“We’ve got to shoot the ball more confidently in this building; we looked hesitant again.”
That was head coach Brian Wardle’s message after Bradley’s last-second win against Washington State, a game where the Braves shot 35.5 percent from the floor, 23.3 percent from three and 59 percent from the free-throw line.
It was the continuation of a peculiar trend that Wardle noticed about his team through nine games of the season. To that point, the team shot 43.1 percent from the field and 31.3 percent from three at home, compared to 44.2 percent from the field and 36.5 percent from three away from Carver Arena.
Bradley was back at home Saturday night vs. a pesky Northern Illinois team, which, despite its 3-5 record, had already given Northern Iowa a run for its money and beat Loyola-Chicago by 17 points.
But if the Braves lacked any confidence, they didn’t show it against the Huskies.
Bradley moved the ball, got out in transition, knocked down threes and bludgeoned Northern Illinois in the paint en route to an 84-59 victory to win its third straight game.
“We showed some maturity tonight, which is a good step forward for us,” Wardle said. “You’ve got to be honest with your team about your opponents and Northern Illinois is scary. When I watched them play Northern Iowa — scary. When I saw them play at Loyola and win by 18 or 20 — okay, this team is capable. If we let them get going, they can get going.”
The Braves never let Northern Illinois get going.
Bradley played tenacious defense, keeping its hands in passing lanes, sending late help on drives, blocking a ton of shots and holding the Huskies to 29 percent from the field and 20 percent from three. The Braves forced 18 turnovers and scored 22 points off of Northern Illinois’s mishaps.
By halftime, the Braves led 39-26, but the lead could’ve been larger if not for poor communication and defensive rebounding that kept the Huskies in the game.
“I thought our first half effort was really good,” head coach Brian Wardle said. “We were flying around. We just didn’t talk well enough and made too many mistakes. Our execution wasn’t up to par, especially defensively, in the first half.”
Bradley turned it around quickly in the second half, though, outscoring Northern Illinois 22-10 in the first 12 minutes of the second frame. The Braves tightened their perimeter defense, boxed out better and walled off the paint to extend their lead to 25.
“That first 12-14 minutes of the second half, that first 12-14 minutes, I think I’m going to love on film,” Wardle said. “We were flying around, but we were more disciplined and then we had better execution against ball screens. We started the second half just really sharp defensively and that kind of opened the game up.”
It was only a matter of time
Sophomore guard Jaquan Johnson and senior guard Alex Huibregtse led the way for Bradley, combining for 38 points on 70 percent shooting.
Johnson bullied his way into the paint using his intersection of speed and strength to get downhill and to the free-throw line. When defenders sagged off of him and dared him to knock down jump shots, he did, finishing 2-3 from behind the arc on the night.
“It just shows how much of a threat I am getting downhill,” Johnson said about defenders going under on ball screens. “They know me and Tanna [Montana Wheeler] are smart and fast little guards so they try to go under as much as possible to take away the roll and try to bait us into shooting threes. We have to shoot those shots with confidence.”
Johnson finished the game with 21 points, his fourth 20th point game of the season, to bring his average to 18.2 — 12 points higher than last season.
Coach Wardle attributed Johnson’s progression this season to the work he put in the offseason.
“I’m big on work ethic, and that’s the number one thing that I saw from the end of his freshman year in the offseason,” Wardle said about Johnson’s jump this season. “I saw him make a big jump in how he worked and trained in the gym, and how hard he went, and the commitment, you know, it’s not quantity, it’s quality. And every time he came in, it was professionalism to him and how he trained and how he worked.”
Huibregtse gave Northern Illinois problems as well, but he took a different approach — running off screens as the Huskies chased him around the court, trying to stop him from getting shots off.
They failed, and he knocked down triple after triple.
“It feels great, man,” Huibregtse said about his performance. “My teammates are finding me in the right spots at the right time, giving me good passes, and they’re dropping.”
A few weeks ago, Huibregtse couldn’t get a shot to drop. He began the year shooting 29.4 percent from three through four games.
Instead of losing confidence, he put his head down and worked, and in the six games since, he’s shot 51 percent from behind the arc.
“Sometimes when people struggle, they stop putting the work in — he actually turns his work ethic up,” Wardle said. “And so I think that’s a big key on bouncing back and rebounding and knowing that you’re going to make them eventually, because you’re putting in the reps and putting the time in behind the scenes. And so it was only just a matter of time.”
The Braves have bounced back as a whole. After starting the season 1-3, Bradley has won three in a row and five of its last six with notable wins over Princeton, Liberty and Washington State.
“I’m getting more confident in our preparation to beat those teams,” Wardle said. “We’re getting there. We have the ability, but it’s also the concentration and the execution. That’s getting better. It’s slowly trending upward, and I think I’ll feel more and more confident as the season goes on.”
The Braves’ final game before conference play is Sunday vs. North Central College at the Renaissance Coliseum.
