ST. BONAVENTURE (17-7, 5-6 A-10) vs. GEORGE WASHINGTON (15-7, 4-5 A-10)
Sunday, Feb. 9 – 12:00 p.m.
Reilly Center
TV: USA Network
Radio: Bonnies Online Network / 100.1 FM The Hero

OPENING TIP
St. Bonaventure returns home to the Reilly Center to host George Washington on Sunday afternoon. The last time the Bonnies were home, they scored a pair of home wins last week, handing Dayton its largest margin of defeat this season in a 75-53 victory last Tuesday before holding off Fordham for a 74-72 victory Saturday afternoon to improve to 5-5 in Atlantic 10 play.

STARTING FIVE

• Bonnies head coach Mark Schmidt scored his 400th career head coaching win in the victory over Tuesday last week, becoming the 47th active Division I coach to reach the 400-win plateau. Schmidt has scored 319 wins on the sidelines with the Bonnies.
• Senior captain Melvin Council Jr. averaged 15.5 ppg, 7.0 apg and 4.0 rpg in two wins last week. He handed out 14 assists and recorded just two turnovers in the two games.
• The Atlantic 10 ranks seventh nationally as a conference in the NCAA NET rankings and eighth according to KenPom.
• The Bonnies are in the midst of a challenging stretch where they play three out of four games on the road. Beginning Tuesday at Loyola Chicago, the Bonnies next have a week on the road with a Northeastern swing to Rhode Island and UMass before finally returning home Feb. 22 vs. Duquesne. After Sunday, the Bonnies have just two more remaining home contests.
• Lajae Jones is shooting a team-best 54 percent from behind the arc in 12 home games this season (26-48). Jonah Hinton, meanwhile, has drained a team-high 28 triples in home contests. For Hinton, 28 of his 45 total 3-pointers on the year have come at The RC.

OPENING TIP

• Bona's entire starting five is averaging double-figure scoring in Atlantic 10 games this season: Melvin Council Jr. (15.7 ppg), Noel Brown (12.5 ppg), Lajae Jones (11.5 ppg), Chance Moore (10.8 ppg), and Jonah Hinton (10.3 ppg).
• February has been winning time during the Mark Schmidt Era at St. Bonaventure. The Bonnies are 50-22 during the month of February since 2016.
• Noel Brown finished without a field goal Tuesday at Loyola Chicago for the first time this season. Lajae Jones finished with two points while playing under the weather, his lowest scoring output of the year. 
• Lajae Jones is shooting a team-best 54 percent from behind the arc in 12 home games this season (26-48). Jonah Hinton, meanwhile, has drained a team-high 28 triples in home contests. For Hinton, 28 of his 45 total 3-pointers on the year have come at The RC. 
• Council had seven assists in both wins last week, giving him six games this season with a half dozen or more helpers. He took over the point guard duties in mid-December following the foot injury suffered by Dasonte Bowen. 
• St. Bonaventure drained a season-best 12 3-pointers in the win vs. Dayton. Noah Bolanga earned his first career start Jan. 18 vs. George Mason, posting a new career-high in points with eight after making a pair of 3-pointers for his first game of multiple field goals from beyond the arc this season. Bolanga has been playing his best ball of late, setting a new career-best with nine points vs. Dayton Jan. 28.
• Xander Wedlow posted new career-highs in the win vs. Fordham Feb. 1 in what was likely his best game at the Division I level. He went 5-for-5 from the floor for a career-best 10 points along with four rebounds in just under seven minutes off the bench. 
• St. Bonaventure is 16-1 when winning the turnover battle this season. The Bonnies committed just six turnovers in last Tuesday's win vs. Dayton and eight the next time out vs. Fordham, but that number jumped to 16 last time out at Loyola Chicago which tied for their second-most turnovers in a game this season.
• Entering this week, the Bonnies ranked 19th in the country for scoring defense by allowing 64.0 ppg on average to opponents. The A-10 has proven to be a defensive league as three programs rank top-20 nationally in scoring defense this season.
• Bona has done a great job taking care of the ball: Entering this week, the Bonnies were averaging just 10.3 turnovers per game, ranking 35th in the country for fewest turnovers, making Tuesday's game at Loyola Chicago an anomaly.

 

TRENDING NUMBERS
3 – Noel Brown averaged just over three points per game in three seasons at George Washington. At Bonaventure, he's averaged a tick under nine points per contests in two seasons including 12.4 ppg this year.
18 – A win Sunday would give the Bonnies 18 wins this season. Head coach Mark Schmidt has averaged 18 wins per year in now 18 seasons at the helm of the program.
36% - The Bonnies are shooting 36 percent from beyond the arc in home games – that comes in contrast to the 29% success rate in road games.
86.7% - Xander Wedlow has an 86.7 percent field goal percentage in Atlantic 10 games this season (13-15).
96 – Melvin Council has handed out 96 assists this season.
979 – Chance Moore enters Sunday's game with 979 career Division I points.

SERIES HISTORY
This will be the 68th meeting between the Bonnies and Colonials with GW owning a 37-30 lead all-time in the series. Bona has won 19 of 31 meetings on home court, but GW has dominated in Foggy Bottom with an all-time lead of 23-8 on its home floor.  

In recent years, Bona has had the best of the series, winning six of the past seven games over GW prior to a recent run that has seen the Revolutionaries take the past two meetings since Chris Caputo took over. In the last meeting at the Reilly Center, GW handed the Bonnies a heartbreaker in overtime, 83-81. Last year, the Revs scored an 86-75 win on their home floor. The 86 points scored by GW in last year's meeting represent the most by an Atlantic 10 opponent vs. the Bonnies in a regulation contest in the past five seasons.

ABOUT GW

• Darren Buchanan Jr. was selected to the preseason A-10 Second Team after being named to the All-Rookie Team last season when he averaged 15.6 ppg.
• This year, Buchanan ranks second on the team at 12.7 ppg behind Gerald Drumgole Jr.'s 13.4 ppg. Buchanan also adds 6.9 rebounds per contest while Rafael Castro is one of the A-10's top rebounders (9.2 rpg).
• GW ranks third in A-10 scoring (75.7 ppg) and fifth in points allowed (68.1 ppg) and limits opponents to just under 30 percent shooting from beyond the arc for the season which stands 28^th nationally. They also force more turnovers than any A-10 team other than VCU (13.5) as they lead the league in steals (9.3 spg).
• Assistant coach Dwayne Lee served as a Bonnies assistant from 2017-19 and was on the bench when SBU won a program-record 26 games and beat UCLA in the 2018 NCAA First Four. He is in his third season at GW.