St. Bonaventure Basketball: 2020-21 season preview for the Bonnies
Schedule
St. Bonaventure will have to compete in, arguably, the top mid-major conference in college hoops – but they will have an extremely challenging non-conference schedule, comprised of top mid-major talent, that will help them prepare for the grueling Atlantic 10 season.
There is not much known about St. Bonaventure’s full non-conference season. Only five games are publicly known thus far, but all five will be quality battles for the Bonnies – the accumulative record of all five teams last year was 106-50, after all.
The Bonnies will get the season underway at an opening MTE at Mohegan Sun in Bubbleville – or Uncasville, Conn. The three-day MTE, including St. Bonaventure, will feature Towson (19-13), Stephen F. Austin (28-3), and Army (15-5). The cream of the crop here is undoubtedly Stephen F. Austin, coming off a season where they claimed one of the biggest wins in college basketball history.
The other two games currently on the docket are against two of the best teams in the MAC in Akron and Buffalo. The Zips are coming off a 24-7 year that saw them knock around West Virginia and Louisville and claim a MAC regular-season title, while the Bills – at 20-12 – knocked off the Bonnies by five points in late December last year.
I talked about the Atlantic 10 in my preview about Richmond last week, so I won’t labor on it too long, but everything can be summed up easily: the A-10 is as strong and deep, if not deeper, than it was last season.
While the conference has lost its top talent in Obi Toppin, it still boasts three squads that should have no issues making the NCAA Tournament in Richmond, Saint Louis, and Dayton. Those three were picked as the top three teams in the A-10 in the conference’s preseason poll, with the Bonnies selected to finish fourth.
Although those three were the only teams to receive first-place votes in the preseason poll, just 11 points separate Dayton from St. Bonaventure – while 29 points separate the Bonnies from their next-closest competition in Duquesne.
St. Bonaventure’s seven A-10 losses last season were all to different teams – and, truthfully, it is not out of the question for the Bonnies to still lose that same amount but be a bubble team this year. The A-10 is deep, and unfortunately is being slept on this season.
According to the preseason KenPom ratings, Saint Louis (45), Dayton (49), and Richmond (63) are all in line to be in the tournament field. The Bonnies are barely on the outside looking in, coming in at 75 – but they are closely followed by Davidson (81), Duquesne (82), and VCU (88), as well as URI (100) and George Mason (110).
Only Richmond and Saint Louis are currently on bracketologist Joe Lunardi’s list of projected A-10 tournament teams – Dayton is in the Next Four Out category – meaning the Bonnies will have to do some work in order to get in. If the 2018-19 season is any indication, they could make a run to the A-10 title game and steal a bid – but they also have the talent to land themselves an at-large.
It all begins in the non-conference for St. Bonaventure. They cannot afford to claim marquee victories but allow bad missteps like they did last season. The wins over Rutgers and Hofstra were completely undone by their losses to teams like Ohio and Canisius.
They can afford a loss to Stephen F. Austin – although a win over one of the best mid-major programs in college hoops would go a long way – but, with the A-10 being slept on nationally, they will have to secure victories over Towson, Army, Akron, and Buffalo in order to keep their postseason hopes alive.