Ahmad Smith is one of three holdovers from the 2002-03 team and currently leads the Bonnies in scoring with 14.2 points per game. Craig Melvin/St. Bonaventure Athletics
	Bonnies not the only team rebuilding Stewart Mandel also checks in with Baylor, Georgia and Fresno State as they deal with the aftermath of their own scandals two years ago. Full story

OLEAN, N.Y. -- It is a typically cold and snowy February night in this cozy patch of western New York, but inside St. Bonaventure's Reilly Center, there is a brief moment of warmth. The home team has pulled within one point of Dayton, 58-57, with 3:07 remaining, and the building has awakened. The small but giddy pack of yellow-clad undergrads standing along the baseline is emphatically chanting "DE-FENSE, (clap, clap), DE-FENSE," while the sound of stomping feet reverberates through the rest of the arena. Though the game has been close throughout, only now does it feel like these 4,173 spectators are allowing themselves to believe that victory is possible for their hometown Bonnies.

It is not to be.

Lanky Bonnies guard Patrick Lottin misses an easy lay-in, and walk-on Greg Lewis flubs two free throws as the Flyers go on to win 68-61. No one seems to be particularly angry. For most of these St. Bonaventure fans, resignment has long since replaced any inclination toward frustration, considering their team's depressing fate has little to do with the actual coaches and players on the floor. If anything, these loyal followers walk out to their snow-covered cars feeling something they haven't experienced often the last two years: encouragement.

At a press conference 20 minutes later, Bonnies coach Anthony Solomon can barely suppress a grin. "I'm so impressed with our young men, at how we continue to compete at such a high level," he says. "We've continued to improve, and it showed again tonight."

Solomon is a 5-foot-9, youngish-looking 40-year-old who, in a T-shirt and practice shorts, could be mistaken for one of the team's graduate assistants. He is infectiously optimistic. Speaking one-on-one after the press conference, he smiles and cups a hand to the side of his mouth while talking about his team, like he's giving away a secret.

Listening to him rave about the improvement of the three juniors who will be returning next season and the impact he's expecting from two long-awaited transfers, and for a moment, it's possible to be transported into the rosy future living in Solomon's head.

In the present, however, St. Bonaventure is a 2-24 basketball team whose name is associated with only two things to much of the outside world. "When people at home [in Binghamton, N.Y.] ask me where I go to school," says junior Christina Helczyn, "the first thing we're known for is being the school with the bad basketball team. Or, it's that basketball team that had the welder."