the number on each jersey represents a player that was important to the team’s success. For the most recent seasons, the 2016 jersey has the number 11, to represent recent graduate Courtney Stockard who scored 26 points against UCLA in their round one NCAA tournament match up.
Alongside the murals and timeline of jerseys, the Reilly Center was decorated with several other 100 year anniversary logos. Specifically, the logos can be found above the southeastern entrances to the Reilly Center and a gigantic logo on the floor in front of the shrine to the Stith brothers.
The RC Café also found itself getting a little more Bona spirit. The glass window facing the pool was decorated with a fresh St. Bonaventure logo.
The transformations to the Reilly Center have been well received by alumni, current students and fans of the team.
“Immediately people started posting on Facebook and Twitter of them seeing it for the first time, and it has been overwhelmingly positive,” said Eddy.
Long-time season ticket holders have found themselves driving up to campus, out of season, just to see the new designs on the Reilly Center.
“I know season ticket holders since the 70s that have heard about this and come over and see these pictures and they have really special memories to what the pictures represent,” said Eddy.
The Reilly Center begins another 100 years of the program this season but first, the communications department wanted to remember the first 100, and they used the Reilly Center as their canvas.
pullanjj18@bonaventure.edu
