ST. BONAVENTURE (10-9, 4-2 A-10) at LOYOLA CHICAGO (6-12, 0-6)
Saturday, Jan. 21 – 3:00 p.m. CT/4:00 p.m. ET
Chicago, Ill.
TV: ESPN+

OPENING TIP

• St. Bonaventure rolls into Chicago for its first A-10 game at new conference member Loyola Chicago, looking to stretch its win streak after back-to-back victories over Richmond and Duquesne in the past week.
• The Bonnies currently are tied for fourth in the A-10 standings with Richmond at 4-2 in league play. VCU, Dayton and Saint Louis are all tied atop the standings at 5-1.
• For Bonaventure, Saturday's game presents another opportunity to snap the season's road woes. The Bonnies improved to 9-1 on home court with Wednesday's victory over Duquesne. Bona has a +9.3 scoring margin at home this season, averaging 71 points per game while allowing just 62. Away from home, though, the Bonnies are 1-8 (and 0-6 in true road games) with a -7.6 scoring margin, averaging 63 ppg and allowing over 71. Bona's lone win away from home court was a neutral court victory over Notre Dame Nov. 25.
• In Wednesday's win, the Bonnies stifled one of the league's top offenses, limiting Duquesne to 56 points, 20 below their season average. The Dukes entered the week ranking second among A-10 teams in scoring offense. Daryl Banks III led the Bona offense with 15 points, adding four steals and four assists. With three more treys in Bona's last game, Banks now ranks first among all A-10 players in 3-point attempts, second in 3s made per game and third in 3-point percentage.
• Bona held Duquesne to 6-for-22 from beyond the arc on Wednesday and held the A-10's leading 3-point shooter, Dae Dae Grant without a trey. The Bonnies now rank 18^th nationally in 3-point percentage defense with opponents shooting 28.8% from deep.
• Redshirt junior guard Moses Flowers surpassed 1,000 career points in Wednesday's game. He entered the day needing four points for the milestone, and scored five to stand currently at 1,001 points in his fourth collegiate season after spending the past three years at Hartford. Flowers and Banks are now each members of the 1,000-point club with Banks reaching that total back in November.

 
PLAYER NOTES

• Daryl Banks III has scored in double figures in 17 of 19 games in a Bonnies uniform. Prior to this season, he recorded four 20-point games in his first three collegiate seasons. He has already reached that mark five times this year. In A-10 play, Banks has posted 17.7 ppg and is tied for fourth among all conference players. Only GW's James Bishop (24.8 ppg) and Tyler Burton of Richmond (20.8 ppg) are ahead and he is tied with George Mason's Josh Oduro.
• Moses Flowers posted just five points in Wednesday's win over Duquesne, his A-10 season low. Prior to the Duquesne game, he had scored at least nine points in every A-10 game including four straight games of double figures with a season-high of 20 points in the Jan. 14 win over Richmond. Flowers ranks second on the team in A-10 scoring at 12.7 ppg, shooting 57% from the floor in conference games to put his name in the running for A-10 Sixth Man of the Year.
• Chad Venning is fifth in the A-10 for blocks with 27. He has been an impact player since joining the starting lineup: Prior to joining the SBU starting five, he had averaged 5.2 ppg in his first 45 college games and had never played 30+ minutes or posted back-to-back double-figure scoring efforts, as he did in four straight games Nov. 19-30. In his first two collegiate seasons, he had seven double-digit scoring efforts. This year, he's had 10 such performances.
• Kyrell Luc stands second among all A-10 players in steals at 1.9 spg, behind only Jimmy Clark III of Duquesne (2.1 spg).
• Luc had a remarkable statistical performance Jan. 11 at Rhode Island, finishing with 20 points, 9 assists, 7 rebounds, 5 steals and 0 turnovers. He became the first Bonnies player to record at least 20 points with five or more steals in the same game since Jaylen Adams posted 25 points and six steals in a win over Yale Dec. 9, 2017. Adams also had nine assists that day, just like Luc at Rhody, though Luc also had seven rebounds while Adams had just one.
• Yann Farell broke out of a recent slump with 11 points vs. Duquesne. The three-time Atlantic 10 Rookie of the Week scored a career-best 22 points Dec. 31 vs. UMass but had scored six points in the previous four games combined.
• Anquan Hill had perhaps his best week with the Bonnies last week. In the Jan. 14 win over Richmond, Hill hauled in a season-best 10 rebounds and was a team-best +13. In fact, his +/- rating has been the best on the roster as of late: He was +15 at Rhode Island Jan. 11 and also +15 vs. George Mason Jan. 4.
   

TEAM NOTES

• Bona nearly snapped out of the road woes Jan. 11 at Rhody, leading with 18 seconds to play. That continued a trend this season: St. Bonaventure has owned a second half lead in six of its nine losses.
• Three of Bona's A-10 wins thus far have come against teams picked to finish ahead of them in the preseason poll - George Mason (5), Richmond (7) and UMass (8).
• Entering last Saturday's game vs. Richmond, Bona had been outscored 265-182 at the foul line this year (an average of nearly 5 ppg) while opponents had taken nearly 100 more foul shots than SBU (372-265). The tide turned against the Spiders, though, as the Bonnies were 19-23 at the line while Richmond was 17-21. That continued Wednesday vs. Duquesne as the Bonnies finished 13-21 at the stripe and the Dukes were 8-18.

 
SERIES HISTORY
Series tied, 2-2
This will be the fifth meeting all-time between St. Bonaventure and Loyola Chicago in the sport of men's basketball, but the first as Atlantic 10 opponents - and the first game of any kind for the programs since 1952.

The Bonnies and Ramblers actually met in four straight seasons between 1949-52 with the last meeting coming Saturday, Feb. 2, 1952 at the Buffalo Memorial Auditorium in a "home" game of sorts for the Bonnies. St. Bonaventure dominated, 79-48, to avenge a 58-50 overtime loss in Chicago the previous February. Both the 1951 and '52 Bona squads qualified for the NIT.

Bona's last win in Chicago came in 1970, when the Bonnies won at DePaul, 79-68, in the second game of the 1970-71 campaign, just months removed from a run to the Final Four the previous season.
 
ABOUT LOYOLA CHICAGO

• Loyola Chicago was picked fourth in the Atlantic 10 preseason poll in their first season as members of the A-10, but so far, things have been a struggle in their Atlantic 10 debut. Loyola is seeking its first A-10 win, and to snap a seven-game losing streak that began in the non-conference finale at Stanford prior to Christmas.
• Junior forward Philip Alston leads the team in both scoring (16.8 ppg) and rebounding (6.0 rpg) during A-10 play thus far.
• Four of Loyola's six wins have come at Gentile Arena. In recent years, the Ramblers have been a terrific home team, standing second among all current A-10 members in home winning percentage over the past three years entering this week – behind only St. Bonaventure.
• The Ramblers rank 14^th of 15 A-10 squads in offense this year at 67.1 ppg, just behind the Bonnies (67.7 ppg). Defensively, Loyola is last, allowing 73.0 ppg.
• Current Loyola Chicago Director of Athletics Steve Watson formerly held that role at St. Bonaventure from 2007-14. One of Watson's first hires at SBU was Mark Schmidt, who has gone on to become Bona's winningest men's basketball head coach in school history.

 
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