It’s been over 10 years since Bradley has had an offensive performance as bad as the one on Saturday night.
That was back in head coach Brian Wardle’s first year in charge, when a Braves team that would finish 5-27 got thumped 67-35 on the road at Evansville.
While this season may not be destined for the same dreadful end, the Braves’ performance against West Coast Conference foe Pacific did not inspire much confidence.
Bradley shot just 28.8% from the field, got dominated in the paint and on the glass and turned the ball over 15 times in their 63-52 loss to the Tigers.
“We were just running all over the place with our heads cut off on a few possessions,” Wardle said. “Way too many turnovers by our guards and our front line. It’s lack of execution too in our spacing concepts. We’ve got to do our job better and be where we’re supposed to be for our teammates.”
At multiple points in the first half, the Braves’ offense went quiet. After exiting the first media timeout with the score tied 6-6, Bradley embarked on a seven-minute scoring drought that let Pacific build their lead to 13 before enduring another three-minute drought later in the half.
“We just couldn’t get anything going offensively to get the building and the fans going,” Wardle said. “Every wide open three was a big moment we missed, and we’ve just got to find confidence shooting in here and shooting the ball a lot better.”
While the Braves were able to cut the lead down to 10 by halftime and as low as five early into the second half, they couldn’t maintain that momentum and had a few mental lapses that pushed the Tigers back up by double digits to eventually see out the win.
“I thought after we had that little run, we had mental mistakes,” senior guard Trevon Payton said. “I had a big turnover that I can’t have. Being an older guy on the team, we can’t have stuff like that. We have to have more execution to keep that run going.”
Before the game even started, Bradley suffered a huge loss to their lineup, as Dietrich Richardson was ruled out about an hour before game time with a foot injury of unknown severity.
The injury, which Wardle says occurred in practice on Friday, is another in a list of health issues that have plagued the Braves throughout the start of the season.
“Dietrich is one of our best paint touch guys and downhill guys, and he’s a pretty good defender now,” Wardle said. “We just have to get him healthy and our team healthy.”
Richardson’s absence meant Bradley didn’t have a single player dress on Saturday who played a minute on the team last year. As the Braves search for answers in the early part of the season, they’ll need their group of newcomers to step up and execute.
“We have a next man up mentality,” sophomore forward Noah Williams said. “We’ve got to find what people are the best at and put them in situations to be great. We need to play to our strengths, play to our teammates strengths and try to find out how we can best help the team.”
Bradley will see this Pacific team again on Nov. 21 when they travel to take on the Tigers to finish off a rare same-season non-conference home and home series. Now that they’ve played them once, the Braves know what the task will be when the two sides face off in Stockton.
“We’ve got to be more physical,” Payton said. “It’s definitely what we’ve been preaching, but we didn’t do it tonight.”
