Bonnies @ Duquesne (Sat. 02/08/20 @ 3:00) at RMU UPMC Events Center

Before the game, the Dukes had a NET ranking of 70 vs. the Bonnies' 121. Movin' on up! Awesome board game.
 
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-Jaren has some stones. That sequence where he blocked a shot, then seconds later drew a gritty and 1. Wooo

-Dom is quickly burrowing his way into my heart. He was making plays all over the court today; clutch intangible plays that were huge momentum boosts. Not his best shooting night and he still had the confidence to nail the dagger.

-Nothing to dislike about Kyle today. Ice in his veins on multiple occasions with big, timely shots. Aggressive, control taking approach to the offense

-Good learning experience for Winston and Aj. They haven’t played in a tense road atmosphere like that yet, and it was obvious today.

-Aside from biting for a couple head fakes everyone in Moon Township knew were coming, Shoon won the battle with Hughes.

-Copy and paste Res’ above thoughts re: backup PG.
 
That's a great road win. Not looking forward to the return game.

Well, I didn't want to get all bandwagoney, res. Any road win, especially in conference, is big. I love the fact that the Mighty Dukes are much improved. That's fantastic for the league. Carla is making real progress with that program. So, if we want to call it a great win, so be it. It just wasn't a road win over the Daysies, Commies, or Rhodies.
 
I'll meet you halfway. It was a solid road win and a great game.
 
If Jaren is going to spend any meaningful time at backup PG he needs to see something other than the rim. He did not display court vision. He's damn good, but not a PG right now.

Winston and Domo are so good at driving the lane the 3 ball should be only if wide open or absolutely necessary.

That game was nuts. Duquesne shot so well. I have to think some of it was bad defense, but they also had times they just stepped up and drilled it.

Carla is teaching the flop well. Reminded me of Jack Gibbs.. you breathe on him and his head flies back like he just took a Tyson jab. F1 on Dom was a joke.

Dunn-Martin had gold plated balls. Baylee Steele is what happens when genetically capable meth heads mate. He is good looking right?

It's time for a run.
 
I made the voyage to Moon Township. Nobody, i mean NOBODY travels like Bona Nation. Seems like every Bona fan within a 3 hour drive was in the building.

I owe an apology to Amadi. You can see how much his teammates love him. They erupted after the dunk + block sequence. I’ve never seen him finish that strong or display that kind of athleticism. He gave the Bonnies some solid minutes. Props.

Everybody who was called upon contributed. A total team effort.

What’s stopping the Bonnies from going 15-3?
 
I tweeted this at the time, but English running the point was a roller coaster of fun and feces. The first 2 or 3 possessions were beautiful in transition, but everything else was a trainwreck. Next time Lofton is in foul trouble or needs a break, Schmidt has to put Johnson in. He's too talented to waste away on the bench.

Honestly, this should not have even been a close game. We have a very good defense, but the points we do give up are usually threes. KenPom says we are 20th in highest percentage of points given up on three pointers. We are 339th (15th best) in percentage of points given up on two-pointers. Basically, what that means is when teams do make shots on us, it's usually a three-pointer.

I like English's game a lot. He's growing on me (a Vasquez stan) and he absolutely deserves to be a starter...

*extremely Stephen A. Smith voice* BUT...

English is usually a step and a half late on the rotation in man-to-man defense when closing out on a three point shooter at the wing. I don't have the stats to back this up (if someone does or can refute me, please share), but most of the threes we give up are at the wing. Not the corner or at the top of the key, but wing ones. That shit keeps teams in games. If Dunn-Martin/Doug Martin wasn't nailing a bunch of threes from those spots, we would have coasted. It's not just an English thing either, because Vasquez is also a little late and gives up threes in that spot too. I don't know if they are playing too much help defense when Osun/Ikpeze hedge, but it's letting teams like GW and Duquesne hang around.

Speaking of Ikpeze, I know some of you shit on him. Some of you defend him. Personally, I'm an Amadi agnostic. I don't truly know how good or bad he is. I root like hell for him every time he touches the ball because he's a local guy who has worked his ass off, even if the raw talent isn't there. All that is to say he did a GREAT job when Osun had to come out. I don't know if today was his best game as a Bonnie, probably not, but it's in the conversation.

KenPom projects us to win out except losing on March 7th at SLU. I feel like 13-5 is a lock for a double bye and if we were to hit 14-4, now we could be talking 3 seed and avoiding Dayton until the final. Can't drop some of these gimme games to close out. St. Joe's is a tire fire and La Salle ain't much better. We have 7 games before A10s: we play 4 good teams and 3 garbage teams (SJU/LAS). We only play one of the four good teams on the road. Anything less than 5-2 to close out the season is a disappointment, given the talent this team has shown many times.

Shout out to all you Bonafuckers who made the trip today. I have never heard the Bona clap that clearly when we are on the road. The DUQes should have known not to play a team whose mascot is a wolf in a town literally named Moon.
 
