St. Bonaventure is best known for a successful basketball program that plays in the Atlantic 10 Conference. Nearly every member of the spirited student body attends home games,
leading ESPN to call St. Bonaventure one of the top-five "worst places to play" in the
country, along with Duke and Michigan. Bob Lanier played at St. Bonaventure, as did the Stith Brothers. Most good St. Bonaventure
players go on to play in the top European leagues, especially France's Pro-A and Italy's Serie-A. The last St. Bonaventure player
to play in the NBA was J.R.
Bremer, who played for the Boston Celtics in 2002 and the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2003.The men's and women's basketball teams, among others, play at the Reilly Center Arena. The Arena seats around 6,900, and is usually sold out
during basketball season. Many folks from the Olean area have been season ticket holders for years.It was basketball that made St. Bonaventure infamous in the spring of 2002. The
basketball team had admitted a young man named Jamil Terrell who had played for a junior college in Georgia. NCAA
rules require that junior college transfer hold an associate's degree, but Terrell only had a certificate. Other Atlantic-10 schools knew this and refused to
take Terrell. The men's basketball coach wanted him anyways, and along with the university president, ordered Terrell admitted
over the objections of the athletics director and the athletics department's compliance officer.The story broke over spring break in 2002. During the week while students were away from campus, the basketball team was
scheduled to play an away game. Called together by the basketball coach and the university president, the young men were
admonished to play so as to not embarrass the school administration. Faced with such deceit, they refused to play the game, and
this refusal made national headlines.The ensuing scandal resulted in the dismissal of the coach and the president, along with devastating sanctions to the
basketball program, not to mention the deep wounds to school pride and the university community.The scandalous president was replaced by interim president Father Dominic Monti
OFM, a friar and church history professor, who did much to heal the wounds in the university community and regain the respect
it deserved nationally. Monti stepped aside in the summer of 2004 in favor of a permanent replacement, Sister Margaret
Carney OSF, and received a number of awards from the university for his service.The current men's basketball coach is former Notre Dame assistant Anthony Solomon.