For a basketball program as historic as Bradley’s, it’s not often that the team accomplishes a program “first.” But on Wednesday night, the Braves did just that, beating Valparaiso 76-52 to clinch the program’s first ever win at the Crusaders’ Athletic Recreation Center.
Since joining the Missouri Valley Conference in 2017, Valpo had taken all five matchups from the Braves.
The win is especially vindictive for BU head coach Brian Wardle, who hadn’t won at the ARC since his first game as a coach there on Jan. 23, 2011, when he was in charge at Green Bay.
“Honestly, I haven’t thought about it,” Bradley head coach Brian Wardle said. “It’s always been a loud gym, a tough gym to shoot in. I’m just glad we could get Elijah [Childs] one and [Danya Kingsby] one in this gym, for sure.”
The start to both halves of the game proved to be a difference maker for the Braves, who avenged their double-overtime loss to Valpo on Jan. 28.
Bradley set the tone for the game by scoring the first eight points of the matchup, eventually growing its lead to 15-2 with just under 16 minutes remaining in the first half. The Crusaders countered with an 11-0 run of their own to cut the Braves lead back to one point with 13:14.
Eron Gordan’s layup with 10:48 on the clock in the first half gave Valpo the lead, but it would be their only taste of the catbird seat. Bradley quickly took the lead back thanks to a 3 by junior guard Terry Nolan Jr. and took a seven-point advantage to the halftime locker room.
“Last time, we were also having a lead a couple weeks when we played here and lost,” sophomore guard Ville Tahvanainen said. “At halftime we talked that we’ve got to come out and not let them get going.”
After Valpo scored the first bucket of the second half, they certainly failed to get going, as Bradley rattled off a 12-0 run to burgeon its lead to 17 with 16:27 remaining in the game.
From that point forward, the Crusaders were unable to draw closer than 11 points.
“I said that quickly after the game, I loved how we started each half,” Wardle said. “The energy level and the mentality defensively …”
After surrendering 11 three pointers to the Crusaders in their last meeting, Bradley held Valpo to 7-20 shooting from deep. On the other side of the coin, the Braves made 13 of their conference season-high 30 attempts from beyond the arc
“I thought it just kind of played out,” Wardle said. “I told them at halftime we probably took two or three too many … I thought we did a pretty good job in the second half of just taking really good ones.”
The Braves scoring was spread throughout the box score, as six players found double-figures. Tahvanainen led with 14, including four makes from deep, in addition to a team-high eight rebounds. Nolan chipped in 13 points with four assists and junior guard Kevin McAdoo had 10 points with a team-leading five assists in his third game as a starter.
“Overall, it’s really a box score that reminds me of our last three seasons of winning 20-plus games,” Wardle said. “Balanced scoring, out rebounding, low turnovers …”
With the victory, Bradley improves to 5-8 in conference and jumps Valpo for 6th place in the MVC standings – which could prove to be crucial at the season’s end.
After two days off, BU will take on Missouri State on Saturday and Sunday in Springfield, Missouri.
“We needed a game like this,” Wardle said. “Hopefully it can ignite us and we can sustain some of this play.”
