The men’s basketball team announced its 2016-2017 Missouri Valley Conference schedule Tuesday, filling its slate for the season. The MVC season begins Dec. 29 in Peoria as the Braves host Southern Illinois.
“We’re just excited to get the season going,” head coach Brian Wardle said. “[We’re excited] to be in a great basketball league like the Missouri Valley, a nationally recognized league.”
Last year the MVC lived up to be nationally recognizable as both Wichita State and Northern Iowa made runs in the NCAA Tournament in March.
“I love that we open up at home after Christmas against Southern Illinois,” Wardle said. “We have some home games to close the conference schedule, but really when it’s all said and done, I’ve gone into seasons thinking that we had a really tough conference schedule and we won the league at Green Bay. It is what you make it, and hopefully we’re playing our best basketball at the end of February.”
Wardle said the middle stretch of the conference season will be difficult as they play on the road “quite a bit.” Their home games are not much easier during that stretch, either. Between Jan. 14 and Feb. 1, Bradley plays four of their six games on the road. Their home opponents? Illinois State and Wichita State on Jan. 18 and Jan. 29, respectively.
February’s schedule features four home games, and Wardle said he wants his team playing its best basketball during that stretch.
“We want to show improvements each month,” Wardle said. “We did that last year. Statistically, when you look at our last 10 games, I was proud of what our team did with how young we were and with the ups and downs we had last season. That’s what you want.”
Wardle said he “raised expectations” this off-season in regards to the team’s workout regiment. He said he hopes that the Braves enter conference play clicking on all cylinders and that they can continue that throughout the season.
The men also play four weekend games, which Wardle said he hopes will attract more students to the game to provide an exciting setting.
“I love when school’s in session and when students are around, so when we have some Saturday games and our students are in town, that’s always a huge positive for us,” Wardle said. “They can change that atmosphere and help us play at a higher level.”
The Braves will host three preseason games before starting their non-conference schedule, which features a couple of familiar foes from last season including TCU and Ole Miss. The Braves’ home games in non-conference play are against Nevada, Chicago State and UT-Arlington.
Wardle said they won’t take any game in the preseason or MVC for granted.
“We’re still in a building stage of our program, so we have to take it one day at a time and prepare like we’re playing the best team in the country every game,” Wardle said.
