photo by Justin Limoges
It was a long time coming, but the Bradley men’s basketball team won back-to-back games for the first time since the 2014-2015 season after taking down Evansville 84-72 last Saturday and Missouri State 77-68 on Wednesday night.
Bradley held the Bears to a two-point lead at halftime, but Missouri State was hot out of the gates in the second half and created a nine point lead by the first media timeout.
Yet Bradley stayed confident and weathered the storm, putting together a run of their own to ignite the crowd, take the lead and never give it back.
“I think we’ve matured a lot throughout the year,” head coach Brian Wardle said. “We just had some bad five to eight minute stretches this month that have cost us some games. Now, we’re recovering from those and playing better and playing more confident.”
Missouri State dominated teams with their physical style of play down low for much of the season, but Bradley won the battle inside both offensively and defensively.
The Braves outscored Missouri State 44-26 in the paint by aggressively attacking their zone and crashing the glass hard. Bradley outrebounded Missouri State 31-20, leading to various second-chance opportunities.
“I thought if we could win the rebounding war we’d have a chance to win this game, and it definitely helped us,” Wardle said. “That was the number one thing we talked about, and we were able to execute that.”
Shortly before game time, freshman point guard Darrell Brown was ruled out with an ankle injury, which forced freshmen Jayden Hodgson and Nate Kennell into larger roles running the point.
The expanded leadership roles didn’t seem to bother the freshmen guards as they combined to dish out 14 assists and only commit four turnovers.
“I had to take the back-up point guard role when Jayden was out, so I think I was really just able to take what the defense gave me in their zone,” Kennell said. “That’s just what I’m best at is reading spots, looking people off [and] finding some of our big men. Everybody was moving when people were driving, and it was a real team effort, moving the ball around [and] getting good looks.”
Sophomore forward Luuk van Bree put together one of his best performances of the season as he led the Braves with 17 points on 70 percent shooting, including 3-6 from behind the three-point line.
“I got a couple of open looks early on,” van Bree said. “My teammates did a great job of finding me. I could catch them in rhythm and knock them down, and I just kept going from there.”
After two hard-fought home wins in a row, the Braves want to build momentum as they play their last regular season game on Saturday afternoon at Drake.
“We’re definitely peaking here coming down the stretch,” Kennell said. “That’s what you always want out of any team. We’re definitely coming together. With [Brown] back next game, there’s nobody in our way that can stop us. I truly believe that. I think it’s going to take a lot to take us down.”
