TEAM ROSTERS
ST. BONAVENTURE BONNIES
0 Chance Moore G, Sr., 6-6/210, Brookhaven, GA
1 Duane Thompson F, R-Fr., 6-8/210, Boston, MA
2 Jaxon Edwards G, Jr., 6-5/195, Indianapolis, IN
3 Miles Rose G, So., 6-4/195, Rochester, NY
4 Ebrahim Kaba G/F, Fr., 6-9/200, East Orange, NJ
5 Dasonte Bowen G, Jr., 6-2/175, Boston, MA
7 Michael Folarin C, R-Jr., 6-11/225, London, ENG
8 Jonah Hinton G, R-So., 6-3/185, Chicago, IL
10 Lajae Jones G, Jr., 6-7/220, Jacksonville, FL
11 Melvin Council Jr. G, Sr., 6-4/180, Rochester, NY
15 Jack DeRose G, So., 6-0/175, Olean, NY
21 Xander Wedlow PF/C, Fr., 6-10/230, Detroit, MI
23 Noah Bolanga G, Fr., 6-8/180, Poitiers, FRA
24 Noel Brown C, Gr., 6-11/255, Leesburg, VA
30 Broek Ostrom G, Jr., 6-2/180, Holley, NY
ASSOCIATE HEAD COACH: Sean neal -- ASSISTANT COACHES/STAFF: chris lowe -- dana valentine -- Mike Schmidt -- Adrian Wojnarowski
MASSACHUSETTS MINUTEMEN
0 Jaylen Curry G, So., 6-0/168, Charlotte, NC
1 Daniel Hankins-Sanford F, Jr., 6-8/236, Charlotte, NC
2 Nate Guerengomba G, Fr., 6-4/216, Washington, DC
3 Marqui Worthy G, So., 6-3/216, Anaheim, CA
4 Shahid Muhammad F/C, Jr., 6-10/205, Queens, NY
5 Daniel Rivera F, Sr., 6-6/215, San Juan, PRI
7 Rahsool Diggins G, Sr., 6-2/190, Philadelphia, PA
8 Lewis Walker F, Fr., 6-6/227, Winston-Salem, NC
9 Josh Engel G, Fr., 6-0/169, Manalapan, NJ
11 Jayden Ndjigue G, So., 6-4/206, Ayer, MA
12 Tarique Foster F, So., 6-8/185, Bronx, NY
13 Luka Damjanac F, Fr., 6-10/260, BIH
14 Amadou Doumbia F, Fr., 6-11/215, Bamako, MLI
23 Akil Watson F, So., 6-9/185, Middletown, NY
25 Malek Abdelgowad F/C, Sr., 6-10/220, Cairo, EGY
35 John Brigham F, Fr., 6-9/213, Franklin, MA
44 Rollie Castineyra G, So., 6-1/187, Marblehead, MA
2024-25 St. Bonaventure bonnies
GAME NOTES
OPENING TIP
St. Bonaventure wraps up its home schedule on Wednesday night with the penultimate game of the regular season as UMass comes to town to complete a home-and-home series. St. Bonaventure has won two of its last three including a victory at UMass on Feb. 15, 73-59.
STARTING FIVE
• The Bonnies continue to rank as one of the nation’s top defenses. Entering this week, St. Bonaventure stands 20th nationally in scoring defense by allowing 64.7 ppg. Three A-10 programs are in the top-20: VCU is 10th (62.2 ppg allowed) and George Mason is 12th (63.2 ppg).
• Despite not being a natural point guard, Melvin Council Jr. stands among the A-10 leaders in assists this year. He is sixth overall at 4.1 apg, just behind Japhet Medor of Fordham at 4.2 apg for a top-five spot. Sebastian Thomas of Rhode Island leads the league by a large margin at 6.1 apg. Council is also tied sixth in assist-to-turnover ratio (2.3). Council needs 26 more assists to break into the program’s top-15 single season leaders. The all-time mark of 216 was set by Marques Green in 2002-03.
• Bona’s entire starting five is averaging double figures in A-10 play … just about: Melvin Council Jr. (15.6 ppg), Noel Brown (12.6 ppg), Lajae Jones (11.9 ppg), Chance Moore (10.6 ppg) and Jonah Hinton (9.7 ppg).
• The rims at the Reilly Center have been kind to the Bonnies all season: at home, the Bonnies are shooting 36% from 3-point land with over seven made 3s per game along with a better than 46% overall shooting percentage. On the road, the Bonnies average a 28.8% success rate from deep and just over five 3s per contest.
• A win Wednesday would give the Bonnies 20 victories on the year and a 12-3 mark on home court. St. Bonaventure is 63-20 at home in Atlantic 10 play since 2015-16.
TRENDING NUMBERS
20 – A win Wednesday would give the Bonnies their seventh 20-win season under head coach Mark Schmidt and the 19th in program history.
79 – Wednesday’s game will be the 79th meeting all-time between the Bonnies and Minutemen, the fifth-longest series in Bona history. It will be the last for the foreseeable future, though, as UMass will move to the MAC next season.
