Opening Tip
St. Bonaventure returns to Philadelphia to face Saint Joseph's looking to pick up its second win in the City of Brotherly Love in the last five days. The Bonnies have won three of the last five meetings against the Hawks after losing the previous 15 matchups. SBU clinched the 4th seed and bye in the A-10 Championship with a 98-93 double-overtime win in the regular-season home finale last year. The two teams then met in the A-10 Championship quarterfinals, and Bona once again came away victorious, 71-68.
Last Time Out
Behind a career-high 22 points from junior Matthew Wright, St. Bonaventure snapped a six-game losing streak, picked up its first win in
A-10 play and claimed its first victory at Temple in 31 tries Saturday afternoon in front of a national TV audience with an 81-78 decision over the Owls. Wright tied a career high by knocking down all four of his 3-point attempts and dished out three assists. The Toronto native led a quintet of Bona starters in double-figure scoring for the first time since the 2008-09 season. Seniors Demitrius Conger and Eric Mosley netted 15 each, sophomore Youssou Ndoye contributed 12 and Chris Johnson added 10 as the Bonnies defeated the Owls for the first time in 16 tries, dating back to 2002.
Philly Road Woes
After eliminating its worst road losing streak in program history to Temple on Saturday, the Bonnies look to tackle another in the same city against Saint Joe's Wednesday. The Bonnies are just 2-22 all-time at Hagan Arena, and have not won in the Hawks' home since the 1999-2000 season. The stretch encompasses nine straight road losses, second only to Xavier's 10 for the longest current road losing streak to an A-10 team. SBU was 0-30 all-time at Temple entering Saturday's game.
Quick Hitters
$ If Demitrius Conger reaches double-figure points, it will mark his 50th career game with double-figure points.
$ Eric Mosley has hit exactly three 3-pointers in three straight games.
$ St. Bonaventure is 5-0 when scoring at least 80 points.
$ SBU is 7-1 when leading or tied at the half; the lone loss came to Canisius.
$ Bonaventure is just 1-8 when trailing at the half; the lone win came against Niagara.
$ The 81 points Bona's scored against Temple are the most any team has scored against the Owls this year with the exception of Duke, which tallied 90; Temple came into the game holding opponents to just 62.8 points per game.
$ Bona shot a season-best 61 percent from the 3-point line against Temple (11-18); the 11 3's are tied for a season high, set just a few games ago against VCU.
$ The Bonnies rank in the top-100 nationally in eight different statistical categories.
3-Point Percentage: 37.0, 48th
Assist/Turnover Ratio: 1.15, 63rd
3-Pointers Per Game: 7.3, 69th
Free-Throw Percentage: 72.4, 72nd
Points Per Game: 72.0, 78th
Assists Per Game: 14.6, 79th
Turnover Margin: +1.8, 91st
Turnovers Per Game: 12.6, 92nd
The Toughest Sledding To Start
The defending A-10 Champions are the only team in the league which faces the top-4 teams in the preseason poll through its first six conference games. The matchup with preseason league favorite Saint Joseph's will mark the third time this year already that SBU will play a team predicted to finish in the top-4 of the league, with the others being VCU (3rd) and Temple (4th). The schedule doesn't get any easier for St. Bona as it returns home to host preseason 2nd-place Saint Louis on Saturday.
Starters Production
The Bonaventure starting five against Temple (Eric Mosley, Matthew Wright, Chris Johnson, Demitrius Conger, Youssou Ndoye) scored 91.3 percent of SBU's 81 points (74 of 81) against Temple on Saturday. That percentage represents the largest proportion of points any Bona starting group has accounted for in a game this year (the next closest is 84.4 percent (49 of 58) versus Siena). The Bonaventure bench has been phenomenal this year, outscoring its opponents' benches by 83 total points, 406-323. Only twice this year has the SBU bench produced single-digit points in a game (Temple, Siena), but both times the Bonnies have came away with victories.
Back To Freshman Year?
Current junior Matthew Wright started his freshman year by shooting just 3-28 (10.7 percent) from the 3-point line in non-conference games during the 2010-11 season. However, he rebounded to shoot 23-54 (42.5 percent) in A-10 games that year and finished the season at 31.7 percent (26-82).
