TEAM ROSTERS
ST. BONAVENTURE BONNIES
HEAD COACH: Mark Schmidt
ASSOCIATE HEAD COACH: STEVE CURRAN -- ASSISTANT COACHES: Sean neal -- chris lowe
LA SALLE EXPLORERS HEAD COACH:
FRAN DUNPHY
ASSISTANT COACHES: JOHN COX -- Donnie Carr -- Mark Hueber
GAME NOTES
• St. Bonaventure remains at home looking to maintain its recent momentum, entering Wednesday’s Reilly Center matchup with La Salle riding a three-game winning streak. The recent hot streak, highlighted by wins over VCU and Richmond on the road before a victory on home court vs. Dayton last weekend, has lifted the Bonnies to third-place in the current Atlantic 10 standings.
• Freshman Yann Farell was named the Atlantic 10 Rookie of the Week for the fourth time on Monday. Farell averaged 14.5 points in two games last week, pouring in a team-best 18 in a win at Richmond before adding 11 points and three assists vs. Dayton. He shot 10-for-16 overall from the floor during the week and was successful on 7-of-10 tries from long distance. He now has more Rookie of the Week honors this year than any other A-10 newcomer and is one of just three players in SBU program history to take the award four or more times, joining Alvin Lott who did so five times in 1983-84 and Andrew Nicholson who owns the program record of six awards in 2008-09.
• Chad Venning is also on this week’s Atlantic 10 Honor Roll after scoring 17 points in each of last week’s wins. In the three-game winning streak, Venning has averaged 15.7 ppg while shooting over 68% percent from the floor (22-32). He went 8-for-9 from the field in Saturday’s win vs. Dayton.
• Bona has been winning without a ton of scoring from its starting backcourt of Daryl Banks III and Kyrell Luc, the team’s two leading scorers on the year. Banks has posted 8.3 ppg with just three field goals in the past three games, while Luc is also at 8.3 ppg in that span. Banks’ shooting slump has not impacted his overall game, though, as he has contributed 6.0 rpg along with handing out 12 assists as opposed to two turnovers in the last three contests.
• Venning, meanwhile, leads the team in scoring in the last three games, ahead of Farell (14.7 ppg) and Moses Flowers (12.7 ppg). Farell has shot 12-for-17 from 3-point land (70.6%) in that span.
• February has been a winning time for the Bonnies over the years. The Bonnies have an active nine-game winning streak during the month. That total is the third-longest such February win streak nationally, behind only Buffalo (13) and South Dakota State (11). St. Bonaventure is 44-14 during the month since 2016 and has won 32 of its past 41 February contests. Bona’s last February loss was at Richmond Feb. 4, 2022 (71-61).
ABOUT LA SALLE
• La Salle has a first-year coach, but one who has as much experience as anyone in the game with Fran Dunphy taking over the program this past summer. With him, Dunphy brings three decades of experience as a head coach including a run from 2006-19 at Temple, much of that time spent in the Atlantic 10. His teams have reached 17 NCAA Tournaments. Dunphy is a La Salle alumnus, graduating from the university in 1970 after playing for both the Explorers basketball and baseball teams.
• The Explorers are 4-6 in conference play but have won back-to-back games over George Washington (75-64) and Saint Joseph’s (73-65) since the calendar turned to February. At 4-5 away from home court, La Salle is also one of the A-10’s better road teams in a season that has been difficult for conference travelers.
• La Salle ranks 11th in A-10 offense at 68.6 ppg and 14th in defense, allowing 72.3 ppg on average. The Explorers have a true prospective all-conference selection in sophomore guard Khalil Brantley who ranks 16th in league scoring at 14.1 ppg and eighth in assists at 4.0 apg. Junior Jhamir Brickus is a three-point threat, ranking second in the league by shooting 44% from deep while senior Josh Nickelberry’s 46 made 3-pointers lead the team and stand ninth in the league. Nickelberry is a Louisville transfer who joined La Salle last year and posted 11.2 ppg. La Salle also picked up a pair of transfers from Saint Peter’s, and former teammates of Bona guard Daryl Banks III, in brothers Hassan and Fousseyni Drame. Hassan posts 6.3 ppg with 4.0 rpg while Fousseyni leads the team on the glass at 5.7 rpg and ranks third in scoring at 9.3 ppg.
GAME SCHEDULE
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MAX AMADASUN’S BASKETBALL JOURNEY LEADS TO BONA’S
By Jack Angelucci, Athletic Communications Intern29.5 inches.
