NCAA Basketball: Buy or sell BYU, San Diego State, Belmont as Sweet 16 teams?
By Bryan Mauro
Saint Bonaventure Bonnies – Sell
The Bonnies are a hard team to get a read on and are going to be a hard team to get a read on heading into the NCAA tournament. They are the most talented team in the Atlantic 10 at least on paper. They are coming off a long Covid pause so they are going to experience some losses in the next week or so as they get back up to game speed.
Saint Bonaventure should be safe to make the tournament but there are a lot of trap games in the Atlantic 10 and if the Bonnies do not correctly navigate their land mines, they may be in trouble come selection Sunday.
Saint Bonaventure already has three quality wins and no bad losses. They have a win over Marquette, Clemson, and Boise State. All three of those teams are going to be on the bubble and they do have a loss to Northern Iowa, which isn’t a great loss, but it isn’t a resume killing loss either. The Bonnies started off Atlantic 10 play with a win after their long covid pause.
The one thing to keep in mind about Saint Bonaventure is that they only play their starting five. They do not play their bench very often at all. A key injury or foul trouble could spell doom for Saint Bonaventure.
Head coach Mark Schmidt has been coaching his team this way for quite some time. He has built the Bonnies into a top tier Atlantic 10 team almost every season he has been there as well. The Bonnies starting five is good enough to go up against anyone in the entire country and hold their own and keep the game close but it’s only those five who are going to play so in the long run it becomes a disadvantage due to tired legs and mental fatigue.
Big man Osun Osunniyi and star point guard Kyle Lofton are the most critical pieces for Saint Bonaventure making a deep run in the tournament. Osunniyi is a dominant big man who dominates in the paint and protects the rim as he averages over three blocks per game. Lofton is the point guard and averages six assists per game to go along with 16 points and anchors the perimeter defense.
These two players both also happen to have lingering injuries this year. Lofton has already missed some time and Osunniyi has a bad back that can limit him some. The big man has not missed any time yet, but it has limited him in some games. The Bonnies are getting a label for “Sell” at least for now, the long covid pause is going to take its toll and the team is going to take some time getting back up to the team they can be.
The short bench is going to limit the Bonnies as well especially with their two stars having lingering injuries. The one thing that can quickly work in Saint Bonaventure’s favor is their experience and their ability to score from beyond the arc. They are only shooting 34% from deep but they are streaky and can get hot from downtown.
They are also one of the best free throw shooting teams in the country at 77% overall as a team. Those two factors could swing them to the second weekend, but they likely will be an early-round exit as they will be a lower-seeded team in the tournament.