Now, in 2012-13, Wright has eerily similar numbers to what he produced as a freshman. The Toronto native went only 6-34 (17.6 percent) from beyond the 3-point line during non-conference play, but has turned it around just in time for league play. Wright is a scorching 8-14 (57.1 percent) from the 3-point line through Bonaventure's first four A-10 games, including a perfect 5-5 over the past two games.
Distributing The Rock
Senior Chris Johnson tied his career high for scoring in four of St. Bonaventure's first eight games this year, but recently he has been making his presence felt by distributing the ball. Over the last three games, the Nova Scotia product has issued 16 assists, representing nearly half (47 percent) of his total for the year (34). He set his career high with seven dimes at Temple on Saturday, breaking his previous high set just the game before against Xavier (five), and also issued four helpers versus VCU in contest before that. In A-10 games, Johnson has committed just three turnovers to go along with his 17 assists, coming out to a 5.7 assist-to-turnover ratio – the second-best in the league in conference games only, just .1 behind VCU's Darius Theus (29 assists, 5 turnovers for a 5.8 ratio).
Doing It The Wright Way
Matthew Wright's 22 points against Temple on Saturday are the second-highest point total by a Bonaventure player in a game this year. He's also just the second player (Demitrius Conger) to reach the 20-point plateau in a game, something Conger has done twice, demonstrating the balanced SBU offensive attack as Bonaventure ranks as a top-80 offense nationally (72 per game). Wright also became just the second player (Eric Mosley) to knock down at least four 3-pointers in a game this year, something Mosley has done on three occasions.
CJ & Team Returning To Form
Senior Chris Johnson turned in the fifth-best single-season free-throw shooting performance in program history last year, but got off to a poor – for him – start to the season this campaign. Johnson made just 68.3 percent (28-41) of his attempts from the free throw line through the first 11 games of the year. However, over the last six outings, the Canadian has missed just one shot (15-16), a 93.8-percent clip.
His return to form has coincided with Bona's overall return to form from the charity stripe as over the past six games the team is shooting 78.7 percent from the free-throw line (79-94) after going just 70.2 percent (186-265) through the first 11 contests. In conference games only, SBU leads the A-10 with an 80.6 percentage from the free-throw line. The next closest team is Temple, and the Owls connect at a 75-percent clip.
History On Its Side
Since the Atlantic 10/Eastern 8 conducted its first conference tournament in 1977, only four tournament champions have finished with a sub-.500 record in league play the season after winning the conference title: Saint Joseph's (3-13 in 1997-98), Rhode Island (2-14 in 1999-00), George Washington (5-11 in 2007-08) and Richmond (7-9 in 2011-12). Those four teams are also the only clubs to finish worse than 5th place in the conference standings in the season following a tournament title.
The worst finish in the conference standings following a tournament championship is URI's 12th-place finish (last) in 1999-00. GW finished 13th out of 14 teams in 2006-07.
Top 100 On The Same Club
This year's St. Bonaventure team could go down as one of the most prolific offensive squads – in terms of individual players – in program history. Currently four players are already on the top-100 scoring list in school history:
Demitrius Conger: 1,028 – 38th
Michael Davenport: 795 – 60th
Matthew Wright: 499 – 94th
Eric Mosley: 441 – 100th
Additionally, two players – Chris Johnson and Charlon Kloof – could join that group by the end of the year. Johnson has 416 career points, while Kloof has 312. If the duo reaches at least 442 career points this season, the 2012-13 team will become the first team since the 2005-06 squad with six of the top-100 all-time scorers.
That 2005-06 team includes: Michael Lee (1,427 – 16th), Ahmad Smith (1,261 – 24th), Patrick Lottin (949 – 44th),
Tyler Relph (754 – 62nd), Paul Williams (584 – 82nd) and A.J. Hawkins (524 – 87th).
The last team to have seven players finish in the top-100 in scoring was the 1999-2000 NCAA Tournament club: J.R. Bremer (1,732 – 9th), Tim Winn (1,407 – 17th), Caswell Cyrus (1,121 – 27th), Patricio Prato (1,110 – 30th), Peter Van Paasen (978 – 39th) David Messiah Capers (972 – 41st) and Vidal Massiah (703 – 70th).
Next Up
St. Bonaventure returns home to the Reilly Center to face Saint Louis in a Homecoming matinee. Tipoff against the Billikens is set for Saturday at 4 p.m., and the game will be televised regionally on Time Warner Sports.
