Bonnies begin NCAA Tournament with clash in styles and a familiar opponent in LSU, Wade

Mark Schmidt and St. Bonaventure open NCAA Tournament against LSU Saturday. (Photo by David Jablonski/Dayton Daily News)

By Ray Floriani (@rfloriani)

When St. Bonaventure lines up inside Assembly Hall on Saturday, its first round opponent, LSU, will know something about the Bonnies. 

Beyond studying and breaking down tapes and providing detailed scouting reports, LSU coach Will Wade has first hand familiarity with the Bonnies. Prior to his arrival in Baton Rouge, Wade assisted Shaka Smart at VCU, then was head coach for two seasons. He’s faced head coach Mark Schmidt, and certainly knows his style and what the Bonnies are about.

“I’ve actually watched St. Bonaventure play a couple times this year,” Wade told the Olean Times Herald. “They’ve got a top 40 offense, a top 20 defense and are 17th in the country in defensive efficiency. They’ve got some good guard play and a shot blocker, a 6-10 kid down there (Osun Osunniyi). They’ve got a good team. Coach Schmidt, I’m familiar with from my days in the Atlantic 10. He’s as good a ball coach as there is in the country.”

St. Bonaventure captured both the Atlantic 10 regular season and conference tournament titles on the way to a 16-4 record. LSU finished third in the SEC, and advanced to the conference final, dropping a 80-79 decision to Alabama.  

From a numbers standpoint, a few things bear mentioning. Looking at the two teams’ respective conference numbers, one of the first things that stands out is pace, with LSU playing 10 more possessions per game on average, a significant number that could go a long way toward determining who advances. The Bonnies prefer the slower grind it out tempo, LSU wants to get out on the break and push the ball. The team dictating the tempo of this contest will have a decided advantage.

“They’re number one in the country in scoring,” Schmidt said of the Tigers. “They space you out and are really talented. If the game is in the eighties, we’re probably not going to win, so we’ve got to somehow control the tempo. We’ve got to be able to keep the game in the half-court against a team that wants to push it.”

While the Tigers run a high-octane attack, LSU takes relatively good care of the ball. Their offensive turnover percentage is just 16, an impressive number no matter the tempo. The Bonnies’ turnover mark offensively is also 16 percent. Schmidt has preached taking care of the ball and emphasized it all season.

“They run some stuff they ran at VCU,” Schmidt told the Lafayette Daily Advertiser, “but a lot of it is isolation and one-on-one stuff. They didn’t do as much of that as they’re doing at LSU, but you can see his personality. They are really athletic and try to play downhill.”

For the record, KenPom predicts a 74-73 Bonnies victory.

For St. Bonaventure, it will be Schmidt’s old reliables: Defense, rebounding and a rotation featuring a short bench, which has worked all season long. Given nearly a week to prepare, don’t expect Schmidt to not come up with something different. Remember the NCAA win over UCLA in 2018? In that game, the Bonnies threw the Bruins off balance with a 1-3-1 zone defense.

Defensively the Bonnies will contend with not just one main threat, but several in Wade’s arsenal. Cameron Thomas, a 6-4 freshman, led the SEC in scoring at 22.6 points per game. Trendon Watford, a 6-9 was fourth in scoring. Javonte Smart, a 6-4 junior, is a deadly outside threat, hitting 43 percent of his attempts from beyond the arc. LSU takes 37 percent of its shots from distance, hitting at a 35 percent clip. Inside the arc, the Tigers shoot 53 percent. Undoubtedly, this is a team that poses multifaceted threats for opposing defenses. This is an area Osun Osunniyi factors in prominently. The big man is settling in more comfortably on offense, but the defense is his calling card. 

“Shun allows our guards to cheat a little defensively on the perimeter,” Schmidt said in the Atlantic 10 tournament. “If the guards get beat by penetration, Shun is there. He’s our eraser, and anyone going into the lane has to think about his presence.”

On offense the message is clear: Don’t get into a track meet with the Tigers. Kyle Lofton will be a key. Beside giving his regular 40 quality minutes, the Bonnies’ lead guard will be entrusted with caring for the ball and making sound decisions. As Osunniyi remarked, “our offense runs right through him.” Jalen Adaway, Jaren Holmes and Dominick Welch will all play roles that call for contributions — especially in rebounding — on both ends of the floor for the Bonnies.

For LSU a primary objective will be to force a faster tempo. That should be the primary objective in Wade’s game plan. A tempo in the mid-70 range would largely benefit LSU, while anything in the sixties puts the ball in the Bonnies’ court. Wade will work on a way to speed the game up.

All week Wade has thrown bouquets in the Bonnies’ direction. He’s gone on record saying they will be “unbelievably well-prepared” and that they’re a “tremendous basketball program.”

The praise has been flattering, but one must agree there is sincerity. After all, as the Times Herald pointed out, Wade was the first and one of the harshest critics of the NCAA for denying the A-10 co-champion Bonnies a bid in 2016.

Wade respects Schmidt and his program. The key here is getting your players to buy in and share that respect. Too often, Power 5 teams may look at a representative from an unfamiliar league and not give the same respect. Wade must ensure his players are on the same page, and would be ill-advised to take the Bonnies lightly.

The campaign has transpired as a memorable year for St. Bonaventure. Battling through the pandemic and winning the A-10 are part, but not all, of it. On Sunday after defeating VCU for the title, Schmidt said the season was dedicated to the memory of late President Dr. Dennis DePerro, one who did so much for the team and entire university. In an outstanding touch of sentiment and class, Schmidt said part of the net cut down in Dayton would be given to the late DePerro’s family.

The Bonnies would love nothing more than to see this special season extended beyond Saturday.