Inconsistent or not, Bona (10-4, 2-1) has yet turned the page. Now halfway through the season, he feels he is still in a very pleasant position. And that’s the mindset he adopts in tonight’s showcase contest against longtime rival Duquesne (7 a.m., ESPN2-TV, WPIG-FM) inside the UPMC Cooper Fieldhouse recently. renovated.

“We’re exactly where we need to be,” senior guard Jaren Holmes said. “We had a stretch in the last game where we couldn’t land any shots. You are going to have times like this. No, I think we are in a good position. A loss on the A-10 record happens with any program in America.

“We’re one of those really good programs, we have those kind of guys. We are looking to bounce back. All our attention is on Duquesne. We’re not really worried about the final game or the VCU game. We are worried about Duquesne and what we need to do to win this game.

THROUGH A two-year renovation process, Bona played his Duquesne road matches at Robert Morris’ UPMC Event Center (2020) and Division III La Roche (2021). It will be his first in the gleaming old Palumbo Center.

The Bonnies are motivated by the opportunity to face an opponent twice a year at a new facility on another national stage.

“As the coach (Schmidt) has said repeatedly, it’s a great rivalry game for us,” Holmes said, “the longest since we’ve been in the A-10. “Duquesne is a very important and they have a nice setup. In fact, I have a friend on Duquesne (Tyson Acuff), we talked about all the new things they have, all the things that benefit them…”

But they also know it gives them the opportunity to really kick off their season. Bona will undoubtedly be the favorite in his next three games (including away against George Mason and at home with Saint Joe’s) before a Feb. 1 showdown with Davidson. Task is now recovering from a disgraceful offense in which it scored 50 points on 35% shooting (19 of 54) on Tuesday, the penultimate two lows of the season (after the Virginia Tech debacle, another match that she eventually bounced back from).

And it’s “very confident” that he can do just that.

“(It’s) just trusting the job,” Holmes said, when asked about his own 1-for-12 outing against the Flyers. “It’s basketball at the end of the day; you will miss shots. It won’t be your night sometimes. Sometimes it’s gonna be an ocean, sometimes it’s gonna be tighter than a cup.

“I’m just going to go for it, not change my work process or the way I try to prepare for each game. I’m just going to try to do the same thing I always do, try to keep the same pace.

Schmidt added: “Yeah, that’s our goal, to go out there and execute better, hopefully drop the ball a bit, but execute both ways. If we can do that then we can have a successful game.

LIKE many others in the A-10, Duquesne, now in his fifth year under Keith Dambrot, is a team in transition.

Gone is the core, including Sincere Carry, Marcus Weathers and Michael Hughes, who led the Dukes to a 21-9 campaign in 2019-20 and started last season together before a series of transfers and graduation losses set in. leaves them at 9-9 in 2020-21 and in rebuilding mode around 2021-22. Bona went 3-0 against this team a year ago, including a 75-59 victory in the quarterfinals of the Atlantic 10 tournament.

In its place is a string of transfers and freshmen, highlighted by a quartet of double-digit scorers in 6-foot-5 Mercer transfer Leon Ayers III (12.5 points) and TCU transfer 6-foot-7 Kevin Easley (12.1), plus 6-3 freshman Amir Spears (12.3) and former Indiana State big man Tre Williams (11 points, 6 rebounds).

Bona has owned this streak lately, winning 13 of the last 15 and 21 of 30 under Schmidt’s tenure. He started playing well in Steel City after a tight losing streak, having won each of his last five visits. And he is expected to win again.

The Dukes (6-9, 1-2) edged UMass (78-74) in their first A-10 game, but have since lost two in a row – a one-point loss to Fordham and a 20-point loss at home against Dayton. Their best victory to date came just before its own COVID-19 break against a UC Irvine team (76-54) that ranks No. 103 in the NET. This, Schmidt noted, is both a young and new Duquesne team that is still gelling and learning Dambrot’s system. His struggles have been evident, as he ranks 224th in the NET, the third-lowest in the conference.

Still, he’s a rival that has traditionally given the Bonnies good games, win or lose (10 of the last 13 games have been decided by seven points or less; last year, Bona won that game at La Roche with a narrow margin of 65-61).

And Schmidt expects the same kind of test tonight.

“They play very hard, they have talent, they play very similarly to how they played last year, kicking the ball into the post,” he said. “They have really good young guards who are really explosive, who can really shoot. They have a 4-man who can stretch the defense, Williams inside is a charge,

“It’s a very good team. They’re all new so they’re still learning the system, but they’re very talented and it’s going to be a tough game for us on the road.