By CHUCK POLLOCK, Sun Senior Sports Columnist

It’s not hyperbole to conclude that the St. Bonaventure men’s basketball team will be playing its most important game of the season when it travels to Philadelphia to face Saint Joseph’s Wednesday night.

The reason is that it’s crunch time for Atlantic 10 conference tournament seeding and, this season, it’s become complicated by a near unprecedented congestion of teams.

AS GARY NEASE, the Bonnies play-by-play man, noted following Bona’s 70-63 victory over Duquesne in Saturday’s Homecoming/Senior Day game at the Reilly Center, “I’ve been covering this team for 30 years and I’ve never seen the A-10 standings look like they do now.”

He’s right.

After Saturday’s games, 12 of the conference’s 15 teams had at least six losses.

Indeed, only four teams seemed locked into their playoff positions, the top two –Virginia Commonwealth and George Mason, both 12-2 — and the bottom pair (La Salle 4-10  and Fordham 3-11).

That left 11 teams jockeying for position, one of them St. Bonaventure, which finds itself in a bizarre position. Heading into a game at UMass a week ago Saturday, coach Mark Schmidt’s team was 5-8 and a serious candidate to finish in the bottom six and play in the dreaded three first-round games March 12 at Washington, D.C.’s Capital Arena.

But the Bonnies won in Amherst and then beat Duquesne to improve to 7-8 and into a tie with George Washington for seventh.

Suddenly, with three games to play, Bona had a shot, if it won out, to earn a spot in the Top Four and the coveted double bye. Behind VCU and George Mason are Loyola of Chicago (9-5) and Dayton, Saint Joe’s and Saint Louis, all 8-6.

That’s what makes tomorrow night’s game so important, if Bona beats the Hawks, it would nudge past them. The Bonnies already own a win over Dayton, but were beaten by St. Louis and George Washington.

After the win over Duquesne, which avenged an 18-point loss in Pittsburgh, the game’s two star players, Lajan Jones (24 points, five steals, four rebounds) and Melvin Council Jr. (20 points, five boards and four assists) admitted their goal was to finish the season strong and earn that double bye.

“We need to get hot because it’s the home stretch of the season and we want to place ourselves in the best position for the tournament,” Jones said. “There’s still three games to go … off the court really taking care of your body, getting into the gym and having great practices.”

To which Council added, “We can fight with anyone as long as we battle, we can compete with anybody.”
SCHMIDT, when asked about the three remaining games (after Saint Joe’s, home against UMass and at Davidson), was adamant, “We don’t look that far ahead … the most important thing is the next game.

“Every game is really, really important. You’re trying to get that double bye or the single bye (drawn by teams between fifth and ninth), you don’t want to play the first night (teams 10-15) and have to win five games (to win the tournament). Right now we just have to continue to work hard, get better, and try to do everything we can to play well against St. Joe’s.”

He added, “Before today’s game, five through 12 was separated by a game-and-a-half. AsvI told the guys, when the Atlantic 10 Conference schedule starts, one week changes a lot. Now, because everybody’s so jumbled up, it changes a ton.”

(Chuck Pollock, a Wellsville Sun and Olean Star senior sports columnist, can be reached at cpollock@wnynet.net.)