Entering Saturday, the list of Braves who have made nine three-point attempts in a game had just one name.
Duke Deen.
Bradley’s all-time leader in three pointers tallied that mark on Feb. 21, 2024, against Missouri State. As part of a 35-point outburst, Deen went nine-for-12 from beyond the arc to propel the Braves to an 86-62 win.
But after Bradley’s matchup against Drake on Saturday, Deen no longer stood alone as another sharpshooter joined his company.
That sharpshooter was Alex Huibregtse.
After shooting six for seven beyond the arc in the Braves’ blowout win against the Bulldogs on Jan. 7, Huibregtse turned it up another notch in Des Moines, splashing his first nine three-point attempts to lead Bradley to an 87-73 victory to complete the regular season sweep.
“I just woke up feeling hot,” Huibregtse said. “I just try to have nothing going through my mind, if I’m open, shoot it and don’t try to think about it at all, really. Just stay hot and keep throwing them up.”
Huibregtse himself made more threes than the entire Drake squad.
“He just got it going,” head coach Brian Wardle said. “He just got to cook it. I thought Alex was super clutch in the second half. He cut hard, played through a lot of physicality, and just made big shot after big shot for us. Really, really proud of Alex.”
Unexpected breakout
In the first meeting between the teams, Bradley used a dominant first half, leading 40-19 at the break to control the game.
Initially, it looked as though the Bulldogs had gotten everything figured out. Missouri Valley Conference leading scorer Jalen Quinn was on fire, forward Isaiah Carr was blocking seemingly every shot the Braves tried inside the paint, and Drake held a 21-12 lead about midway through the period with Bradley on a three-minute scoring drought.
But then, a switch flipped for the Braves. Carr ran into foul trouble and was sidelined for the remainder of the half, and Bradley capitalized with 13 unanswered points to regain the lead.
“They were doing a good job protecting the rim, and we took some bad shots that we needed to get to two feet,” Wardle said. “We needed to shot fake a little more and look for the drop-offs better. And we started to do that as the game went on and started to get some better looks. But I love the way we were ready to catch and shoot.”
Propelling the Braves’ run was an unlikely name: Kai Yu.
The sophomore transfer from Liberty had only been averaging 1.8 points per game entering Saturday’s contest, but he stepped up in a big way for Bradley. In his first five minutes on the floor, Yu recorded nine points, including the first three-point make of his career, as the Braves regained the advantage.
“We’re super proud of Kai Yu,” Wardle said. “We were going to play big going into this game. We wanted to go with the defensive lineup with Meta [Jonovic] and Kai. And he responded offensively, he’s got a lot of skill to him. The confidence is something he really showed today in a hostile environment on the road and he made big plays for us.”
Yu would knock down a second three-pointer minutes later that would cap off a career day from the field and build Bradley’s run up to 26-7.
“Just seeing the confidence of Kai Yu hitting two in a row, if he can keep bringing that, we’re going to be very tough to beat,” sophomore guard Jaquan Johnson said.
No bark, no bite
Despite the big run from the Braves, they entered the half leading by just six after Quinn drained a three just before the break. After shooting just two-for-13 from three, it felt as though the Bulldogs were due for a big run.
Huibregtse made sure that didn’t happen, as he drained threes on each of the first three Bradley possessions of the half, which at that point had been more than Drake made the entire game. It helped catapult a 19-4 Braves run that put the game out of reach.
“This is an explosive team, they’re really good at home so we wanted to control the clock in the second half,” Wardle said. “We wanted to make sure we controlled the time and score, and we continued to get the hot hand the ball to do that.”
The Bulldogs tried to chip away at the Bradley advantage, but unlike their previous game, when they came back from down 19 against Evansville, the Braves contained their run and came away with the victory.
The win brings Bradley to 8-4 in conference play, placing them fourth, tied with two of the three teams ahead of them, as they enter a crucial final month.
“Every game is important down the stretch,” Johnson said. “Any team can lose to anybody in this league. We have many very competitive teams. Evansville, even though they’re at the bottom, they can compete with everybody in the league. We got to take it one game at a time.”
In a year in which the Missouri Valley feels wide open, securing one of the top five seeds and a bye feels even more important.
“Whoevers going to win this tournament, you need a bye,” Wardle said. “I’m just proud of our guys for coming out of that bye week and coming into a hostile environment and getting a big win. They needed it, we needed it, and we have another tough one on Tuesday because Valpo is hot right now. It’s going to be a fun Arch Madness.”
The Braves will host the Beacons on Tuesday night as they search for another important conference win.