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BC, there frequently seems to be a point of confusion of what kenpom's (or others') predictions mean. One sees it on the bandwagon all the time. kenpom is not predicting Bona to "win out" except for the St. Louis game, he is merely making Bona the favorite in the other 6 games. There is a difference. I was too cheap to fork over the $19.99 this year, so I don't have access to his particular numbers. So I will use Massey's predictions to illustrate my point. He, too, makes Bona the favorite in the same 6 games as kenpom does and also the dog in St. Louis. But, if you add up the probabilities of the individual games, he is projecting a total of only 4.36 wins. He's got Bona rated higher than does kenpom, so I suspect kenpom's prediction would be a little less, almost certainly closer to 4-3 than 5-2.
 
That’s it, res. KenPom does have us as favorites in the next 6 games, but only 51% to 59% favorites in 4 of them, and 73% and 90% favorites in the away and home games against St. Joe’s. He gives us a 34% chance at Saint Louis. Given his percentages, he projects the Bonnies to go 4-3 the rest of the way.

Having said that, and I could be wrong, but I don’t think his metrics account for a healthy OO. So, Lets Go Bona’s!
 
Did you guys know that Bona gets support from its fans and alums only because there is nothing to do in Olean? If you did not know that, then just refer to the Duquesne board on a bi-annual basis.
It never seems to occur to any of these numbnuts that Bona has enthusiastic alumni and fans in a lot of population centers. You hear it from the TV guys too: they pan the Bona crowd and say something stupid like "a lot of folks made the trip from Olean." Another of my favorites is when the Bonnies are at home to a sellout crowd and they start talking about half the population of Olean being there. Don't they know that a lot of us out-of-towners own dogsleds?
 
First time I've seen the Bonnies in any post-season discussion, but here I see we've come up on the radar as a possible 8-seed in the NIT:

Wonder what people here currently think of chances for at-large selection--pick a scenario. Would winning all but one of remaining A10 games and then, say, losing in tourney final do the job? Or even losing in semi-final (which would mean 4th place)? Announcers seem to think this is such a strong year for A10 that several teams could get picked--but that seems like a stretch, historically for this conference. Your guess?
 
Wonder what people here currently think of chances for at-large selection--pick a scenario. Would winning all but one of remaining A10 games and then, say, losing in tourney final do the job? Or even losing in semi-final (which would mean 4th place)? Announcers seem to think this is such a strong year for A10 that several teams could get picked--but that seems like a stretch, historically for this conference. Your guess?
At large NCAA tournament 0.0%
If Bonas is a projected 8th seed we need just about every low level conference regular season winner also win their conference tournament.
I'm not sure Richomond will be a projected 2 seed in the NIT after they're crushed on February 22nd.
 
Wonder what people here currently think of chances for at-large selection--pick a scenario. Would winning all but one of remaining A10 games and then, say, losing in tourney final do the job? Or even losing in semi-final (which would mean 4th place)? Announcers seem to think this is such a strong year for A10 that several teams could get picked--but that seems like a stretch, historically for this conference. Your guess?

In that scenario, going 25-9 (15-3) with 2 wins in Brooklyn, it still probably isn't enough. Maybe if we beat Dayton at A10s, that could help our resume, although at 15-3, we would probably avoid them until the final. Ohio is a Q4 loss, Siena/Canisius/Vermont/SUNY at Amherst are all Q3 losses. I guess the committee could weigh the fact that Osun was out for most of those losses (like Jay in 2018), but our best win was also without him, so you can't have it both ways.
 
English is usually a step and a half late on the rotation in man-to-man defense when closing out on a three point shooter at the wing. I don't have the stats to back this up (if someone does or can refute me, please share), but most of the threes we give up are at the wing. Not the corner or at the top of the key, but wing ones. That shit keeps teams in games. If Dunn-Martin/Doug Martin wasn't nailing a bunch of threes from those spots, we would have coasted. It's not just an English thing either, because Vasquez is also a little late and gives up threes in that spot too. I don't know if they are playing too much help defense when Osun/Ikpeze hedge, but it's letting teams like GW and Duquesne hang around.
Agreed but want to add Dom and Winston are late also. I think all has do with inexperience. They've actually gotten better at the initial recovery on the 1st open shooter but the better schools usually make a second pass where guys are late rotating over.
I didnt think this was as big of a problem yesterday as it has been in the past. It felt like some of Steele's early 3s came off of broken down plays and Dunn-Martin was just unconscious until the heat check went into effect around the 7 minute mark.
 
I assume that NIT Bracket is based on today’s numbers and records.

If we go 5-2, Get a bye, and then win one in Brooklyn, that gets us to 22 wins . And invariably would require us to accumulate a handful more top 100 wins en route to doing so. Hard to imagine not being an NIT team in that scenario.

That said. That’s far from my focus right now. Double bye is all I’m looking at right now .
 
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