As he held his follow-through and watched the ball swish through the net, a realization swept over Alex Huibregtse.
The bucket didn’t count; a moving screen from sophomore guard-forward Timoty van der Knaap made sure of that, but the Missouri Valley Conference’s (MVC) league leader in three-point percentage just needed to see one go in.
“Once I see one go in, I feel like I’m going to get hot,” Huibregtse said. “I hit one that Timo [van der Knaap] got called for a foul on, but it felt good to see it go through.”
The graduate senior’s suspicions were right, and after a timeout meant to settle a reeling Braves team, he set the Beacons on fire, scoring 14 consecutive points in under four minutes to tie the game at 27.
Before this onslaught, Bradley was dominated by Valparaiso, who’d started the game with more energy and physicality than their opponents, forcing them into turnovers and foul trouble, which led to transition opportunities and free-throw attempts.
The Braves didn’t execute their defensive game plan, conceding drives and allowing Valpo to bulldoze them in the paint.
However, Huibregtse’s hot shooting seemed to light a fire under the Braves, and while he handled the bulk of the offensive responsibility, draining another three to bring his total to 17 at halftime, his teammates increased their defensive intensity for the final ten minutes of the first half to tie the game at 35.
In the second half, the Beacons shed more light on Huibregtse. Valparaiso was more physical with him, face-guarding and top-locking any of his actions in an effort to keep the ball out of his hands, and it worked.
When Huibregtse couldn’t replicate the same success he had in the first half, his teammates didn’t step up in his wake, and the Braves’ offense started the second half as they did the first – struggling from the field, turning the ball over and being physically overwhelmed by their opponents.
Bradley coupled their offensive struggles with an undisciplined defense, which led to foul trouble, as it had in the first half. The momentum swung back to the Beacons, who opened the half by outscoring the Braves 27-15.
“They were the tougher team, more physical team,” head coach Brian Wardle said. “We started each half very poorly defensively. I was very disappointed in our first four minutes of each half. All the controllables: talk toughness, getting in the stance and communication. We were prepared for what they ran over and over and over again, and we just didn’t execute very well.”
But again, Bradley responded.
Down 71-61 with 3:25 to play, the Braves used increased ball pressure and defensive intensity to force Valpo into bad shots and turnovers, rattling off a 9-1 run to cut their deficit to two.
Bradley looked well on its way to escaping Northwest Indiana with a victory, but then the same struggles that had plagued them throughout resurfaced in the game’s biggest moments.
Down by five, sophomore guard Jaquan Johnson drove to the rim and finished a layup, but he extended his arm and was called for an offensive foul.
On the ensuing possession, Smith grabbed an offensive rebound on a missed mid-range jumper from Montana Wheeler that would have cut the Braves’ deficit to two, and then threw the ball into the backcourt, effectively ending Bradley’s chances at winning the game.
As the final buzzer sounded, the box score painted the picture of a team that had been bullied. The Braves sent Valparaiso to the free-throw line 33 times, allowed nine offensive rebounds that led to 12 second-chance points and surrendered 15 turnovers.
“The fight at the end was good,” Wardle said. “The last four minutes were good, but it was just a very disappointing loss for how we lost. This one’s got to hurt, though. It’s got to burn because we can’t accept how we lost this game. We were not tough enough. We can’t accept having soft moments out there. We can’t, and that’s just not how we’re going to win down the stretch here, and how you win this tournament coming up. I mean, we have to be a lot tougher. I was very disappointed that we didn’t have everybody show up today with that.”
