The Bradley women’s basketball team (16-4, 7-2 MVC) lacked toughness this weekend on the road, according to head coach Andrea Gorski. Because of this and the lack of effective offense, the Braves fell at Missouri State 90-56 Friday night and 64-50 at Southern Illinois Sunday afternoon.
“We were soft and that’s on me,” Gorski said in an interview with WIRL’s Ed Hammond. “We weren’t focused this entire weekend.”
Bradley wasn’t able to get the 50-50 balls and turned the ball over a total of 33 times. The offense couldn’t get it done and neither could the once league leading defense. Gorski said that holding opponents to 37 percent from the field would be a goal for the season in October. This weekend, the Bears and Salukis shot a combined 44.1 percent.
The Braves shot 7-28 from beyond the 3-point line, and it seemed to be their Achilles heel. Gorski said that the team can’t rely on the shots from deep falling.
“We weren’t very smart, we were dribble happy,” Gorski said in a video posted to BradleyBraves.com following the Southern Illinois game. “We flat out got out hustled today and we will get back at it in a few days and correct that.”
Senior Chelsea Brackmann led the Braves last weekend but only contributed 20 points and 14 rebounds across two games. Bradley’s two leading scorers combined for 43 points across the two games while shooting 12-44 from the field.
Bradley now sits tied with Drake for second place in the Missouri Valley Conference. It will play its lone game this weekend at Illinois State tonight at 7 p.m. to close a season-long three game road stretch.
