College basketball is much different than it was even five years ago. Yet Mark Schmidt knows some things haven’t changed.
Namely, the value of experience at St. Bonaventure, where he enters his 19
th season.
“If you’re going to win, especially in a league like the Atlantic 10, you have to win being old,” Schmidt said. “You can have really good freshmen, but you’re not going to win with freshmen. If the freshmen have a really good year, they’re probably leaving. We’ve done a really good job in trying to get portal kids and European kids.”
But best of all is a little continuity, as Schmidt’s best teams have shown. And while the Bonnies don’t have much of it, they do have a holdover at just the right position.
Dasonte Bowen, a 6-foot-2 redshirt junior point guard, averaged 11.1 points, 3.8 rebounds and 4.2 assists in 10 games last season before undergoing foot surgery. Bowen had played in 51 games at Iowa in his first two college seasons, averaging 3.7 points in 11.3 minutes.
He clearly was in the midst of blossoming early last season, a process that could accelerate now that the Preseason Second Team All-Atlantic 10 selection is back.
“People always say that once you’re on the side, you see the game a lot more clear,” Bowen said. “There were some things I may or may not have seen when I was playing that I was able to see off the court and even bring that to my team this season.”
St. Bonaventure was 9-1 with Bowen on the court, and he’ll return to a roster that has almost completely turned over. The Bonnies have 11 new players --- but also a healthy Bowen running things.
“He’s the one that can’t overreact,” Schmidt said. “He was named captain for a reason. That’s not coming from me. I don’t have a vote. It just shows you the respect he has from the players.”
A look at the Bonnies
Coach: Mark Schmidt, 19th season at St. Bonaventure, 324-238 with the Bonnies and 406-328 in 24 seasons overall.
Last year: With an almost entirely new team, the Bonnies bolted to a 14-1 start before settling into the middle of the Atlantic 10 pack. A season highlighted by a Dec. 31 defeat of VCU also included a 5-1 run that ended with an A-10 quarterfinal loss to those same Rams in Washington. St. Bonaventure closed its 22-12 season with an NIT loss at home against Kent State.
They’ll miss: Plenty, since the Bonnies don’t return a player who made even one start during Atlantic 10 play last season. The most notable departure is Third Team All-Conference selection Melvin Council Jr. (14.6 ppg, 5.4 rpg, 4.1 apg), while Chance Moore (13.0 ppg, 6.5 rpg) and Noel Brown (12.2 ppg, 5.3 rpg) also have hefty roles a year ago.
Impact returners: St. Bonaventure is counting on a full season from a healthy Dasonte Bowen, who impressed during nonconference play last season before suffering a foot injury.
Also back is 6-foot-10 sophomore Xander Wedlow, who played in 27 games and scored a career-high 10 points against Fordham on Feb. 1 before a knee injury ended his debut season last year.
“Xander had some moments last year that will give him some confidence,” Schmidt said. “We just have to get him healthy, hopefully.”
Newcomers of note: As Schmidt has learned in the era of unfettered transfers, one of the most important things to figure out is how well offensive ability translates between levels.
Does a guy who averaged 15 points at a lower level become a 12-point-a-night guy in the Atlantic 10, or does it plummet to six a game? And does a high-major player who averaged a point or two become a solid contributor or a star when he gets more playing time?
“It’s so hard to make that evaluation,” Schmidt said.
Enter Amar’e Marshall (14.0 ppg at Albany) and Darryl Simmons II (17.4 ppg at Gardner-Webb), who will both bolster the Bonnies’ backcourt.
“They need to score,” Schmidt said. “The question is how much can they score.”
Reasons to be optimistic: Most of the players might be new, but Schmidt has found ways to win with regularity at St. Bonaventure for nearly two decades. The Bonnies have finished .500 or better in the Atlantic 10 in 10 of the last 11 seasons, and have hit the 20-win plateau overall six times in that span.
That includes three of the last four years, which means the veteran coach has found success in an era with less continuity. That bodes well for navigating St. Bonaventure back to the A-10’s top tier.
X factor: How quickly does this all come together? It’s a question most teams in college basketball are facing, so the Bonnies aren’t alone in needing to establish cohesion. They’ve also been here before.
“Last year we had one guy back; this year we have two guys back,” Schmidt said. “It’s the same thing. Some of the guys were here in the summertime, but some of the international players, we couldn’t get them visas so they couldn’t come over. We ended up with eight guys in the summertime, so that puts you back a little bit.”
Circle the date: Only two teams get started earlier than the Bonnies, who will face perennial Missouri Valley contender Bradley in Rock Hill, S.C., at 11 a.m. on Nov. 3 --- the first day of the season. There’s also a high-profile matchup Nov. 25 with North Carolina as part of the Fort Myers Tip-Off.
Bottom line: Yet again, St. Bonaventure is a bit of a mystery team. But Bowen’s production early last season was tantalizing and makes him a fine foundation. With one of the A-10’s best home-court advantages at the Reilly Center and some older players thanks to the influx of international guys, the Bonnies are positioned to make a jump in the conference standings.
Patrick Stevens is a veteran college basketball writer that has worked for The Washington Post, Syracuse Media Group and The Washington Times. He has written selected pieces for the Atlantic 10 since 2013.