By Palmer Johnson
Your George Mason Patriots are returning home for the first time since students have been back on campus to play the 11-5 and 2-2 St. Bonaventure Bonnies. Mason is looking to end a three-game losing streak.
The Bonnies are coached by Mark Schmidt, who’s been there since the 2007-08 season. Schmidt and St. Bonny have made the tournament three times during his tenure.
Mason took St. Bonaventure’s top assistant, Steve Curran, from the Bonnies this offseason. Curran had been there since 2010 and has been credited with finding the diamonds in the rough that made Bonny such a power in the 2010s and early 2020s.
Kyrell Luc, their backup PG, will be making his return against Mason after missing their game against Rhode Island.
St. Bonaventure by the Numbers
The Bonnies are the 80th ranked team in the country, with the 70th ranked offense, and the 98th ranked defense.
St. Bonny is the oldest team in the country, with the average D1 experience being 3.56 years. Some people think experience is overrated, some underrated, but whatever you think of it, they have a ton of it.
Schmidt has been known to not play his bench often, but this season the bench is getting 30.5% of minutes, just a bit under average. In the past, he has had his bench play less than 10% of the minutes.
Bonny plays a below average tempo, at 66.1 possessions per game, which is a bit faster than Mason.
On offense, the Bonnies are efficient. They have an eFG of 54.5%, 38th, shoot 37.8% from three, 25th, shoot 53.1% from two, and hit 78.2% of their free throws, 9th in the country. They take care of the ball relatively well, only having a turnover rate of 16.1%, 91st in the country. When they do turn it over, is it usually not a live ball, as the Bonnies have a 9.5% non-steal turnover rate, 300th lowest in the country.
Having a lot of dead-ball turnovers is obviously a bad thing, but at least the opposing team doesn’t get to run in transition.
Bonny has the 6th lowest offensive steal rate at 6.6%, that’s low.
Why don’t they have an elite, elite offense? St. Bonaventure doesn’t get to the line often, only shooting 28.3 free throws per 100 shots, 290th in the nation.
The Bonnies have a pretty well rounded offense, getting about half of their points from two, about a third from three, and the rest from free throws.
I can see Chad Venning on the hot zones in the right side of the paint.
Speaking of Venning, he takes 32.2% of the shots when he’s on the court, which is 40th highest nationally. The Morgan State transfer big can only play so many minutes since he commits 5.9 fouls per 40 minutes.
Bonny does have some shooters, with Mika Adams-Woods, Moses Flowers, and Charles Pride all shooting well over 40% from three, with both Adams-Woods and Pride shooting 48%.
They also have Assa Essamvous, formerly known as Yann Farrell, who is only shooting 30.6% from three this season, but shot 41.9% last year as a freshman. And we can’t forget about Daryl Banks, who is probably the highest variance scorer in the entire conference. He’s having a down year, but can turn into a flamethrower sometimes.
On defense, St. Bonaventure defends the three pretty well, with opponents shooting only 30.6%, 46th, but give up a lot from two, with opponents shooting 52% from inside the arc, 247th in the country.
Similar to their offense, their defense is pretty well rounded, since even though opponents shoot well from two, they don’t take too many.
Bonny forces a decent amount of turnovers, one on 19.8% of possessions, 56th in the country, and rebounds very well, only giving up a 27% offensive rebound rate, 89th. That’s how you limit shots.
Again, similar to their offense, they have a lot of non-steal turnovers on defense. You’d like them to be steals, but I guess you can’t complain about an opponent’s possession ending with no shot.
It looks like the guy who defends the right corner helps off their guy a lot more, and the guy defending the left corner stays on his man.
St. Bonaventure Scouting Report (First 4 Minutes, All 2nd Half vs. Richmond)
I picked this game since it was on the road and had a similar pace to what KenPom thinks Mason’s game will be at. I did use this game for the Richmond scouting, but it’s too perfect of a fit since it’s their only slow-paced away game in conference play. It’s worth a second watch.
On offense, Bonny liked to run in transition off Richmond’s missed shots. If they didn’t get a shot they loved, they’d wait. If an open three arrived four seconds into the shot clock, they’d take it. I think the point was to get past half-court as fast as possible and see if they could catch a Richmond player who lost their man, since many times they sprinted past half-court and then slowed down into a normal offense.
Chad Venning is their main piece on offense. He can take about free-throw line jumpers. You cannot really take him one-on-one if he gets inside. You can neutralize him by denying him the ball in the paint but letting him get it way far out. Venning might get a couple travels, he will also draw a ton of fouls.
The theory of playing Venning plus four shooters seems like it works pretty well when you can get the ball inside to him, but if they can manage to stop entry passes, the offense gets pretty rough. That’s when they try to get Daryl Banks going, which is a mixed bag.
Charles Pride, a 6’4 guard, backed down 5’10 Tyne for Richmond. I don’t think Mason has anyone small enough for him to get a significant size advantage.
On defense, they played a lot of man-to-man in both the full-court and half-court. I don’t think I ever saw them go into a zone. At one point, it seemed like they played three-quarter court press, but it could have just been a miscommunication. Later in the game, they forced a timeout on an inbound with a full-court man press.
St. Bonaventure was getting beat on backdoor cut after backdoor cut, I think every Richmond made the pass, they scored.
Charles Pride might be a bit of a lazy defender. He got beat on the backdoor cut, then he later failed to contest a three when I think all he needed to do was put his hands up.
Bonny was doubling Neal Quinn when he got inside, they will probably do this to Amari Kelly.
If a guy got past Venning, he just kind of stood there, I guess he doesn’t want to get extra fouls.
Venning was forcing Neal Quinn to take longer shots. When he went out, backup big Noel Brown, a GW transfer, handled him well.
Jordan King is moving off the ball and getting open shots, maybe Maddox or Polite could take advantage of that.
What does this mean for Mason?
Mason is probably going to need to make sure Venning can’t get the ball inside, but if he does, they’ll have to double and have outstanding rotations to limit their open threes. Bonny’s offensive philosophy seems to be similar to the Kim English Oduro-centric offenses.
Jared Billups and Darius Maddox are going to have a fun time chasing around Daryl Banks, as unfortunately, he can get hot once he sees one go in.
Prediction: Mason wins 71-66. Venning isn’t taken out of the game, but he doesn’t take over. Amari Kelly locks down everyone else inside, and Bonny isn’t particularly hot from three.
Get excited Mason Nation, this is the first conference home game with students on campus.