That’s the size of a standard basketball. As it turns out, that 29.5-inch ball was all it would take to bring Max Amadasun on a journey from across the pond in Dublin, Ireland to the Enchanted Mountains of Western New York.
Ten years ago, if you told a young Amadasun this is how his early 20s would play out, suiting up for St. Bonaventure’s basketball team, that young Irish kid of Nigerian descent would most likely give you a bewildered look.
That’s because, up until his teenage years, the sport that had the heart of the now 6-foot-10 Bonaventure center required a ball at his feet, not in his hands.
“Growing up in Ireland, basketball obviously isn’t the main sport,
so I wasn’t introduced to it straight away,” said Amadasun, who spent two seasons at Pittsburgh before transferring into the Bonnies program this summer. “I actually played soccer first and I credit that to a lot of my game in basketball because it translates with the footwork. When I was about 13 or 14 one of my friends told me to come join his team and after the first practice, I loved it.”
Once Amadasun’s love affair with basketball was off and running, after a few years of development in Ireland, he found himself in the ‘Mecca of Basketball’ playing for Our Savior Lutheran in the Bronx. Despite a high motor and desire to get better, the adjustment to basketball, especially in New York City, took time before things started to click.
“At first it was very tough; I didn’t know anybody. The competition was a lot better, but once I got used to it, I really enjoyed it,” explained the redshirt sophomore.
Continued on page 15
ATHLETES OF THE WEEK
Venning helped key a pair of Bonnies victories last week, averaging 17.0 points and 7.0 rebounds while shooting 80 percent from the floor, making 16 of 20 field goal tries.
At Richmond last Wednesday, the Brooklyn native went 8-for-11 from the floor and poured in 17 points, adding six rebounds and two blocks as the Bonnies held on for a season sweep of the Spiders. Saturday vs. Dayton, he dominated inside for 17 points again on 8-of9 shooting with eight rebounds, three blocks and two steals.
Roy shined in two events for the Bonnies’ indoor track team at the Brockport Multis this past Saturday.
The first-year collegiate runner from Center Moriches, N.Y. broke the existing school record in the 3000 meters and will now stand second behind teammate Mia Winters after her run of 11:11.34. In the mile, Roy showed the way for the Bonnies as she crossed the finish line in 5:29.89, good for fifth out of over 35 competitors in the event and also jumping to third in program history. She also bested her previous mile time to start the indoor season by nearly 10 full seconds.
The Bonnies track teams are back in action this Friday at RIT while the men’s basketball team returns to play Wednesday vs. La Salle.
This week’s GoBonnies.com Student-Athletes of the Week presented by CPL are men’s basketball redshirt sophomore Chad Venning and women’s track freshman Helena Roy.CHad Venning Helena roy
Continued from page 9
BONNIES FEATURE
Following that acclamation period, the tall, 250-pound Irishman became a load to deal with for forwards in the New York City area. As a senior, Amadasun averaged 13 points and 11 boards, as he guided Our Savior Lutheran to a 36-4 record. Along the way came opportunities to represent Ireland in international competition, including the U-16 Euros in 2016, where he averaged over 11 rebounds per outing.
All this culminated in Amadasun being ranked the fifth overall prospect in New York for his class, with a passion for competing to go with it.
“The main thing about the game in New York is you learn to never back down from your opponent,” he said. “There is a lot of one-on-one action; you get the Dykeman, Rucker Park, you’re brought up playing one-onone. You learn to go at your matchup and play relentlessly.”
That relentless playing style drew the attention of college coaches, including Atlantic 10 foes like Rhode Island and UMass, who flooded Amadasun with offers. He eventually decided on Pittsburgh of the
ACC and spent two years with the Panthers.
During Amadasun’s time in Western Pennsylvania, he appeared in 11 games for Pitt in a limited role before heading off to explore other options, eventually choosing St. Bonaventure as his destination.
“The sense of all the work, staying focused on the main thing which was winning games and getting better was the best thing they sold me on. Obviously, that’s the main thing I was looking for in a school,” shared Amadasun when asked what appealed to him about SBU.
As a self-described curious person who is eager to learn, the Bonnies new center doesn’t back down at the challenge of learning a new system.
“Coach Schmidt, he’s a mastermind. I’ve seen a lot of the stuff he runs with his teams from previous games, and I really like the way his system is run,” he said. “I feel like my playing style can fit with a lot of teams.”
Amadasun, a computer science major, also comes to Bonaventure seeing the bigger picture down the road. He aspires to work with technology and software “that can better the world” once his days of locking down opponents on the block is over.
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