and the Braves shot 45 percent from the field against Edgewood. Photo by Moira Nolan.
Last year’s lone exhibition game ended with a 58-56 loss to Division III Augustana College and raised enough questions to fill the empty seats in Carver Arena.
However, this year’s exhibition opener left one major question unanswered: Has any college team ever had a starting lineup with five freshmen from five different countries?
“We’ve circled the globe at Bradley,” head coach Brian Wardle said. “It’s not just Caterpillar in town, it’s Bradley basketball, too.”
While there may be no definitive answer to that inquiry, there was no questioning the Braves in their 72-48 exhibition win over Division III visitor Edgewood College.
The Braves established authority during the first 10 minutes of the game, as they siezed a 21-6 lead. While the level of competition was low, the Braves played cohesively in what was the first collegiate game for most of the Bradley players.
“Everybody was really excited, and most of you guys know we’re all freshmen and this is our first college game,” freshman guard Joel Okafor said. “We were all excited and we all got off to a good start and we just kept the energy going.”
The only adversity the Braves faced came right after they took a 21-6 lead, when Edgewood sunk three straight three-point shots to cut the lead to six.
That was as close as Edgewood got.
“They came right in the huddle and you have [Ka’Darryl Bell] and Mike Shaw talking about transition threes,” Wardle said. “This team is going to come in and shoot a lot of threes, that’s what D-III teams do in exhibitions. They try to beat you from long range, and they sure did. But during that stretch timeout, they [responded]. That’s nice to see early.”
From there, the Braves allowed only one more three-point shot before halftime as they went into the break leading 35-18.
“They had their run, and after that I think that’s all they got,” Okafor said. “We did a better job in transition finding them on the three-point line, so that really helps.”
The Braves had three scorers in double figures, all of whom were freshmen. Callum Barker led all Braves with 15 points and notched a double-double by pulling down 10 rebounds as well.
“I feed off physicality,” Barker said. “I’m always happy if the other big on the other team wants to push me around a bit. That helps me get into the game and get me started.”
When it came to overall effort, Wardle said he was happy. However, there’s work that still needs to be done.
“I thought we played unselfish, I thought we tried to get each other shots, I thought we tried to play for each other,” Wardle said. “We made a lot of mistakes, but overall, the effort was good.”
The mistakes Wardle alluded to were the 15 turnovers given away by the Braves, along with missed jump shots as Wardle’s team shot just above 19 percent from the three-point line for the game.
“Fifteen turnovers is still too much for me, but it’s an improvement for us,” Wardle said. “We’ve got to clean that up. I think we’re a better shooting team, we’ve just got to get in the gym and shoot more.”
The Braves take on St. Joseph’s College Nov. 9 in their final exhibition game before their season opener Nov. 13 against Ball State.
