Photo: St. Bonaventure Athletics
BY WILL POLADIAN, MANAGING EDITOR
A bittersweet return is in store for St. Bonaventure women’s basketball head coach Jim Crowley as this season marks his 23rd as a coach at Bonaventure.
But the winningest coach in Bonaventure’s history returns to the program after spending the last seven years at Providence College.
Crowley led the Friars to an 85-125 overall record in his seven seasons of coaching while making the WNIT Third Round in 2019.
His success at Bonaventure is unparalleled, boasting a 258-231 overall record with the Bonnies while making four WNIT appearances and two appearances in the NCAA Tournament. Crowley has also earned Atlantic 10 Conference Coach of the Year honors three times and ESPN National Coach of the Year once while winning one A-10 Championship.
But for this season, Crowley has one expectation.
“The simple expectation is that we’ll play hard, and we’ll represent the program and the school in the right way,” said Crowley. “We’ll have a group of kids that look like they enjoy playing the game together.”
Crowley’s roster currently has ten players, three fewer than the amount of scholarship spots allotted to Division I programs and five fewer than the maximum roster size.
“We had chances to add some folks and things didn’t work out,” said Crowley. “But as I saw our group’s chemistry over the summer, it was going to take someone really special to get into that, because what they were building, I thought it was really important to what we could be.”
Crowley returns seven players from last year’s roster, most notably graduate forward Claire Cody and senior guard Maddy Dziezgowski as well as senior guard Tianna Johnson, who is returning from injury.
Three new faces join the team with redshirt junior guard transfer Isabella Middelton (Slippery Rock), sophomore guard transfer Tamar voor de Poort (Ludger College), and senior guard transfer Dani Haskell (Canisius).
“I think even bigger here is making sure you find people that fit and who are appreciative of what this place offers and how special it is,” said Crowley. “So I think in that aspect of what we brought in and what the staff did, I’m very pleased.”
Haskell, a native of Franklinville, said she is excited to play close to home.
“Once I came here, I kind of just knew [I wanted to go here],” said Haskell. “I was like, well, it is close, which is nice, but knowing that coach Crowley was the coach here, and we stepped in the gym on my first visit and looked around and I was like, well, ‘I think I know [that] I want to play here.’”
Transferring from Little Three rival Canisius, Haskell said she is ready to play against her former squad.
“I would say Canisius is probably exciting for me because I obviously came from there, so I’m looking forward to that one,” said Haskell.
Being part of a smaller community has a bigger impact on women’s sports according to Haskell.
“It’s really exciting, especially just in a small town, like a small school, so I think it’s a good look for women’s sports when the players get recognized.”
Crowley hopes to draw back crowds again as he did in his first stint at Bonaventure.
“I think one of the hardest things is to work as hard as you do, and see, some of the other programs have the support with crowds, and then you go out and have a really quiet home arena, knowing that you work hard,” said Crowley. “So one of the things that we hope to help them with is how to draw people back there, and we’ve made a promise to them. If you play hard, they’ll come back.”
The Bonnies start their season with an exhibition game against D’Youville University on Saturday. Tipoff is at 1:30 p.m. and can be seen on ESPN+.
“Having that Bonaventure basketball buzz happening, I had a feeling I haven’t had in a while, and I think that was excitement,” said Crowley. “So I think there’ll be some more of that on Saturday. There’s always a little bit of nerves, but I also will be excited for these guys. They’ve worked at it pretty good, so to get a chance to put on the uniform and roll it out, it’s a good opportunity for them.”
poladiwj20@bonaventure.edu
