Two thousand miles away from the Hilltop, Bradley traded the chillness of a Midwest November, where leaves have begun to make an exodus from their branches, for the wet, humid air of a San Francisco night.
Outside the stadium, winds reached 15 miles per hour, but inside the Braves eyed a different kind of storm.
Bradley faced the University of San Francisco, the nation’s 82nd-ranked team according to KenPom and an 8.5-point favorite entering the matchup.
With 8:17 to play, a layup from freshman point guard Montana Wheeler capped a 9-2 run to bring Bradley’s deficit to one.
The Braves, fresh off a grueling loss to the University of Tennessee at Martin, seemed primed for their first marquee win of the season.
But with the game hanging in the balance down the stretch, they couldn’t buy a bucket.
From that point on, Bradley shot 1-for-13 from the floor, despite having multiple good looks. The team scored just six points the rest of the way, while the Dons hit clutch shots down the stretch to come away with the 75-64 win.
Ice Cold
“I mean, just ice cold,” head coach Brian Wardle said about Bradley’s struggles to close the game. “I’m not sure why, but just ice cold, unfortunately. We’ll look at the film, but I thought we’d manufactured some wide-open shots for our guys. We just have to deliver and put the ball in the net.”
The cold streak was a bit bizarre, considering the Braves shot 41 percent from behind the arc in the first half. Bradley shot the ball with confidence, a stark difference from its approach against the Skyhawks earlier in the week, and went into the halftime break with a 37-36 lead, but as the misses piled up, it began to wear on the players’ minds.
“I feel like when we miss shots, a lot of guys get in their heads,” sophomore guard Jaquan Johnson said. “We just have to keep preaching; next shot, next shot. These are the shots that we take every day. Even Steph Curry misses shots. You’re going to miss a shot. You have to move on next. You’re going to keep missing if you keep thinking about it.”
Board man gets paid
Cold shooting is not ideal, but it’s surmountable and subject to variance. The Braves have been able to stay in games despite shooting 26.5 percent from three on the season. The team’s most significant issue to this point has been its perimeter defense and rebounding.
The Dons outrebounded Bradley 45-25, shot 50 percent from the floor and 45 percent from three. To begin the season, Bradley is averaging 22 defensive rebounds per game (26th percentile) and 8.5 offensive rebounds per game (14th percentile).
The problem has become increasingly frustrating for players and coaches.
“We’ve got to defend, bro,” Johnson said. “We’re letting teams shoot 50 percent from the field and 41 percent from three. Getting outrebounded every game. We have to play harder than we are. A lot of people think they’re playing hard. We’ve got to play a lot harder than we actually do. Like, it starts at practice, bro. We’ve got to compete as hard as we can in practice so that it can carry over to games.”
“Our defense isn’t where it needs to be at all,” Wardle added. “We’ve got to be one of the worst rebounding teams in America. We do rebounding every day but we’re going to have to do more and more and more so that we can at least get out running in transition.”
The 1-3 start is the worst through four games in the Brian Wardle era, but the loss featured underlying reasons for optimism – junior guard Demarion Burch returned from a calf injury, Wheeler provided a spark off the bench and sophomore Timoty Van Der Knaap continued a solid start to the year.
“It’s good to have Burch back, I liked Montana’s aggressiveness, and I thought Timo’s [Van Der Knaap] minutes were really good,” Wardle said. “I thought the bench gave us a pretty good lift.”
Though it is his worst start through four games at Bradley, he’s no stranger to tough stretches throughout seasons.
“I’ve been here many times as a coach,” Wardle said. “I’ve been humbled many times. I’ve lost games. You’ve got to attack it with work and honesty and find the guys that will buy in and really want to play for the name on the front of that jersey and play every possession like it’s the last. You’ll find that during these hard times. Everybody’s good when you are winning, but through adversity, you really learn what you have in the locker room. We’re going to learn a lot here in the next week.”
Wardle’s honesty starts with challenging his seniors: Alex Huibregtse, Ahmet Jonovic, AJ Smith and Corey Thomas, who combined for just 25 points on 7-for-27 (25.9 percent) shooting vs. San Francisco.
“My seniors have to be better, that’s the bottom line,” Wardle said. “We have to all help them be better, and we have to take a step at being more consistent and better as older players on this team. That’s the challenge.”
The seniors and the rest of the team will have an opportunity to bounce back in the comfort of Carver Arena on Wednesday when the Braves face the University of Massachusetts Lowell at 7 p.m.
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