131 – Wednesday’s game will be the final contest at the Reilly Center for grad captain Noel Brown. In total, it will be his 131st career Division I game and his 63rd in a Bonnies uniform. Brown has started every game this year.
CLUTCH COUNCIL
Melvin Council Jr. has been at his best during Atlantic 10 play this year. The do-it-all captain has registered 15.6 points, 5.3 rebounds, 4.6 assists and 1.6 steals per game during conference action. He has scored in double figures in every conference contest this year and in 20 straight games overall.
JONES’ JUMPERS
Lajae Jones had one of the best shooting performances of the season last time on home court in a win over Duquesne, matching his career-high with 24 points on 8-of-11 shooting overall and 4-of-6 from beyond the arc. Perhaps most impressively, it wasn’t his best shooting effort this year: in a January game vs. La Salle he went 8-9 from the floor and 4-4 from deep for 24 points. For the year, he stands third among all A-10 players in 3-point percentage at 43.6 percent. In A-10 action, he is shooting over 47 percent overall from the floor.
Continued on Page 9
2024-25 St. bonaventure
GAME SCHEDULE
OCTOBER
30 vs. Alfred (Exhibition) W, 63-39
NOVEMBER
4 vs. CSUN ........................ W, 70-56
9 at Canisius W, 87-78
13 at FGCU W, 74-65
16 vs. Le Moyne ................ W, 71-52
20 vs. Mansfield W, 76-54
24 vs. Bryant .........................W, 85-70
ESPN NIT SEASON TIP-OFF
28 vs. Utah State L, 67–72
29 vs. Northern Iowa W, 68-56
All game start times are listed in Eastern Time and are subject to change.
Home games in bold # = Legends Classic
% = Basketball Hall of Fame Classic
decEMBER
4 at Bucknell ...................... W, 64-47 7 vs. Buffalo W, 65-55
BASKETBALL HALL OF FAME SHOWCASE 14 vs. Providence W, 74-70
17 at Siena W, 65-48
21 vs. Niagara W, 71-52
31 vs. VCU W, 77-75
january
4 at Fordham ...................... W, 86-66
8 at Saint Louis L, 73-68
11 vs. La Salle L, 83-82 (OT)
15 vs. Richmond ............... W, 63-49
18 at Duquesne L, 75-57
21 vs. George Mason............L, 75-62
24 at VCU L, 75-61
28 vs. Dayton W, 75-53
february
1 vs. Fordham.................. W, 74-72
4 at Loyola Chicago L, 77-53
9 vs. George W. L, 62-52
12 at Rhode Island ...................L, 68-64
15 at Massachusetts W, 73-59
22 vs. Duquesne ............... W, 70-63
26 at Saint Joseph's L, 75-64
march
5 vs. Massachusetts 7:00 pm
8 at Davidson ........................ 2:00 pm
12 Atlantic 10 Tournament TBD
GAME NOTES
SERIES HISTORY
The Bonnies and Minutemen will be meeting for the 79th time when they lock up Wednesday. It will be the last meeting for the foreseeable future, unless the programs meet in the A-10 Tournament, as UMass is set to move to the Mid-American Conference next year.
St. Bonaventure has played just four schools more – Canisius (172 meetings), Niagara (162), Duquesne (131) and Saint Joseph’s (84).
UMass holds a 42-36 series lead after dominating the early years, but the Bonnies have won 13 of the past 14 meetings and 17 of the last 20. The Minutemen snapped what was a 10-game Bonnies winning streak in the series in March 2023 as UMass came away with a 71-61 home win.
Last year, though, the Bonnies got back on the winning side of things as they scored a season sweep with a home win, 79-73, before taking a 75-67 victory in Amherst.
Last month, the Bonnies controlled from nearly start to finish in a 73-59 win in Massachusetts. Chance Moore posted a double-double of 15 points and 10 rebounds while Lajae Jones (14 points), Melvin Council Jr. (12), Noel Brown (12) and Jonah Hinton (11) completed a well-rounded scoring attack. Bona limited the Minutemen to 18-of-51 overall from the floor and just 3-17 from distance.
ABOUT UMASS
• Massachusetts is coached by Frank Martin in his second season with the program. When hired, he brought to the table 10 years of experience at South Carolina, where he took the program to its first Final Four as a seven seed in 2017. Last season, he led the Minutemen to a 20-11 record and a Myrtle Beach Invitational title, though the Bonnies swept the season series, 2-0.
• This season UMass has found success from the paint, as they rank ninth nationally in offensive rebounds per game (14) and 19th nationally in blocks per game (5.0) . They also rank 18th among all D-I teams in combined rebounds per game. Pacing the team on the glass is senior forward Daniel Rivera, who grabs an average of 7.3 boards per game. A fellow forward, 6’10 junior Shahid Muhammad, is the team’s current blocks leader, totaling 43 on the year.
