PHOTO COURTESY OF DUQUESNE ATHLETICS
BY: ANDREW HALE, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
The St. Bonaventure men’s basketball team plays at home for the first time since Feb. 9, looking to snap its two-year-long, five-game losing streak against Duquesne Saturday afternoon.
The Bonnies (18-9, A-10 6-8) and Dukes (11-15, A-10 6-7) first played each other on Jan. 18. In that game, Duquesne shot 47% from the field while holding Bonaventure to 20-53 from the field and 3-14 from three, defeating the Bonnies 75-57. The 18-point loss is the Bonnies’ biggest Atlantic 10 loss of the season.
“[Duquesne] made 14 threes [and] we got outscored by 33 from beyond the arc, so that’s a huge area,” Bonaventure head coach Mark Schmidt said. “They can’t shoot the ball the way they did against us down there, or we might as well not play the game. We got to take care of the basketball. We got to rebound. We got to play better offense, but we got to defend better.”
Since that loss, the Bonnies have gone 3-5, while the Dukes have lost six of their last eight games.
The Bonnies return to the Reilly Center after going 1-1 on their New England road trip, picking up a 73-59 win over UMass and a 68-64 loss to Rhode Island last week.
Against UMass, senior guard Chance Moore, who came off the bench, picked up his fifth double-double of the season.
“When [Moore] plays well, we’re a better team,” Schmidt said. “When he can go for 17 and 10, we have a better chance of winning. So hopefully, he’s ready to go tomorrow, and hopefully, he can bring that enthusiasm, that energy and that productivity.”
Duquesne comes to Bonaventure having won two of their last three, defeating Loyola Chicago and Fordham while narrowly losing 77-67 to Dayton last Saturday.
“[Duquesne’s] a good team,” Schmidt said. “They got good guards. They got really good size. When they shoot the ball well, just like most teams in the league, they’re really hard to beat. And if you play on your heels and you play tentatively, then you’re not going to win. They’re very talented, well-coached and they got really good players.”
The Dukes currently sit tied for seventh in the A-10 standings, while the Bonnies sit tied for eighth with four games left in the regular season.
“Every game is important,” Schmidt said. “It’s the next game on the schedule. We have four games left… everybody’s fighting for positioning. Every game becomes more important as the season goes along, and there’s less games, so, everything’s magnified.”
Tipoff is set for 4:00 p.m. and will air live on ESPN+. Radio listeners can tune into the game via the Bonnies Online Network.
halea22@bonaventure.edu
