RICHMOND, Va. — The last time the St. Bonaventure Bonnies played in the Commonwealth of Virginia, the Brown and White defeated the Virginia Cavaliers in the 2022 NIT Quarterfinals. Kyle Lofton’s free throws with five seconds to go and Osun Osunniyi’s game-sealing block as time expired punched Bona’s ticket to Madison Square Garden in dramatic fashion.
More than ten months later, the Bonnies have not won a true road game since.
On Saturday, Bona travels back to Virginia for the first time since the NIT, where they will face the VCU Rams and a raucous sold-out crowd at the Stuart C. Siegel Center in Richmond.
The game airs on CBS Sports Network and will tip at 6 p.m.
“We need to play hard, consistently, and better on the road than at home,” Mark Schmidt acknowledged to the media Friday. “If you looked at the newspaper today, 90% of the teams that played on the road last night lost. It’s just that much harder. It’s the environment. You’re uncomfortable, so you have to play that much better. But the more experience you get playing on the road, the better you will get. You need to handle adversity better, but you need to do everything better on the road than you do at home to win. We have not done it yet. We have not played well enough on the road to do that.”
The Bonnies will face perhaps their most difficult challenge of the season Saturday at VCU.
The Rams boast a conference-leading record of 7-1. They have won 11 of their last 12 and have a 16-5 record overall.
VCU has played so well as of late that they have re-entered At-Large bid discussions, according to ESPN’s Joe Lunardi. Right now, the Atlantic 10 will only send one team to the NCAA Tournament, but if VCU keeps trending in the right direction, the Rams could represent the conference as an At-Large if they do not win the Atlantic 10 Tournament.
Like VCU teams of the past, their “Havoc” full-court pressure defense has vaulted the Rams up the conference standings and back into the national discussion.
VCU’s defensive efficiency ranks 25th nationally and first in the Atlantic 10, according to KenPom. The Rams force turnovers on 25.4% of their defensive possessions, an incredible rate. That mark ranks fourth nationally, per KenPom.
“We need to handle their pressure,” Schmidt said. “Their full-court pressure and their half-court pressure. We need to handle their crowd too, but…
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