St. Bonaventure has rattled off three wins in a row after getting past Bucknell, Miami (OH), and Big Four rival Buffalo. Bona’s got their first true road win of the season Saturday over UB, a sigh of relief after the same feat didn’t come until late January last season.
Last year’s Bonnies group was one of the least experienced teams in the nation after returning none of their scoring from the prior season. This year is a different story however, returning all five starters and 90 percent of its scoring from last year. They also brought in fifth-year players Mika Adams-Woods and Charles Pride, along with fourth-year player Noel Brown.
Now, the experienced group is working to unlock their potential, starting to show signs of doing so after three wins in a row.
Here are three takeaways from the recent win streak and how the Brown and White can continue on the right path:
The Mika Adams-Woods and Chad Venning Pick-and-Roll
Adams-Woods and Venning shined during Bona’s win over Buffalo Saturday. Adams-Woods runs the offense, especially with the recent absence of Kyrell Luc. Against Buffalo, he scored 20 points to go along with eight assists and six rebounds.
The Bulls had no answer for Venning the entire game, no matter what defense they threw at the Bonnies big man. He scored 23 points, tying his career-high, connecting on 11 of his 17 attempts from the floor. He also added five rebounds and two blocks.
The Adams-Woods and Venning pair has looked increasingly comfortable working together game after game. Venning’s dominance in the post allows Adams-Woods additional space to make the right decision while operating the offense, which led to clean scoring and facilitating opportunities for the lead guard in recent games.
“Chad was dominating in the paint and that opened up things for me,” Adams-Woods said after the win at Buffalo. “We were feeding him and getting him going. Once the defense started to collapse on him that created looks for me.”
Experience, Experience, Experience
Bona’s has one of the most experienced teams in the nation this year after returning six key rotation players and adding three additional players with ample NCAA experience through the transfer portal. The starting guard trio of Adams-Woods, Pride, and Daryl Banks III are all in their graduate season. Each are older than a backcourt group that currently starts for the Detroit Pistons. The St. Bonaventure roster has 725 career games and 562 starts at the Division I level, the most combined starts of any A-10 team.
To put the #Bonnies experience in perspective…
Their backcourt trio of Daryl Banks III (23yo), Mika Adams-Woods (23yo), and Charles Pride (24yo) are older than each member of the backcourt that the Detroit Pistons are starting tonight:
Cade Cunningham (22)
Killian Hayes (22)…— Blake (@blakesilverman) December 2, 2023
That doesn’t mean they are necessarily experienced together, however.
Adams-Woods and Pride came to St. Bonaventure this season from Cincinnati and Bryant, respectively. They each played four collegiate seasons prior to donning the Brown and White. Both are from Syracuse, New York, reuniting in Olean. Pride played at Putnam Science Academy in high school, similar to current Bona’s forward Barry Evans and first-year players Miles Rose and Duane Thompson.
The new group has connections. But even those take time to translate to the court. Through just seven regular season games together, the new Bonnies looked disconnected at times, struggling to take care of the ball and generate offense.
“We play well in spurts, we have to do it consistently,” Head coach Mark Schmidt said after the Buffalo win. “If we can play consistently for 40 minutes we have a chance to be pretty good. We have to get consistent effort all the time.”
Each game, they look more cohesive, showing small signs of improvement as the season goes on. Against Buffalo, the offense took their time, not afraid to run their sets and wait until the end of the shot clock for the right look if needed. The selfless offensive effort led to increased efficiency.
This play encapsulates the #Bonnies selfless offense today to me.
Banks jump pass after he notices Evans with an advantage on the roll. Evans sees a help defender crashing and kicks to a wide open Adams-Woods. pic.twitter.com/PqTc7sUDqY
— Blake (@blakesilverman) December 2, 2023
Building Confidence Before a Tough Stretch
This week, the Bonnies are taking on another Big Four rival in Niagara and a team they lost to just a season ago in Siena.
They will travel back up north to Niagara before heading back to the Reilly Center. That’s two Big Four rivalry games on the road in less than a week after taking care of business in Buffalo. They should do the same against Niagara, who is 1-5. But a rivalry game on the road is never easy.
Siena is another rival, as the sister schools meet to battle for the Franciscan Cup. The Bonnies will look to bring the cup back to campus Saturday Dec. 9 at the Reilly Center after falling to Siena on the road last season.
The Brown and White may have found a stride heading into a rivalry week after winning three in a row, averaging 79 points per game throughout the streak. They scored just 66.5 points per game in their first four games.
The offense is figuring out how to work effectively together, even while battling through adversity. Luc, Pride, and Moses Flowers have all missed at least one game recently due to injury, with Luc missing the most considerable amount of time.
Schmidt’s team will need to build off their current momentum and find a way to win two rivalry games this week. Because once Niagara and Siena are in the rearview, the Brown and White have debatably their biggest challenge yet: Dusty May and his No. 13 ranked Florida Atlantic Owls.
Featured image courtesy of Dan Nelligan (SBUnfurled/A10 Talk)
