Syracuse Basketball vs. St. Bonaventure: Game Preview

On Tuesday night at 7 pm in the Carrier Dome, the Syracuse basketball team takes on St. Bonaventure. Syracuse is coming into the game after a 57-47 win over Lehigh on Friday night. St. Bonaventure won their first game of the season by 10 points as well, defeating Binghamton 63-53.

Interestingly enough, St. Bonaventure finished last season with an 18-13 record, identical to the one Syracuse had as well. With all the similarities between both teams last year and this year, how do the two teams stack up?

The Bonnies come into this season after having lost two of their top 4 scorers from last year. This team looks to be lead by Marcus Posley, the leading point scorer from last year who averaged 16.7 points per game at guard. Also looking to make an impact for St. Bonaventure will be Dion Wright, a 6’7 forward who was second on the team in scoring last season at 13.5 points and also second in rebounds at 7 per contest. Wright scored 20 in the Bonnies first game against Binghamton playing mostly the center spot.

"“Dion’s going to play some Five. Four-men have a hard time guarding Dion. Now a Five-man’s going to be guarding him. We’re going to take advantage of that, space it out a little bit more. Our depth is an issue. Dion is a Four-man but I think in our league he’s strong enough and smart enough to get away with playing the Five. It’s going to be an adjustment for him from a physicality standpoint. But we’re confident he can make that adjustment. From an offensive standpoint it may help us.” -Coach Mark Schmidt, via buffalonews.com"

Junior Denzel Gregg looks to step into a bigger role this season. Last year he only averaged 3.7 points and 3.2 rebounds, but looks to be starting now and should see a big increase in those numbers. Against Binghamton he scored 15 points and grabbed 11 rebounds. He’s another 6’7 forward who some might recognize since he played at Nottingham high school here in Syracuse.

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Another guy who looks to step up this year is Jaylen Adams. Adams averaged just four minutes per game last year, but in their first game against Binghamton played all 40. He dropped in 10 points and 2 assists.

One thing to point about St. Bonaventure is that although they have two forwards who are 6’7, that’s pretty much as big as they get. They have no dominant big man inside and against Binghamton played a mostly three guard lineup. Those three guards are all 6’1.

This bodes very well for the Orange, who should be able to use their length and athleticism to dominant the glass and get open looks over their much smaller guards. Look for Syracuse to crash the glass hard on both ends. Don’t be surprised if they launch a large volume of threes again, but I could also see them going inside to the huge mismatches down low between Coleman, Lydon, Roberson and the Bonnies bigs.

St. Bonaventure is led by coach Mark Schmidt. Schmidt took over a struggling Bonnie program in 2007. Prior to him signing on, the team went a combined 24-88 in 4 seasons from 2003-2007. Since then, Schmidt has helped turn the program around. After a tough 2007 year in which they went 8-22, he’s had just two losing season’s since. In 2012, they even went to the NCAA tournament after a 20-12 record.

What’s very interesting about Schmidt is that, like Boeheim, Schmidt doesn’t go to his bench all that much. In the Binghamton game he played only seven players. Four of those seven saw over 30 minutes of action. Last year only seven players saw more than 10 minutes a game. Does that sound like anyone we know around here?

Next: SU vs. Lehigh: Grading the Orange Players

Syracuse basketball is 23-3 overall against St. Bonaventure. They’ve won the last 13 meetings. Don’t let those numbers fool you however. In their last meeting in 2009, they only won the game by 13, 85-72. The meeting before that was an even closer 82-70. If you were expecting a blowout, you could be sorely mistaken. The Bonnies are fiesty, as proven by their 73-71 victory over #18 VCU last year.

That being said, I wouldn’t be surprised if the score does get out of hand if Syracuse can get hot from the outside. Couple that with the massive size advantage they have at almost every position and it could be very tough sledding for St. Bonaventure. Normally it takes a good three-point shooting team to break down the zone, and unfortunately for the Bonnies they just don’t have that. Their best three point shooter from last year, Andell Cumberbatch, is not even on the team this year.

Hopefully this game will give the Syracuse basketball team a chance to work on their inside game. Hopefully it will also give Coleman and Roberson some opportunities on the offensive end. They both laid a pretty big egg there against Lehigh, so it would be good to see them get some points and gain some confidence early in the season.

Check back tomorrow for more coverage of the St. Bonaventure game, including analysis and grades after the game is over. Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter, as I will be live tweeting the game tomorrow night in case you can’t watch it.

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