What Could’ve Been for St. Bonaventure

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For a small school with an enrollment of 1,678 undergrads, St. Bonaventure has very few things that has stood the test of time throughout the past few decades. That one major thing that St. Bonaventure students and alumni have been able to lean on during the long and cold winters is the basketball team.

This year, St. Bonaventure was on the cusp of an NCAA Tournament at-large berth. It would’ve been the schools first appearance since the 2012 season, and their first at-large birth since the year 2000. Everything looked to be in favor of St. Bonaventure’s side on Selection Sunday. The bubble teams that were right there with us were losing left and right. The teams making deep conference tournament runs that could’ve potentially stolen a bid for Bonaventure, lost when we needed them to. It all seemed to be going in favor of St. Bonaventure’s way.

Then 5:30 P.M. came around.

Greg Gumble went through half of the bracket without the Bonnies name being called. It seemed like it was a fake mirage appearing right in front of me. I went to Twitter to check the reaction of other fans and to get a sense of what everyone else at Bona nation was thinking.

That was the biggest mistake I could’ve made.

Right as my timeline opened, I saw the leaked bracket from CBS that had every team filled for the other half of the bracket. I was heartbroken. St. Bonaventure’s name was not on the list and I thought that it was a fake bracket and we would be alright. Minutes later we come to find the bracket is 100% correct and the Bonnies are heading to the NIT for the first time since 2002.

The NIT is great and all but it makes you wonder, what could’ve been for St. Bonaventure if we had made the NCAA Tournament this year?

NEW YORK, NY - MARCH 11: Jaylen Adams #10 of the St. Bonaventure Bonnies grabs the ball against Jack Gibbs #12 of the Davidson Wildcats during the Quarterfinals of the Atlantic 10 Basketball Tournament at the Barclays Center on March 11, 2016 in New York, New York. (Photo by Al Bello/Getty Images)
(Photo by Al Bello/Getty Images)

Well, the NCAA will be missing out on probably what would’ve been one of it’s best story lines.

The University has been going through some tough times with a hurting admission, having their longtime President have to step down due to cancer. Then there is the basketball team, a team with 22 regular season wins, two great guards in Marcus Posley, a great forward in Dion Wright, who never had a Division-1 scholarship besides St. Bonaventure.

Even fellow St. Bonaventure foe, Phil Martelli, had words to stay to the committee about St. Bonaventure’s absence from the field of 68.

Well, the committee missed out.

Instead we will see an NCAA tournament with very little parity then past years. The bubble teams include some of the perennial college powerhouses including Michigan and Vanderbilt.

Now, we can go on all day about as to why we didn’t get in, who deserved to be in, and so on.

But, this is a time as a campus and school, where we got to take this one on the chin and to keep moving forward. We still have an NIT Championship to win and to show the committee why they made the mistake of not putting us in.

St. Bonaventure basketball will always have my heart and soul from early November to March for the rest of my life, and I’m here to say that I am damn proud of that. As a fan, I know this coach and team has to capability of bringing glory back to this team again.

It’s tough times right now for Bonnies fans, they won’t be lasting too long because these times of glory will be back very soon.

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