With 35.1 seconds on the clock at Carver Arena, the Braves needed a play to tie the game. Bradley head coach Brian Wardle had used his second-to-last timeout as the Braves trailed Belmont 80-77.
The Bruins (22-4, 12-3 MVC) entered the game sitting atop the Missouri Valley Conference and had battled back from seemingly everything Bradley threw at them. They had rallied from numerous multi-possession deficits and seemed on their way to escaping Peoria with a regular-season sweep of the Braves.
Wardle had options as he drew up the play in the huddle. Sophomore guard Jaquan Johnson had knocked down five three-pointers in the second half. At the same time, graduate guard Alex Huibregtse had drained four shots from beyond the arc and was just a few games removed from equaling Bradley’s single-game three-point record.
Wardle opted to go with his senior.
Johnson took the ball up the court, and Huibregtse moved to get off his man. Ahmet Jonovic set the screen, and Huibregtse was wide open to let it fly.
The shot flew right into the basket. Tie game.
“Coach drew it up for me,” Huibregtse said. “It was a great play, and the big fella set me a great screen. I got some separation, their big was a little low and I had some daylight. So I just put it up and I’m very glad it went in.”
The Braves forced a turnover on the ensuing Belmont possession, denying the Bruins the chance to take a game-winning shot. Though Huibregtse couldn’t get a good look at the buzzer for the win, Bradley entered overtime with momentum as they looked to knock off the Valley’s top team.
Silencing the guards
Through all the trials the Braves have faced this season, one thing has remained relatively consistent in their retooling.
They love to play at home.
Bradley entered Monday’s contest with a 13-2 record at Carver Arena, with their only home loss in conference play coming against a red-hot Illinois-Chicago.
If they wanted to continue their winning ways at home, they would have to defeat a team even hotter than the Flames. Belmont had won nine straight entering action on Monday, and hadn’t lost by double digits to a team all season.
In the first matchup between the Braves and Bruins on Jan. 1, Belmont controlled the scoring with its guards, Tyler Lundblade and Jabez Jenkins. Lundblade in particular shot 7-for-11 from three and scored 25 points en route to an 88-78 victory.
This time, Bradley was ready for them. Lundblade didn’t find the basket for the first 30 minutes of the game, and Jenkins could only muster two points in the first half. Fellow guard Sam Orme, who did not play in the first meeting between the teams but was averaging 12.7 points per game, was also held scoreless in the first half.
“He’s a great shooter,” Huibregtse said on Lundblade. “They run a ton of plays for him; they do a great job screening for him. I had to be extremely locked in the whole time I was guarding him, you can’t stand up and relax for a second.”
Lundblade eventually got going and finished with 16 points, but keeping him in check early was integral.
“It’s hard to hold Lundblade down,” Wardle said. “Everything is ran for him. He doesn’t get tired; he’s a nonstop cutter. Alex and Montana had a tough task. I thought he got too much separation in the second half. Transition defense, less grabbing and better defensive rebounding are going to be big for us.”
While the Braves were able to keep Belmont’s guards in check for the first half of the game, the Bruins were doing damage in the interior. Belmont’s big Drew Scharnowski was dominating the rim, forcing Ahmet Jonovic into foul trouble early and causing Bradley to have to rely on lineups they hadn’t been used to.
“We need Meta [Jonovic] on the floor, he’s the guy that’s a good matchup for him,” Wardle said. “I thought Kai Yu gave us some quality minutes, but Meta didn’t really play and he’s a tough matchup. Their bigs know their role, and they’re really good in their role. That’s what makes them a good team.”
While the Braves built a lead as large as nine in the first half, a Bruins’ 12-0 run right before halftime gave them their first lead since the first minute of the game. Needing a response, Bradley turned to their leading scorer to control the offense.
Bully ball
Once sitting atop the Missouri Valley in scoring, Jaquan Johnson had struggled to score at the rate he had all season.
After a career-high 35 points on Jan. 13 against Evansville, Johnson had been held to ten points or less in four of the six games that followed.
The scoring struggle continued against Belmont, as Johnson scored just six points in the first half. But then, after the break, a switch seemed to flip for Johnson. He caught fire in the first six minutes of the half, scoring 12 of the Braves’ first 15 points out of the break to help get the lead back in Bradley’s favor.
“Just putting in the work and having the confidence to shoot the ball,” Johnson said about his second-half improvement. “Coach has been telling me to shoot every time I get a chance to, so I just have confidence to do it. Once I get hot, it’s kind of hard to stop me.”
“He [Johnson] came into that second half in attack mode,” Wardle added. “He shot the ball with confidence. We told him at half that we love the looks, we’re gonna have to make them in this game. We had a lot of guys make big shots, Alex made big shots, Timo [van der Knapp] made big shots. We had to knock them down, and we were able to do that.”
Part of what fueled Johnson’s second-half outburst may have been the presence of Christian Davis. The former Braves guard-forward spent only one year with Johnson, but his impact was lasting.
“He’s one of the best detailed guys that I ever played with,” Johnson said. “It just shows the brotherhood, family vibe. He also came to shoot around, so seeing him come in and support us gave me a chip to go even harder and gave me more confidence.”
With two minutes remaining in regulation and the sides neck-and-neck, the Braves were in need of a big moment. Lundblade had just connected on two free throws, and there was a sense around the building that Bradley needed to respond on the next possession or else the Bruins could take over.
As Jonovic fought in the paint, he put up a jumper for the lead. The ball bounced off the rim, but it fell right into the hands of AJ Smith, who was crashing the paint, and put the ball back in with a dunk that energized the building.
“It was a huge play,” Wardle said. “We need him to rebound like that for us. I thought he guarded and rebounded great in the second half for us. He was a guy I challenged at halftime and he responded. That’s what you need is guys to really take it to heart and turn their competitive spirit up another notch, and the atmosphere was tremendous too.”
Smith’s dunk was the final shot the Braves would make before Huibregtse’s game-tying three, and with the home crowd energized, Bradley found themselves in a spot they were familiar with this season.
Overtime.
Icing the Bruins
Entering the extra period, the Braves were 2-0 in overtime on the season. They defeated both Indiana State and Evansville on the road in overtime, while the Bruins had lost their only game that went beyond regulation to the same Sycamore team Bradley had beaten in three overtime periods just days earlier.
With momentum on their side, the Braves dominated the overtime period. Huibregtse knocked down a three on the first possession, and though Belmont rallied quickly to retake a one-point advantage, Bradley buckled down and held them scoreless in the final 3:24 of the period.
Jenkins missed three of four free throw tries in the bonus period, and a three-point make by Timoty van der Knapp sparked a 12-0 run that saw the Braves finish off the top team in the Valley.
“A win against these guys just shows that we can get hot,” Johnson said. “We got a lot of guys who are capable of scoring the ball. We started defending much better. Just having that chip that guys know that we can beat everybody in this conference is very good.”
It was a much-needed bounce-back win for Bradley, who were coming off one of their worst performances of the year on Friday at Northern Iowa.
“We needed a bounce back after our last offensive performance,” Wardle said. “They give up a lot of threes defensively, and so we needed to make some shots. We play in segments where we’re really good sometimes and then we can look really bad at times. I know we’re going to get to work, keep putting the time in. If I can get them a little more consistent and a little bit sharper, we can go to another level.”
The Braves will look to carry their momentum into a two-game road trip against Southern Illinois and Valparaiso before returning home for a rematch against Illinois State. Tipoff for the matchup against the Salukis is set for 1 p.m. on Sunday.
