By Paul Gotham
St. Bonaventure’s Bonnies open the 2012-13 season as the reigning champions of the Atlantic 10. Just don’t expect them to imitate their former selves. That’s not to say the Bonnies don’t have their sights set on cutting down the nets at the Barclay’s Center next St. Patrick’s Day. It’s just that if Bona is to repeat, they will need to use a different means to accomplish that end.
After more than three years of developing a game plan around Andrew Nicholson, the Bonnies will adjust their style of play. Fans and opponents alike can expect the Brown and White to generate more offensive production from the perimeter.
“We want to try and make it a much faster-paced game and try to use our size to our advantage,” said SBU head coach Mark Schmidt during the recent A-10 media day at the Barclay’s Center in Brooklyn, New York. “We’re not going to be the biggest team, but hopefully we can get up and down and try to space it out more.”
To that end Charlon Kloof is sure to play a valuable role. The junior point guard with a penchant for harassing opposing ballhandlers and moving the ball in transition will be counted upon mightily this season.
“We’re expecting big things from him,” Schmidt said of Kloof. “He’s our hardest worker. He fits what we’re trying to do.”
His offensive numbers, at first glance, look modest. Kloof finished ’11-’12 averaging 2.7 assists per game while committing 1.7 turnovers. He hit 37 percent (22-59) from behind the three-point arc.
“It is so hard in your first year to be able to play the way you are capable of playing because you’re thinking,” Schmidt explained. “As the season went along, he played so much better because he got comfortable. He understood what we wanted as a coaching staff.”
After splitting time at the point with Eric Mosley for much of the year, Kloof played an increased role as the Bonnies won seven of eight including three in Atlantic City to claim the A10 title. The native of Paramaribo, Suriname was at his best when Bona claimed the A10 crown for the first time in school history. He handed out eight assists as the Bonnies won three straight at the Boardwalk Hall. At the same time, he committed just four turnovers while adding four steals and five rebounds.
But Kloof’s full impact can not be understood from his offensive numbers. The 6-3 guard with a wingspan of at least that much, quickly earned a reputation as a pest on the defensive end of the floor.
“He’s a really good defender,” Schmidt continued. “In our league, there are really good scoring point guards. As the season went along he got better in his overall game. He got better offensively. He got more comfortable. But from a defensive standpoint, he was good the whole year. He’s somebody that can really stop guys. Sometimes we put him on the two guard if the two guard is a big-time scorer.”
It was Kloof that wore down Xavier’s Tu Holloway in the A10 championship limiting the pre-season conference co-player of the year to just one field goal in the second half.
“He’s a muscular, strong, physical guard,” Xavier coach Chris Mack said last March after Bonaventure’s 64-53 win in the finals. “He does a great job when he’s defending a ball screen. He doesn’t even make his post partners work. They don’t have to because he does a great job of blowing it up. He gets into the ball handler and it’s as though there is no ball screen.”
With the likes of Kevin Dillard (Dayton), Carl Jones (St. Joseph’s), Kwamain Mitchell (St. Louis) and Chaz Williams (UMass), Kloof faces another year of challenges.
St. Joseph’s head coach Phil Martelli got an up close look at Kloof late last season. Martelli and his Hawks fell to the Bonnies twice in ten days.
“His package and his drive doesn’t come out on film,” Martelli said recently. “Then all of sudden when you’re playing against him, you realize what he can do. He’s a point guard, and those guys are starting to go the way of the dinosaur in our game. So I’m a fan of his, a real fan.”
By no means will Kloof be alone in his efforts. The Bonnies return six other players who averaged double-digit minutes a season ago. Beyond that, Michael Davenport and Marquise Simmons return to the lineup. Both were injured well in advance of conference play and received a redshirt season.
“I’m not going to lie to you; missing Andrew is a big loss,” Schmidt said. “But our team last year was more than Andrew Nicholson. Andrew was in foul trouble sometimes, and I thought our guys played pretty well. We’re going to have to change how we play a little bit. We don’t have that horse inside, that inside guy.”
The Bonnies are picked to finish 11th in the now-loaded Atlantic 10. But if any team knows how slight the difference is between four or five spots in the standings, it is SBU. The Bonnies strung together four straight wins last February to jump from eighth to fourth.
“All those perimeter have to take another step,” Schmidt continued. “In the development of a player and the development of a program, you expect those guys to take that next step. We may not be as good as we were last year, but I think our guys have a little bit of a chip on their shoulder and to try to prove that it wasn’t just a one man team.”
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