• Senior guard Rahsool Diggins ranks sixth among all A-10 players in scoring at over 17 points per contest while his 81 3-pointers on the year are fifth-most in the league on a conference-high 254 trey attempts. Rivera (11.5 ppg) and Jaylen Curry (13.2 ppg) each add scoring threats as well. Curry also stands second in the A-10 for assistto-turnover ratio this season at 2.9.
• The Minutemen bring momentum to Western New York as they scored a 91-88 home win vs. Rhode Island on Saturday. Diggins poured in 29 points with six assists while Curry totaled 22 points and eight helpers.
ATHLETES OF THE WEEK
The GoBonnies.com Student-Athletes of the Week presented by CPL for the week ending March 2, 2025 are baseball redshirt sophomore Conner Vercollone and women’s lacrosse junior Megan Schillinger.
conner vercollone
Vercollone helped key a 3-0 weekend for Bonnies baseball as they swept a round robin tournament in Tennessee. For the weekend, he slashed .462/.429/.692 with six hits and seven RBIs. He had hits in all three games and multiple RBIs in each contest.
Against Old Dominion on Friday night, he slammed a game-changing three-run home run to help send the Bonnies to a 7-4 victory. The next day against Middle Tennessee, he went 3-for-4 at the plate with two RBIs in a 13-3 win. In the weekend finale vs. UT Martin Sunday night, he again delivered two hits, two RBIs and scored twice.
For the season, the Massachusetts native is hitting .361 with a .455 on-base percentage along with two homers and is tied for the team lead with 13 RBIs.
The Bonnies are 7-3 on the year for their best start since 2016 and play nationally ranked Vanderbilt and defending national champion Tennessee on the road this week.
Schillinger tallied 31 draw controls over a three-game stretch to surpass the Bona’s single-season record in the stat category. Her eighth and final draw control at South Florida Sunday gave her 69 on the season, passing teammate Brooke Piper’s mark of 68 set last season.
The Honeoye Falls, N.Y. native also bested her own record for single-game draw controls with 14 in a dominant 17-6 win at Stetson. She previously set the single-game mark against Canisius earlier this season and matched that number at Youngstown State Feb. 22.
Schillinger’s 9.83 draw controls per game ranks seventh among Division I players coming into the week and is best in the Atlantic 10 Conference.
megan schillinger
2024-25 St. Bonaventure athletic
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NCAA ATHLETICS UPDATE
St. Bonaventure University intends to opt into the House v. NCAA settlement, a landmark resolution addressing past restrictions on student-athlete compensation.
The deadline to opt in was March 1. U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken won't rule on a final approval of the settlement before an April 7 hearing.
The decision allows the university to develop a more sustainable and equitable model for collegiate athletics while securing protections from future litigation related to name, image and likeness (NIL) restrictions.
"This is a move designed to strengthen our university as a whole, not just Athletics. President Gingerich and our Board of Trustees recognize the value a successful men's basketball program brings to the university, and I appreciate their leadership in this moment of significant change," said Bob Beretta, vice president and director of Intercollegiate Athletics. "Opting in to the settlement terms will allow St. Bonaventure Athletics to remain competitive nationally and to continue to deliver our student-athletes a championship experience.
"We will utilize our department resources strategically and develop pathways for student-athlete financial support that haven't existed previously. We are excited about the opportunities that lie ahead."
The decision will not increase the financial investment the university makes in the Department of Athletics, said Dr. Jeff Gingerich, university president.
"From both a branding and historical perspective, remaining competitive in a league with the footprint and reputation of the Atlantic 10 is important for us," Gingerich said. "Maintaining the status quo just didn't make sense because the decision to opt in is essentially a procedural change. We're focusing primarily on the
method in which benefits are delivered to student-athletes rather than the level of investment the university makes in athletics."
Opting into the settlement gives schools institutional control over player agreement details, shifting fundraising and accountability for player compensation from externally managed "collectives" — in SBU's case Team Unfurl, formed by several alumni in 2023 — to the university.
Team Unfurl will continue to operate as an important support mechanism for SBU's athletics program. The collective will continue to actively fundraise for SBU student-athlete NIL opportunities and pursue new and creative revenue streams.
The House v. NCAA settlement requires all Division I schools — even those that choose not to opt into the student-athlete compensation portion of the agreement — to pay into the $2.8 billion settlement over the next 10 years to compensate current and former college athletes for the NCAA's use of their name, image and likeness (NIL).
To fulfill its part of the financial settlement, St. Bonaventure will contribute an estimated $263,000 per year over the next 10 years to the payout fund and adhere to new roster and scholarship limits.
Annual contributions from each school are dependent on a number of factors, including the number of teams sponsored at the Division I level and the amount of athletic aid distributed by each institution.
The Power Four conferences and those who opt into the settlement must also adjust to newly mandated roster caps for all NCAA sports.
The roster cap requirement shouldn't have a negative impact on university enrollment, Beretta said.
"Some of our sports may lose a few athletes, but with the growth of our track program and the ability of some of our other sports to reach their roster limits, we don't anticipate an adverse effect on enrollment," he said.
The NCAA and Power Four conferences — the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12 and SEC — are named in the lawsuit and settlement and members of those leagues are required to opt in to the settlement.
