No. 9 ST. BONAVENTURE (14-17, 8-10) vs. No. 8 DAVIDSON (15-15, 8-10)
Wednesday, March 8 - 11:30 a.m.
Atlantic 10 Tournament Second Round
Brooklyn, N.Y. - Barclays Center
TV: USA Network

The St. Bonaventure men's basketball team will take on Davidson in the 8/9 game of the Atlantic 10 Tournament Wednesday. The winner of Wednesday's second round game will advance to play top-seeded VCU Thursday morning. 

• St. Bonaventure is 14-10 in A-10 Tournament play under head coach Mark Schmidt. 
• The Bonnies have reached at least the quarterfinals each of the last eight seasons the tournament has been completed. Bona's continued that streak last year thanks to a double bye, but had its streak of four straight tournaments with at least one victory snapped when it lost a one-point heartbreaker to Saint Louis in last year's quarterfinals. The Bonnies have won at least one A-10 Tournament game in eight of the 12 seasons they have qualified under Coach Schmidt.
• Schmidt's Bonnies teams have been to the semifinals five times and the title game three times (2012, 2019, 2021; winning in '12 and '21). 
• The last time the Bonnies were a No. 9 seed: 2014, when St. Bonaventure reached the semifinals after defeating No. 8 La Salle before upsetting top-seeded Saint Louis in the quarterfinals.
• The Bonnies finished below .500 in Atlantic 10 play for the first time since 2014-15, but still bested their preseason ranking of 10th by one spot. The program has finished better than their preseason ranking every year but one since 2012-13.
• Bona's truly represents the potential wide-open nature of this year's A-10 Tournament: SBU owns wins over the top two seeds, scoring a win at regular season champion VCU as well as a victory over second-seeded Dayton at home. On the other side of the coin, Bona's also suffered setbacks to the 13, 14 and 15 seeds on the road. Playing on the road has been a sore spot for the team this year as the Bonnies went 2-11 in true road games with the lone exceptions being victories at VCU and Richmond. The Bonnies also scored a neutral court victory over Notre Dame in November.

BANKS, FARELL NAMED TO ALL-CONFERENCE TEAMS
St. Bonaventure redshirt junior Daryl Banks III has been selected to the  Atlantic 10 All-Conference Third Team while freshman Yann Farell earned a spot on the All-Rookie Team. 

Daryl Banks III Season Highlights:
•  Atlantic 10 Third Team
•  Double-figure scoring 24 times this season
•  Three 30-point games and seven 20-point games
•  At least three 3-pointers in 14 games
•  A-10 leader and second nationally in minutes

Yann Farell Season Highlights:
•  Atlantic 10 All-Rookie Team
•  Bona's first Atlantic 10 All-Rookie Team selection since 2019 when future 1,000-point scorers Kyle Lofton and Osun Osunniyi were each selected
•  St. Bonaventure's 11th A-10 All-Rookie Team selection in program history (seven of those players would go on to score 1,000 points in a Bonnies uniform)
•  14 games of double-figure scoring
•   A-10's freshman leader in 3-point field goals (62)
•   Ranks fourth among all A-10 players in 3-point percentage (41.3%, 62-150). That's the best season 3-point percentage by any Bonnies player since Jaylen Adams shot 43.6% in 2017-18 (75-172). Since 1990, no other Bonnies freshman has shot over 41 percent from beyond the arc with at least 50 makes on the year. No Bonnies freshman has made more 3-pointers in their collegiate debut since Tim Winn in 1996-97 (69).


POSTSEASON EXPERIENCE
No player on the Bonnies roster has previous experience playing in the Atlantic 10 Tournament, but that doesn't mean that there aren't Bonnies with postseason collegiate experience. 

Most notably, Daryl Banks III has played in 10 postseason games, including six in the MAAC Tournament across three seasons with Saint Peter's and four in last year's NCAA Tournament. He averaged 13.5 ppg in last year's March Madness run to the Elite Eight. For his career, he averages 10.9 ppg in postseason tournament games.

Chad Venning also played in five MEAC Tournament games while with Morgan State with a career-best of 15 points in a first round win last year over South Carolina State.

Kyrell Luc also posted 14 points and four assists in one career Patriot League Tournament game at Holy Cross while Anquan Hill posted 12 points and six rebounds in one NEC Tournament contest last year.


VENNING AMONG LEAGUE LEADERS
Chad Venning is third in the A-10 for blocks with 45. He has been an impact player since joining the starting lineup in late November: 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 23 such performances and he increased his points per game by over +5.4 ppg over last season. 

He ranks second in the A-10 in field goal percentage this season among all players with at least 200 FG attempts at 57.9% from the floor. The only player ahead of Venning is Dayton's DaRon Holmes (59.2%).

Venning finished the season by scoring in double figures in nine of the last 10 games.



SERIES HISTORY
Wednesday's second round game will represent the 19th meeting between the Bonnies and Wildcats and the 15th since Davidson joined the Atlantic 10. The Wildcats hold a 11-7 series lead and have been Bona's nemesis in recent years, winning seven of eight meetings before the 2020-21 Atlantic 10 Championship season for SBU when the Bonnies scored two key wins in a home-and-home series. 

In the Atlantic 10 Tournament, the Bonnies are seeking their first win over Davidson: the Wildcats upset the co-regular season champion Bonnies in overtime in the 2016 quarterfinals at Barclays Center and also recorded a win in the 2018 semifinals. 

The first-ever meeting between the schools came in the 1970 NCAA Tournament when the Bonnies won, 85-72, en route to that year's Final Four. 

Postseason History (1-2)
3-10-18         N$    L    82-70
3-11-16          N^    L    90-86 OT
3-8-70          N#    W    85-72
$ - Atlantic 10 Tournament game, Capital One Arena (semis)
^ - Atlantic 10 Tournament game, Barclays Center (quarters)
 # - NCAA Tournament game - Columbia, S.C.