For more than a decade, St. Bonaventure has been one of the Atlantic 10’s most stable programs.
Which is why it’s so unsettling to see the Bonnies be a mystery team for the second time in three years.
Coach Mark Schmidt saw all but one of his rotation regulars depart after last season, leaving St. Bonaventure to scour the transfer market while also hoping a freshman class will be able to help some.
That’s actually more continuity than in 2022-23, when there was no returning production.
“At least I have a little bit of experience in doing this,” Schmidt says. “But I think you win with veteran guys. You win by building a program. Now, it’s like you win by building a team for this year. I always relate it to European soccer, where you rent players. … It’s a challenge, but at the same time, it’s the rules. You may not like what’s going on, but you have to make the most of it.”
Reserve forward Noel Brown returns, but the Bonnies do have players with starting experience from a year ago in the fold. Melvin Council Jr. logged nearly 36 minutes a game at Wagner. Chance Moore started 20 times for Missouri State. Wing Jaxon Edwards ranked fifth in the Missouri Valley in blocks per game while playing at Valparaiso. Dasonte Brown has two years of Big Ten experience at Iowa.
“One thing about this team I feel is we’re super-athletic through all of the positions,” Noel Brown says.
One thing Council, Moore, Edwards and Dasonte Brown --- as well as key junior college addition Lajae Jones --- all have in common is they’re upperclassmen, and the trajectory of the Bonnies’ season is likely to hinge on their effectiveness.
“Those juniors and seniors, most of them have to be good,” Schmidt says. “There’s no waiting until January or February for them to be good players. They have to be good players right away. If we want to get to the NCAA tournament, you have to win games in November and December.”
A look at the Bonnies:
Coach: Mark Schmidt, 18th season at St. Bonaventure, 302-226 with the Bonnies and 384-316 overall in 23 seasons.
Last year: For the fifth time in Schmidt’s tenure, the Bonnies reached the 20-win plateau, getting there with a run to the Atlantic 10 semifinals as a No. 7 seed before bowing out to eventual champion Duquesne. St. Bonaventure went 20-13 overall and 9-9 in the A-10, marking the ninth time in 10 seasons it finished at least .500 in the league.
They’ll miss: A lot. St. Bonaventure saw 91 percent of its scoring and 93 percent of its rebounding depart via graduation or transfer. Leading scorer Chad Venning (13.4 ppg), a second team all-Atlantic 10 pick, left for Boston College, while Mika Adams-Woods (12.8 ppg) and Charles Pride (10.9 ppg) both graduated.
Impact returners: Only one of the nine players who was even a semi-regular in last year’s rotation is back. That’s fifth-year center Noel Brown, who averaged 6.1 points and 2.2 rebounds off the bench in his first season after transferring from league rival George Washington.
Brown did finish the season strong, scoring 11 points against La Salle in the second round of the A-10 Championship and 13 in the quarterfinals against Loyola Chicago.
Newcomers of note: Senior guard Melvin Council Jr. averaged 14.9 points while earning first team all-Northeast honors for Wagner, which went to the NCAA tournament. Chance Moore, a 6-6 wing, has averaged double figures in back-to-back seasons at Missouri State. There’s also junior Lajae Jones, who had a Division I cup of coffee at Tarleton State in 2022-23 before averaging 15.4 points and 9.2 rebounds to help Barton Community College to a junior college national title last season.
They’ll be the center of a lot of what St. Bonaventure does, at least initially.
“In today’s world, when you recruit kids out of the portal that are juniors and seniors, they have to be your go-to guys,” Schmidt says. “Just like when you build a program, those juniors and seniors have to be the guys you rely on.
Reasons to be optimistic: Brown played against St. Bonaventure earlier in his career and saw how a solid team came together last season. He sees the seeds of a similar year germinating, even if the roster is almost entirely new.
“I think there’s a few more things to learn that we have to implement before the season, but I really do think it’s on the right track,” Brown says. “It’s going to depend on the team’s mindset, how much we can stay locked in. We have a lot of talent, but talent doesn’t mean anything if you don’t work at it.”
X factor: Iowa transfer Dasonte Bowen has a chance to emerge as the Bonnies’ top point guard. He averaged 4.4 points as a rotation regular last season for the Hawkeyes, starting eight games.
Most eye-catching was that he had more than three times as many assists (49) as turnovers (16) as a sophomore.
“He’s someone I think can play in a ball screen and has a really good IQ and can really pass the ball,” Schmidt says.
Circle the date: The Big 4 games in western New York are always a highlight of the Bonnies’ schedule. They’ll visit Canisius on Nov. 9 and play host to Buffalo on Dec. 7 and Niagara on Dec. 21. There’s also an early barometer in conference play as VCU visits the Reilly Center on Dec. 30 on the first day of the league schedule.
Bottom line: Anyone who knows exactly how the Bonnies are going to look is lying, because even Schmidt acknowledges the preseason has been spent getting a better sense of how all the team’s players fit together. But St. Bonaventure has a long history under Schmidt of approaching its ceiling, and it wouldn’t be astonishing if the Bonnies flirt with 20 victories again.