Onions! St. Bonaventure beats St. Louis on a game-winner, but it’s the stuff behind the drama that counts

“The biggest shot of the year,” coach Mark Schmidt said. “Probably one of the biggest shots in Bonaventure’s history.”

“It’s every player’s dream to hit that big shot,” said Gathers, who admitted it was his first career game-winner. “When I let it go, I knew it was going in.”

This was the first of my career.

Here’s the thing, though: they don’t just “happen”. There’s a difference between Madness and magic. Basketball is too gradual of a game, a game built on dozens and dozens of possessions rather than a few big plays, for Madness to be unexplainable. Behind each upset, behind each game-winner, are a series of things that lead to the less-probable team being in position to win after 40 minutes of basketball.

The Bonnies aren’t a bad team -- at No. 84 in Ken Pomeroy’s rankings, they’re better than most small-conference teams that will be dancing -- but this wasn’t supposed to be their game. St. Bonaventure had lost the only regular season matchup against the Billikens en route to a 6-10 conference record, while St. Louis went 13-3 and were ranked as high as No. 10 in the nation.

But towards the end of the first half, Schmidt strode towards halfcourt and changed the game with an arm gesture. He made a big ol’ X. Turn it 90 degrees, and it’s a T, which is kinda like the shape a team’s players make when they play the 1-3-1 zone defense.

“The first half, they hurt us inside, we played much more man-to-man,” Schmidt said. “The 1-3-1 defensively is what won the game for us.”

It’s not their base set, although the Bonnies ran it for a few possessions in their first round game against La Salle. But Schmidt had asked his players to run the 1-3-1 during the first matchup against the Billikens, and turned to it again in Brooklyn.

I love the 1-3-1, because it’s an incredibly silly defense, and one with obvious flaws. But when played in the right situation against the right team, it’s awesome.

In summary: the ballhandler bringing the ball across halfcourt is forced to one side by the man up top and double-teamed by one wing defender, with a light triple-team provided by the center, who plays in, well, the center. The good news is that the zone prevents any sort of penetration, since you’ve got three guys guarding one guy. The bad news is it allows lots of open threes, and that a crisp, clean pass can easily defeat the defense, because four guys are being guarded by two guys.

Whether or not a team can get off a crisp, clean pass is a matter of two things. First, the defense’s own players: are they athletic and relentless enough to leap and sprawl for 35 seconds, to make any pass tough? And if a player gets off a slow, wobbly pass, can they recover quickly and go provide that same relentless leaping and sprawling on the player who gets that pass?

And secondly, the opposition: How ready are they to face a weird defense? The way defenders play in the 1-3-1 is totally different from a man or 2-3 zone, and of the hundreds of hours of hoops a college basketball player has played in their life, they’ve probably played against a 1-3-1 for a few minutes here and there. When faced with three guys charging them, do they have to think about which pass to make, or do they just make the pass without hesitation?

Schmidt knew a lot of the factors at play beforehand.

He knew he had players apt for the non-traditional roles players have to undertake in the 1-3-1. He had Youssou N’Doye, the 7-foot center from Senegal, more spring than stiff, with the length to disrupt passes and agility to recover and prevent easy looks if the zone were to get beat.

He knew he needed to get the ball out of Jett’s hands.

“They run such good half-court offense,” Schmidt said. “They execute tremendously, they swing the ball side to side. It’s really hard to guard them.”

He knew St. Louis could be trusted to miss open shots, as they hit just 32.0 percent of their threes on the year.

“They’re not a great three-point shooting team stat-wise,” Schmidt said. “So we thought our zones could be effective against them.”

But what he didn’t know was how the Billikens would handle the zone. How would they react when faced with unfamiliar pressure?

The answer: kinda poorly.

“We were just holding the ball, and not attacking it,” said St. Louis guard Mike McCall Jr. “They were trying to turn us over, and I thought we should be more aggressive.”

St. Louis coach Jim Crews was baffled.

“We couldn’t get our guys in the right positions for some reason,” Crews said. “I don’t know what the heck was going on.”

Of the Billikens’ 13 turnovers, 10 came in the second half. Jett was limited, finishing with nine points and eight assists after his hot start. And the Bonnies turned their big deficit into a five-point lead late.

Gathers’ shot is the highlight, the thing you’ll see on replay. And although we’ll remember the big stuff, like Gathers’ shot, the stuff that allowed it to happen is just as important.