Bradley women’s basketball is entering this year’s Missouri Valley Conference tournament ready to take the floor in its first postseason tournament in two years.
Led by the MVC first-team duo of senior Gabi Haack and junior Lasha Petree, the Braves are looking to add three more wins to their 14-8 regular-season record including a 10-8 run through Valley play.
“We will play our hardest, I will tell you that,” Bradley head coach Andrea Gorski said. “It’s going to be Bradley’s best effort, we’ve got to so many kids on our team that care. And like I said, we’ve been looking forward to this for a year, and we’re gonna leave it all out there.”
The Braves’ first-round draw with fourth-seeded UNI poses an interesting matchup for both sides. Kam Finley led the way for the Panthers in their 73-72 win on Feb. 12 against BU, scoring 25 points and hitting the three-point shot that essentially clinched the win with three-tenths of a second left in regulation.
The next night, Bradley found a different gear and dispatched the Panthers with little problem in a 78-63 win. Senior Nyjah White scored a career-high 29 points in that victory.
“I think we’ve got to do a little bit better,” Gorski said. “We gave up 19 threes in those two games. Obviously, we can’t do that … we watched every one of their threes that they made against us [and it] just hit home that [we have to have a] sense of urgency getting out there on them. So that’s been a focal point.”
Almost a year ago, the 2020 edition of Hoops in the Heartland was an early casualty of the ongoing pandemic. That resonated poorly with the Braves, who believed that they had a chance to make some noise in the tournament following a 22-7 regular season.
They still believe that they can make that noise.
“I think everyone is super excited to be here,” Petree said. “And the fact that we’re even having the tournament in the first place, we’re all grateful for that and we want to do some damage for sure.”
Petree concluded the regular season as the leading scorer in the Valley, scoring an average of 17.9 points per game. She was also named to the Valley’s All-Defensive team after a season where she totaled 54 blocks and collected 33 steals.
Haack was close behind Petree’s scoring output, averaging an even 16 points per game. An elementary education major with a 3.79 GPA, she was also named the Valley’s Scholar Athlete of the Year earlier this week.
Should the Braves win today’s game against the Panthers — tip-off is at 2 p.m. on ESPN+ — they would likely face top-seeded Missouri State on Saturday at 1 p.m.
The Bears swept the Braves when the two sides met in Springfield, Missouri in late February and have what appears to be an easy matchup today with eighth-seeded Southern Illinois.
“Right now, we’re just focused on Northern Iowa,” Gorski said. “And I think this team has done a really good job of focusing one game at a time, and after Northern Iowa we will turn our attention to that next scout.”
The rest of the bracket is stacked. Seventh-seeded Valparaiso defeated Evansville in Thursday’s opening round, but the mere fact that they played on Thursday stood as a surprise to many.
“I can’t believe Valpo is playing today on a Thursday,” Gorski said before that game was played. “[The fact that] the team that beat two power five schools during the non-conference schedule is playing on the Thursday of our conference tournament is remarkable.”
Drake and Illinois State, the tournament’s respective two and three seeds, are the favorites from the opposite side of the bracket. Bradley split a series with Drake to open MVC play and was swept by travel partner Illinois State.
Every Hoops in the Heartland game can be viewed on ESPN+.
