ST. BONAVENTURE (14-8, 5-5 A-10) vs. DUQUESNE (13-9, 3-6 A-10)
Saturday, Feb. 10 - 2:00 p.m.
Reilly Center
TV: ESPNU
Radio: Bonnies Online Network

OPENING TIP

• The St. Bonaventure men's basketball team wraps up its homestand with a Saturday afternoon battle vs. Duquesne as the Bonnies will try to avenge a loss in Pittsburgh less than three weeks ago. 
• St. Bonaventure has been a bit of a rollercoaster team this season, as evidenced by its 5-5 A-10 record. Recently, the Bonnies have merged up-and-down swings into the same game to provide a pair of memorable comebacks: In the last two home games, Bona has rallied from double digits down to score wins. On Wednesday, the Bonnies rallied from a 13-point deficit with just over three minutes left in the first half to down UMass, 79-73. In the Jan. 30 win over VCU, Bona scored its largest comeback in a win in over a decade, roaring back from 20 down to shock the Rams, 67-62.
• Bona is the only Atlantic 10 team to score multiple conference wins so far this season when rallying from 13 or more points down.
  The Bonnies now return to the Reilly Center where they are 9-2 this season. On home court this year, SBU is averaging nearly 81 ppg with a scoring margin of +14.
• St. Bonaventure owns the second-highest NCAA NET ranking of any Atlantic 10 team at No. 67 as of Thursday. Only Dayton (16) is higher. Richmond, right behind Dayton in the conference standings, stood at No. 73 on Feb. 8.
  February has been winning time during the Mark Schmidt Era at St. Bonaventure. The Bonnies are 46-19 during the month of February since 2016.
• Four of Bona's five A-10 losses are by single digits. The lone exception came at Richmond when the Spiders hit a bucket in the final seconds for a 65-54 final.
• Charles Pride scored a game-high 19 points in Wednesday's win over UMass, leading four Bona players in double figures along with Mika Adams-Woods (15), Chad Venning (15) and Moses Flowers (14).
• Chad Venning has scored in double figures in all but one A-10 game (six points at Duquesne) and 11 of the last 12 contests overall.
• SBU enjoys one of the best home court advantages in college basketball. Since 2015-16, the Bonnies are 56-15 (.788) at home in Atlantic 10 games.
• In 11 home games, the Bonnies average 80.5 ppg and are shooting nearly 49% overall as well as 37.5% from 3-point land. In 11 games away from home, the Bonnies average 67 ppg while shooting 42% overall and 34% from distance.

TRENDS & NOTABLES

• Charles Pride entered this week ranking 23rd among all active Division I players in career rebounds with 875. Only two guards - Baylor Schierman (Creighton) and Christian Ray (Delaware) have more career rebounds than Pride.
• Pride has just 10 turnovers in over 600 minutes of game time this season, ranking 13th nationally in turnover rate according to KenPom.com.
• The Bonnies entered the week ranking top 100 nationally in both offensive and defensive efficiency according to KenPom.com. In those rankings, the Bonnies ranked 77th in defense and 85th in offense.
• St. Bonaventure is the only Atlantic 10 team to erase multiple deficits of 13+ points in conference victories this year. The Bonnies roared back from 20 points down in the first half against VCU to win on Jan. 30 before rallying from 13 down in the first half vs. UMass on Wednesday.
• Those two rallies are the only two games in which the Bonnies have won this year when trailing at halftime (2-6). 
• Conversely, the Bonnies are 12-2 when leading at the half – their only setbacks coming vs. Canisius in the second game of the year and last Friday at Dayton when they led, 30-28, at the break.
• Chad Venning had four blocks in Wednesday's win over UMass. He now has at least one swat in 24 consecutive games and 33 of 34 looking back to last year. He is just three blocks off his mark of 46 swats last year while his 89 blocks in a Bonnies uniform stand eighth in program history. In Wednesday's game, he broke a tie with Essie Hollis, '77, for ninth.
• Daryl Banks III has 111 3-pointers as a Bonnie the past two years – that total ranks 18th in program history. Banks has made 75 of those 3-pointers in games played at the Reilly Center.
• Charles Pride had a game-high 19 points in Bona's win over the Minutemen. He is the Bonnies' leading scorer in games played at the Reilly Center this season, averaging 14.5 ppg in home games while shooting 54 percent overall from the floor and a team-best 49 percent from beyond the arc (24-49). 
• When the Bonnies and Duquesne last met, Bona had its worst offensive outing in recent memory with 15 points in the first half and 50 for the game. In the four games since, though, the Bonnies are averaging 77 points per game while shooting nearly 47 percent from the floor.
• The Bona bench finished with just 12 points vs. UMass. The Bonnies have been below that total just four times this year, and only once since November – that coming when they had eight points off the bench at Duquesne.
• Noel Brown posted eight points in 16 minutes off the bench Feb. 7 vs. UMass, his highest scoring output since a 13-point effort in a win over Rhode Island Jan. 17.
• Mika Adams-Woods is approaching a career milestone: He enters this weekend with 377 career assists. He had a career-high 115 helpers last year as a senior at Cincinnati and owns 71 this season. 

SERIES HISTORY
This will be the 133rd meeting between the longtime A-10 rivals. St. Bonaventure leads the series, 70-62. St. Bonaventure has won 14 of the last 17, and 20 of 25, but 11 of the last 17 games have been decided by six or fewer points, including the first meeting of the year last month when the Dukes held on for a 54-50 win.

In 104 seasons of basketball, the Bonnies have only played Western New York rivals Canisius (171 meetings) and Niagara (161) more than Duquesne. 

St. Bonaventure is 11-3 vs. the Dukes since Keith Dambrot took over in 2017-18, falling in overtime in 2020 at the Reilly Center as well as two tight battles in Pittsburgh each of the last two years, last month as well as last year's 56-54 heartbreaker.

At home, the Bonnies have won the last three vs. Duquesne and 13 out of the last 14. Prior to the overtime loss in 2020, Bona had not lost at home vs. its regional rival since 2009.

Duquesne has won back-to-back matchups for the first time since 2011-12.


ABOUT DUQUESNE

• Duquesne started conference play with an 0-5 A-10 record before getting its first win against the Bonnies, 54-50, in Pittsburgh just over two weeks ago. That started a hot stretch for the Dukes as they won four straight, downing Fordham (68-59) at home as well as Rhode Island on the road (85-71) as well as a non-conference win over Chicago State. They're looking to bounce back from a disappointing home loss to Davidson earlier this week though, 72-59.
• Duquesne's 3-6 A-10 record is a bit deceiving as three of their conference losses during the 0-5 start come by five points or less including a 71-69 loss at Saint Joseph's when the Hawks hit the game-winning layup with 0.3 seconds to play.
• Senior guard Dae Dae Grant, who entered the year with over 1,700 career points to lead all A-10 players, paces the team with 17. points per game while fellow senior guard Jimmy Clark III adds 14.9 ppg. Grant missed the first matchup between Bona and Duquesne due to a concussion. Grad forward Fousseyni Drame who, along with his brother Hassan, were teammates with Daryl Banks III at Saint Peter's, recently cleared 1,000 points for his career and leads the Dukes on the boards at 5.5 rpg.
• Grant ranks third among all A-10 players in points per game and top-100 in the country.
• Duquesne is one of the stronger defenses in the league, holding opponents to 67 points per game, but their offense of 72.0 ppg ranks 14^th in the A-10 and 234^th nationally. The Dukes force opponents into nearly 14 turnovers per game, third-most of any A-10 squad.

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