The Starting Five Notes:
1. St. Bonaventure meets Niagara in the first game of the Big 4 Classic doubleheader. The 155th meeting between the long-time rivals will also be the just second time St. Bonaventure and Niagara have played at First Niagara Center. The Bonnies have won the last three meetings in the series.
2. The Bonnies are off to a strong start on the defensive end. They have allowed only one of their four opponents to shoot over 40 percent from the field, and that was Jackson State
at .404. St. Bonaventure ranks fourth in the A-10 in defensive field goal percentage (.368) and seventh in points allowed (63.5).
3. Marcus Posley hopes to remain hot. The junior shooting guard is averaging 18 points per game -- second-best in the Atlantic 10. Monday, Posley was named the Big 4 Player of the Week. He has a pair of 20-point games already.
4. Youssou Ndoye, while not off to a fast start in the scoring column (he has only attempted 10 shots) has been a force on defense with eight blocked shots and 30 rebounds (23 defensive) over his three games this season. The 7-foot senior was named the Big 4 preseason Player of the Year.
5. Freshman point guard Jay Adams comes off a career-high 19 point outing in the win over Jackson State. He has scored in double figures three of the Bonnies' four games.
Series History:
• This will be the 155th meeting in a series that St. Bonaventure leads 85-69.
• Last year's game, played at Niagara's Gallagher Center, was a classic. With the game tied at 72, St. Bonaventure's Charlon Kloof drove the length of the floor, went through traffic and made a contested layup just prior to the final horn.
• The Bonnies had lost eight games in a row in the series before snapping that skid in 2011. St. Bonaventure has won the last three meetings. Each of the last five meetings were decided by less than 10 points.
Niagara Notes:
• Second-year coach Chris Casey has a very young team; the roster includes seven freshmen, and six sophomores, one junior and no seniors.
• The Purple Eagles' last game was Nov. 22, a 65-62 home loss to Hartford.
• Sophomore guard Emile Blackman (13.3) and sophomore forward Rayvon Harris (11.7) are the leading scorers.
Bonnies In Buffalo
The Bonnies have only played eight games at First Niagara Center. The Bonnies, who have gone 3-5 at the former HSBC Arena, have not played at the First Niagara Center since Nov. 29, 2008. In that game, the Bonnies would fall to Canisius by a score of 66-68. St. Bonaventure has played Niagara once in the current home of the Buffalo Sabres; that game a 70-61 Bonnies victory on Dec. 12, 1998.
Bonnies To Wear Buffalo Braves Tribute Uniforms in Big 4 Classic; Auction To Benefit Moretti Scholarship Fund Will Start Monday
All four teams will wear Buffalo Braves-themed throwback uniforms modeled after two sets of uniforms that the former NBA team wore during its time in Buffalo (1970-78).
In the first game, Niagara and St. Bonaventure will wear uniforms reminiscent of what the Braves wore during the 1971-73 seasons. The Bonnies will wear the Braves road orange uniforms (pictured on the lead photo of this preview).
The Buffalo Hyatt Regency and MASH Urgent Care are the presenting sponsors for the throwback uniforms. All the schools will auction their game-worn uniforms after the games; the proceeds from the sales of the Bonnies' uniforms will go to the Brian Moretti Scholarship Fund, which was established last March following the untimely death of St. Bonaventure's assistant sports information director. Moretti worked at St. Bonaventure from Sept. 2013-March 2013. For the two years prior to that, he worked at Canisius.
New Backcourt Producing Early
Entering the year, the major question mark about this Bona team was how it would replace the production and leadership of its 2013-14 senior backcourt of point guard Charlon Kloof and shooting guard Matthew Wright, who both had outstanding senior seasons. So far, new starters have been just what the Bonnies hoped they would be. Jay Adams is the first freshman point guard to start for Bona since coach Mark Schmidt's first season of 2007-08 (Andrew Nicholson, a power forward, did start as a freshman in 2008-09; Malcolm Eleby was the freshman guard who started in 2007). Through four games, Adams is averaging 12.3 points per game with a high of 19 points against Jackson State. Marcus Posley, who is far more experienced than Adams with a year at Ball State and a year of junior college under his belt, has four double-digit scoring games and is second in the A-10 at 18 points per game. Between them, Adams (12) and Posley (11) have made 23 three-pointers and are shooting .425 from long range.
"Batch" Gaining Confidence
While it is very early, his statistics back up the idea that Andell Cumberbatch is the most improved of the Bonnies' returning players. The senior swingman has a pair of double-doubles already (10-10 vs. Dartmouth, 24-11 vs. Siena) and is second on the team in scoring (13.5 ppg) and third rebounding (7.5 rpg). Last year, which was his first with the Bonnies after two seasons at Barton (Kansas) Community College, Cumberbatch averaged 8.2 points and 4.0 rebounds in 31 games.
