BY TOM SEIPP, ADVISORY EDITOR
If the Bonnies want to appear in the NCAA Tournament in 2022, they will have to win the Atlantic 10 Tournament.
Bob McKillop’s Davidson team, ranked just two days before entering Cattaraugus County, came to the Reilly Center and shut the door on Bonaventure’s chance at an at-large bid. While the loss doesn’t hurt the Bonnies, it didn’t help, either. A win would’ve got Bonaventure right back into the conversation.
The Bonnies, who were ranked No. 16 in the country the last week of November, have started A10 Conference play 4-3. In their championship 2020-21 season, Bonaventure had four conference losses in 15 games.
Deja vu occurred in the Reilly Center Tuesday, as both of the Bonnies’ home losses this year have come in an alarmingly similar fashion. Both losses – Tuesday vs Davidson and Nov. 27 vs Northern Iowa – happened because of major mid-game runs from the opponent. After the Bonnies fell behind by at least 15 points in each matchup, they were able to string together a run to climb back into the game. But, in both contests, poor late-game management ended the Bonnies’ comeback.
During the course of the season, we have seen the Bonnies’ ability to play like the top-20 team they were in November, especially with big wins over Marquette and Boise State. But, losses at home to Northern Iowa and in Fairfax, Virginia against George Mason will leave a vile taste with the NCAA Tournament selection committee.
With a month remaining in the regular season, the Bonnies have plenty of opportunities to build their resume. It starts Friday.
Richmond, who has played Davidson and VCU, will host Bonaventure Friday. The two teams met once last year, where it took a pull-up 3-pointer from Kyle Lofton to lead the Bonnies to victory in Virginia.
After Richmond, Bonaventure will host Fordham, a team on the rise in the A10, and then play Saint Louis – who has been the Bonnies kryptonite in recent years – in back-to-back games.
With just 11 regular-season games remaining, there isn’t much room left for error from Mark Schmidt’s team. With how the standings are entering Friday’s games, the Bonnies wouldn’t have a first-round bye. That’s not what the Bona faithful would want with a team that has five players play the majority of the time.
In the first two weeks of the season, some of the conference’s best teams had ugly losses that lowered their NET ranking substantially. Two of the top four teams – Dayton and VCU – had embarrassingly bad losses before conference play. Dayton had home losses to UMass-Lowell, Lipscomb and Austin Peay while VCU had home losses to Wagner and Chattanooga.
As the days move on, the Bonnies tournament chances continue to dwindle. With that being said, Bonaventure has an opportunity to boost its resume in the near future with potential wins over Richmond and Saint Louis.
The time is now for the veteran Bonaventure squad.
seipptw19@bonaventure.edu
