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Braves fall at home

Senior Donte Thomas drives to the basket against Drake Saturday. Thomas finished the loss with 16 points and 12 rebounds.
Photo by Justin Limoges

The Bradley men’s basketball team’s 14-game home win streak has finally come to an end after losing to Drake University, 78-68, in front of a packed Carver Arena crowd last Saturday.

The Braves also lost on the road against Northern Iowa on Wednesday, 74-65. As a result, the Braves are now 17-9 overall and 7-6 in Missouri Valley Conference play.

After recently beating the MVC’s No. 1 team, Loyola University Chicago, the Braves were coming in confident against the Bulldogs, a team who was on a 3-game losing streak.

The game started off evenly and in no team’s favor until four minutes into the half. The Bulldogs were able to go on an 11-0 run to go up 13-8.

It didn’t appear that Bradley was going to let that discourage them, however, as they took a 1-point advantage, 30-29, with 2:48 left on the clock. Nevertheless, the Bulldogs ended with the final word of the half with a 36-33 lead.

Senior forward Donte Thomas said the team started off overconfident and cold.

“We were just too cool at halftime and at practice,” Thomas said. “We needed to step up on our defensive end. [The start of the game] was just a wake up call for us, really.”

The Bulldogs would put the Braves in an unfamiliar position this season during the second half after going on a 15-2 run in a five-minute period. During this time, the Braves were only able to score once in eight possessions as they desperately tried to make the comeback.

Braves head coach Brian Wardle said the second half shut his team down, and Bulldogs senior guard Reed Timmer was a huge threat on the night.

“We came out and did not execute anything we worked on or talked about defensively,” Wardle said. “We let [Reed] Timmer get going and made a lot of little mistakes.”

The Bulldogs’ run and defensive efforts that followed would end up being the most significant period throughout the game. The Braves were unable to retake the lead. Drake knocked down Bradley at home for the first time in 14 games, 78-68.

Sophomore guard Darrell Brown led the Braves, scoring 20 points along with eight assists, while both Thomas and freshman forward Elijah Childs recorded double-doubles.

Timmer proved to be detrimental to Bradley. The left-handed shooter was able to register 32 points and become Drake’s all-time leading scorer with 1,812 career points.

The Braves struggled on the offensive ball on Wednesday against UNI. The Braves trailed 32-30 after the first half.

The Braves remained in the game thanks to junior guard Dwayne Lautier-Ogunleye, who scored half of Bradley’s points in the first half.

However, both Lautier-Ogunleye and freshman forward Elijah Childs got into foul trouble and could not find a rhythm in the second half, leading the Braves to fall to the Panthers 74-65.

Bradley racked up 24 fouls throughout the game, 5 more than they average on the season. Wardle said fouls cost the Braves.

“We fouled way too much and that killed us,” Wardle said in an interview with WMBD’s Dave Snell.

The Braves struggled on the offensive side of the ball, shooting just 15.4 percent from beyond the arc and only having four assists. Wardle said the Braves were complicating the offense.

“Offensively, we tried to do too much and it caused us to take some bad shots and turn the ball over,” Wardle said. “The ball wasn’t really moving and we weren’t sharing.”

The Braves now sit in fourth place in the MVC behind Loyola, Southern Illinois and Illinois State.

The Braves play Southern Illinois University Carbondale on Sunday at 3 p.m. at the SIU Arena.

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