St. Bonaventure Basketball: 3 takeaways from setback at Saint Louis

3. One of the deepest benches in the country has shrunk drastically – and it is finally presenting an issue

Entering the season, the Bonnies sported one of the most highly-touted benches in the Atlantic 10.  With their starting five returning from last season, St. Bonaventure also added a repertoire of talented – and offensively proven – players from other Div. I schools as well as JUCOs.  Now months into the season, that bench has depleted to just three players.

To be fair, the Bonnies did not necessarily feature much of a deep bench last season, either – but just two players saw time in over 61% of St. Bonaventure’s total possessions in the floor general Kyle Lofton and Dominick Welch.  The other three consistent starters – Jaren Holmes, Osun Osunniyi, and Justin Winston – all saw between 60% and 49% of St. Bonaventure’s total minutes.

This season, however, those numbers for the starters have increased drastically.  With all five seeing over 30 minutes a game, each starter sees action in 76% of St. Bonaventure’s total minutes – with three over 83%, and Kyle Lofton ranking fourth nationally with an astonishing mark of 95.0%.

This has largely come, again, because many of the players being touted as key members off the bench have departed – for various reasons.  With just three players off the bench who regularly see playing time, the Bonnies have been forced to primarily roll with their starting five – and, at 9-2, it has certainly worked, but it also obviously brings its own challenges, and that was on display against Saint Louis.

Four of St. Bonaventure’s five starters logged at least 37 minutes against the Billikens, with one fouling out in Welch while Lofton was just behind with four fouls – and those five starters combined for 55 of St. Bonaventure’s 59 points.  By contrast, the most a Saint Louis starter – Perkins – played was 36 minutes, and the Billikens bench outscored St. Bonaventure’s bench by a glaring 25-4 margin.

Without a doubt, it was clear that those five starters – Lofton, Welch, Osunniyi, Holmes, and Jalen Adaway – were all fatigued by the time they claimed their first lead of the game in the second half, and Saint Louis’ fast-paced and physical style of play was ultimately too much for them to handle.

Again, this has not presented much of a problem – St. Bonaventure is 9-2, after all – but this will only be a detriment as they face teams who play faster or more physically than them.  Saint Louis – their top contender in the A-10 – proved just that, and with the Bonnies’ – almost assuredly – lone route to the NCAA Tournament going through the A-10 Tournament, they will almost certainly face the Billikens again.

Arguably, the Bonnies still have a big stake in being in the top spot in the A-10, particularly given Saint Louis’ losses to Dayton and La Salle – but they will have to do some work to cement their place there again, especially as other teams like VCU and Davidson throw their hat in the ring.  Their next scheduled game is on February 14th against an upstart UMass squad – in a game that they cannot afford to slip-up.