Alex Huibregtse stared at the table while reporters asked him and fellow senior Ahmet Jonovic questions.
His mind seemed elsewhere.
When it was his turn to answer questions, most times, his head stayed down, glued to the table, as if the answers to the test could be under the black tablecloth.
He resembled a worn-torn soldier, reliving all of his battles over the years — bittersweet that it’d all come to an end or still in shock that it was over.
His final season in college had aged him — his scruffy, crimson beard told that story well enough.
1600 points, 330 threes, and 6 seasons later, it was all over, but at least he’d gone down swinging — scoring 19 points on a 63.3 true shooting percentage and adding three assists.
Unfortunately for Bradley, Huibregtse was one of the only players who played with any passion, grit, or desperation in the Braves’ 80-66 loss to Dayton on Wednesday night.
Most of his teammates played defeated, as if the season was already in the rearview mirror and the offseason, transfer portal and potential NIL deals at the forefront of their minds.
“It kind of looked like we were checked out,” Huibregtse said. “We weren’t competing. They came ready to go. The thing for us as players is that you’ve got to just kind of look yourself in the mirror and figure it out. As a competitor, you want to play and compete.”
“To just, as a team, not show up in March — the last game of the year, it hurts.”
Bradley briefly led the game 2-0 and then immediately got punched in the mouth, allowing a 12-3 run that put their deficit at seven in the early going.
And, instead of being Brave as they have many times this season, they ran away from the adversity.
The youngest team in the Missouri Valley Conference (MVC) looked old and tired. The Braves played without fire, intensity or drive.
They got bullied.
Bradley wasn’t physical, allowing Dayton to execute its offense with no resistance. The Fylers flew up and down the court, knocking down threes and generating easy looks at the rim.
On offense, they were sloppy and disjointed. Ball movement was scarce; a quality shot was even rarer. Passes sailed out of bounds, plays were run incorrectly and there was a lot of one-on-one basketball.
“I’m Disappointed, a little embarrassed, too,” head coach Brian Wardle said. “Disappointed with that effort and how we played. I knew we might be a little rusty to start, since we hadn’t played in a while, but defensively, we were just really, really struggling the whole game. Couldn’t keep the ball in front, didn’t communicate very well, bad switches. Offensively, we got stagnant at times.
“They had guys show up,” Wardle continued. “Their stars were stars. Other than Alex, I don’t know if we had many guys perform even at an average level. It’s March. You’ve got to show up. Everyone’s got to play their game. You’ve got to play at a high level, and you’re not going to beat Dayton if you don’t have everyone there, locked in and loaded.”
For a brief moment, the Braves did show a bit of fight. Huibregtse and freshman Montana Wheeler got hot midway through the second half, leading a 9-2 run to cut Bradley’s 20-point deficit to 13.
But then, it was just more of the same: missed defensive assignments, careless turnovers, subpar effort on the glass and playbusts on offense.
Decisions, Decisions, Decisions
It was an anticlimactic end to what was a rollercoaster of a season, the type that could make a coach reevaluate the talent on the roster and their commitment to the program.
“It’s a long season, but they get paid to play, right?” Wardle remarked. “They get paid to compete and play in every game like it’s our last. And I just didn’t think we had that type of mentality, unfortunately. So I got to do a better job, and that’s the reality of the head coach. I gotta get guys more focused and ready to put in the effort it takes to beat a Dayton.”
Now that the season has concluded, the Braves will take a moment to let the result sink in, reflect on the year, and then get to work figuring out what the roster will look like next season.
“We will have meetings, but they know,” Wardle said when asked about players returning to Bradley or entering the transfer portal.
“It’s just about having meetings now that the season’s over, and kind of see what we want to do too as a program. So I think that’s two sides too, and I think that’s what we have to figure out, who is going to completely commit to Bradley basketball, the work ethic, and the time and the effort that it takes to be very good at this level.”
The first order of business will likely be trying to retain sophomore guard Jaquan Johnson, the MVC’s Defensive Player of the Year and first team All-Conference selection, who will be sure to command well above six-figure NIL deals.
And then Wardle says the Braves will try to add size, length and experience through the portal to boost what will be one of the Valley’s youngest teams again next season.
“But, you know, we’ll do it,” Wardle said about attacking the transfer portal. “I mean, we have a great product to sell. We have a great program and fan base, and you know, we’re always competing for championships. It’s just a matter of making sure that we put the right team together. It’s not about recruiting talent, but recruiting a team. And you have to have the right team, and then you have to really have guys committed to putting the work in.”
Bradley’s coaches and players will spend the coming days thinking about retention, the transfer portal and NIL — the realities that now rush in as soon as a season ends.
In this era, there is barely time to sit with what just happened before attention shifts to what’s next. But for seniors like Huibregtse and Jonovic, the transition is different.
Both still have basketball ahead of them, with plans to play professionally overseas. What they’re leaving behind isn’t the game — it’s the rhythm of it all.
For the first time in years, they’ll wake up without a game to prepare for, without a scout to study, without knowing what jersey they’ll be putting on next season.
While Bradley turns the page to roster decisions and the future, two seniors are left to adjust to something far less certain: life without the structure that has defined them for so long.
“I’ll rest, sleep in,” Huibregtse said about what he’ll do when he wakes up in the morning.
“I think take time to be grateful for the journey, the opportunity, to represent Bradley,” he said after a long pause. “Play for Coach Wardle. Play with your teammates. I’ll take it all in, all the years of hard work you put in, just reflect on it. I plan to keep playing professionally overseas.
“I’ll take some time off and then get back to work.”
