Bishop Canevin point guard named MVP
Walter Bonds averaged 16 points and five assists per game as he lead Bishop Canevin to the Final Four in the WPIAL and PIAA tournaments.
Walter Bonds stuffed plenty into Bishop Canevin’s 22-6 season. In addition to pumping in 16 points, he dished up five assists and grabbed four rebounds a game. He also picked up two steals a game.
Walter Bonds will continue his basketball career at St. Vincent College. The Bearcats have won five of the last six championships in the Presidents’ Athletic Conference.
Walter Bonds led the Crusaders to the Section 2-AAA championship as well as the Final Four in both the WPIAL and PIAA tournaments. He averaged 16 points and five rebounds a game.
Walter Bonds had an MVP basketball year. The Bishop Canevin senior led his team to the Final Four in both the district and state tournaments. He earned all-section acclaim. He averaged 16 points to go along with five assists, four rebounds and two steals per game.
Only one thing was missing from his sensational season. His father.
Leon Bonds, 76, passed away Dec. 4, 2016, five days before the 2016-17 campaign commenced for the Crusaders.
“That is the one regret,” Bonds said. “I wished he could have seen our basketball season.
“Losing my father was the hardest thing I had to do,” he continued. “It was all of a sudden.”
Within a month of being diagnosed with Stage 4 lung cancer, Leon Bonds was dead. “He never smoked,” said his son, who added, “He was everything to me.”
In addition to being Dad, Leon Bonds served as coach, mentor and friend to his son.
“Just him being there, I miss the most. He was always someone to talk to,” said the 18-year-old son of Cheryl Bonds. “I got started in basketball because of him.”
At age 5, Bonds picked up a basketball at his father’s urging. His dad played at Norfolk State University before getting his advanced degrees in education at the University of Virginia. Through his years at St. Phillip in Crafton, Bonds played basketball for his father, who served as an assistant coach.
“We were very good,” Bonds said. “We made it to the quarterfinals in the Diocese (of Pittsburgh) playoffs. He was a great coach.”
Indeed, for Bonds developed into one of the great players in the WPIAL. He’s been a multiple all-section performer and a reason why the Crusaders turned around a program that was long on losing, 15-31 from 2013-14. This season, he engineered the Crusaders to their first appearance in a Final Four contest in the PIAA tournament.
“Walter was the most valuable player for us,” said Canevin coach Kevin Trost. “He did all of the ball handling for our team, guarded the best perimeter players on the other team and established the tempo for us. He enabled us to play a style of offense that suited the strengths of the other players. We had a lot of shooters and Walter’s ability to penetrate and find the shooters allowed us to be successful on offense.”
Throughout his years at Canevin, Bonds was successful on offense. He completed his scholastic career as a 1,000-point scorer. In addition to his overwhelming statistics, this season he converted 48 percent of his field goals; 70 percent of his free throws and buried 38 three-pointers as the Crusaders compiled a 22-6 record, complete with a Section 2-AA championship.
“I realized all my goals. The only one was not winning a WPIAL title or a state championship. Everything else I achieved,” Bonds said. “Besides I played the game with my best friends and that was the greatest experience.”
One of his best friends and teammates also was his brother, Julian, who ranks No. 1 in his senior class and plans to attend Notre Dame. Bonds, who will play basketball at St. Vincent, however gravitated more to the position of point guard while Julian and the rest of his teammates relied on him to feed them the ball.
“Point guard fits my personality,” Bonds said. “I love being a leader on the court. I love that feeling of having extra responsibility. I love the feeling of being a facilitator. This year, because I was a senior, there was extra responsibility as a captain and I embraced that.”
Bonds embraced dishing up the assist as much as dropping in the points. While he pumped in career highs of 31 points against Sewickley Academy and Our Lady of the Sacred Heart this season, he recalls the assists in those contests more.
He noted he had four against OLSH at Ambridge in the PIAA quarterfinals but five against Sewickley Academy in a section confrontation. The Panthers went on to win both the WPIAL and PIAA titles.
“To me an assist is the same thing as scoring and I’d have to say the game against Sewickley Academy was my best because I had more assists,” Bonds said. “I love that feeling of making a nice pass. I’d rather us win because I made a nice pass than for us to lose and I did all this scoring.”
That’s a lesson Bonds learned at home. “For sure,” he said. And that’s why he will long recall playing basketball at Bishop Canevin.
“I dedicated my senior season to my father,” he said. “That’s makes it special. That makes it memorable.”