Going into Friday’s matchup, Bradley women’s basketball were on a four-game winning streak; the first time they have done so since December. But their next opponent was a far tougher challenge.
Murray State currently tops the Missouri Valley Conference standings and entered the game with a 63.7 percent chance of winning at Renaissance Coliseum according to ESPN Analytics. But with the Braves being 11-0 at home up to that point, it seemed that it could be anybody’s game.
Bradley had the slight edge from tip-off, taking a four-point lead halfway through the first quarter. However, that wouldn’t sustain them long enough as Murray State chipped away until they tied the ballgame at 10. Then a couple Braves fouls allowed the Racers to score three more points in less than a minute.
Freshman guard Maya Foz scored eight points in the first period, helping her reach a total of 17 points once the game ended. But the only other Brave to score in the first quarter was fifth-year guard-forward Kaylen Nelson.
Relying on two players didn’t help Bradley in the grand scheme of things, even though their distribution was better in the second. Sophomore guard Mya Wardle and freshman forward Kali Fortson both hit game-tying layups but Murray State started making three after three, extending their lead to six going into the halftime break.
It was at that moment that the Braves’ fatal flaw was revealed. They weren’t hitting any threes.
For a team that recently set the program record for the most made three-pointers in a single season, their performance from beyond the arc could not be explained. In fact, they only hit one three-point shot all game, and it came from Foz at the start of the third quarter.
Even with the lead back down to a single possession, the Racers went on three separate mini-runs in the third, scoring as many as eight unanswered points each. Meanwhile, after Foz’s three-pointer, eight of Bradley’s next ten points came from free throws, with a layup from Nelson being the only outlier.
Thirty minutes in and the Braves now had multiple issues to deal with. Not only were they one-for-eight from three, but they shot two-for-17 from the field, making it their worst shooting quarter by far. Unbeknownst to Bradley, it was only going to get worse.
Murray State were now up by 19 and their defense was about to be better than ever. They ended up outrebounding the Braves 55-41, with 18 of those coming from the Racers junior forward Sharneece Currie-Jelks. They limited Bradley to only four points, two coming from free throws by Nelson and the others after senior forward Amy O’Hara hit a jumper in the paint.
With Murray State securing the largest lead of the night, the final buzzer sounded and the Braves were defeated 72-40. For the first time since February 27, 2025, Bradley had taken a loss on their home turf.
The rest of the weekend doesn’t get much easier as Bradley are set to face the MVC’s second-place team, Belmont, on Sunday as part of Alumni Weekend and their “Be Bold, Go Gold” promotion. These two met earlier this year in Nashville, which the Braves found themselves on the wrong end of, 78-57. The rematch tips off at 2 p.m.
