(Photo credit: GoBonnies.com)

By Chuckie Maggio @chuckiemaggio

If St. Bonaventure fans were told before Wednesday night’s game against Buffalo that the team would make just two of its 21 attempted three-pointers, shoot just nine three throws to the Bulls’ 32 and score one time in the last 6:14 of the game, they would most likely fear a blowout loss.

Instead of a demoralizing defeat that would have put a sour taste in their mouths, the Bonnies escaped Amherst, N.Y. with a 60-58 victory in a game that had two of the alumni clad in brown and white heading to the exits exclaiming, “we’ll take it!”

Those alumni can give a lot of thanks to Wright, who was the exception to the brown and white’s otherwise feeble shooting performance, setting a career-high with 26 points on 12-of-19 shooting and dishing to Posley for the game-winner with eight seconds left. He was one of five Bona players to pick up three or more fouls in the contest, but that didn’t limit his aggressiveness. He played all 20 minutes in the first half, scoring 16 points in the period, then stayed out of foul trouble and kept his team in the game in the second.

“All the credit goes to Dion; I don’t take any credit,” said Posley. “Just because I hit that last shot doesn’t mean anything. Dion kept us in the game.”

Wright’s previous high point total came in last year’s Atlantic 10 Tournament quarterfinal loss to Dayton, where he went for 24 thanks to a remarkable shooting night that included a remarkable and unexpected four threes. Against Buffalo, however, it was back to business as usual: dominating down low, with 11 of 12 baskets coming in the painted area.

“My teammates found me in positions where I was able to score, and I just tried to make the most out of my opportunities when I caught the ball,” Wright said.

The Bonnies have played the Bulls all four years Wright has been playing. He didn’t play a major role in the first two games, but made his last two matchups against one of the team’s Big Four rivals count, averaging 22.5 points and shooting 58 percent from the field.

“He played terrific… he kept us in the game,” said head coach Mark Schmidt. “Our guards weren’t shooting the ball well, but Dion was effective. He’s a hard matchup, because he’s a four-man who can take guys off the dribble. We wouldn’t have won without his offensive output.”

Schmidt’s assessment was an understatement. Wright shot at a 63 percent clip from the field while the rest of the team shot 30 percent. Posley had double-digits with 13 and came through in the clutch as he has many times in his brief Bonaventure career, but was an inefficient 6-of-18 on his field goals and 1-of-8 from three. Jaylen Adams was the only other Bonnie with more than five, but he shot 1-of-8 and missed all three deep balls. All six of Nelson Kaputo’s shots were threes; he only made one. Denzel Gregg only played 10 minutes due to foul trouble and ended up reaching the limit of five, so he was not able to continue his early-season offensive contributions.

One of Schmidt’s favorite lines in postgame press conferences is that “every dog has its day,” or that “everybody’s going to get their day in the sun” offensively. On a night where SBU found themselves unable to hit jumpers in a road environment, Wright was the top dog giving his team the upper hand.

Buffalo coach Nate Oats summed up Wright’s performance the way many Bona opponents have: “I’m not gonna be sad to see him leave, for sure. He hurt us two years in a row now.”

By Chuckie Maggio @chuckiemaggio

When the Atlantic 10 announced its preseason all-conference teams at its media day last month, it seemed like the only person with St. Bonaventure connections who wasn’t up in arms over the league snubbing senior forward Dion Wright was Wright himself.

After ranking 11th in the conference in points per game with 13.5, eighth in field goal percentage at just over 54 percent and 11th in rebounds with seven a contest, many expected the Carson, Calif. native to be voted one of the A-10’s top 15 players. When he wasn’t picked, however, Wright showed indifference.

“That’s a great accomplishment, I’m not gonna lie, but at the end of the day I play for my teammates and my family,” Wright said. “I just want to win; everything else will take care of itself.”

The Bonnies won 18 games for the second consecutive year last season, winning four more conference games than they did the year before. The ten A-10 wins tied for the second-best mark in school history, and Wright had one of the biggest impacts in the successful year.

Posley was the leader on offense and Ndoye was the defensive anchor, but Wright was arguably the Bonnies’ best player; he was definitely the most consistent. The player some fans affectionately call “the worm” for his ability to sqirm and weave his way to the basket and score with ease recorded double-digit points in 26 of the team’s 29 games last season, shooting over 50 percent in 20 of them.

One of the scariest things for SBU’s opponents this year is the three-point shot Wright displayed in the Atlantic 10 Tournament quarterfinal loss to Dayton. After coming into the game a career three-of-20 shooter from beyond the arch, he made four threes in five attempts against the Flyers while also making all six of his two-point attempts.

The 24-point performance in Brooklyn was a career best, but the Bonnies fell short in the game’s final minute, losing 75-71 to a Flyers team that won 27 games, including two in the NCAA tournament.

Wright has not forgotten the sting of losing after the game of his life.

“It obviously hurt,” he said. “We were right there and should’ve won the game but didn’t. You’ve got to learn from it; that should give you fuel to play harder this upcoming season.”

This year, Ndoye is in the NBA D-League with the Austin Spurs, Chris Dees has no NCAA eligibility left, Xavier Smith transferred to Division II Tarleton State and redshirt freshman Jordan Tyson is out indefinitely after surgery for a torn ligament in his wrist. All of these circumstances make the 6-foot-7 Wright one of the team’s biggest players at the start of the season; 6-foot-9 freshman Derrick Woods is the only eligible player listed at a taller height.

Bona will be playing a small-ball, up-tempo game this season, with an offense resembling the mid-2000s Phoenix Suns more than the big-man heavy San Antonio Spurs. Wright is determined to make the new offensive philosophy work.

“We’re going to be undersized but that won’t stop us from being successful. We can use that to our advantage,” said Wright. “We’ve got guys who can push the ball, rebound and run.”

Wright started his Bonaventure career the season after the Bonnies won the Atlantic 10 championship and advanced to the NCAA tourney, so the motivation is there to get a ring before his collegiate career comes to a close. For that to happen, he says the emphasis is on “playing team ball, sacrificing for each other, talking on defense, closing out on defense and playing as hard as possible for 40 minutes.”

“The worm” will go down in Bonaventure lore if he can help the team slither its way to glory this year.

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