Alex Huibregtse wasn’t the most productive Brave in Wednesday night’s win against the University of Massachusetts Lowell.
Though 13 points, eight rebounds and four assists were Huibregtse’s best performance in his time at Bradley, none of those numbers led the team’s stat sheet.
But he was arguably the most important.
Trailing 49-38 three minutes into the second half, Huibregtse finished a layup to end a 15-0 run by the River Hawks. He followed that up by draining a three in the Braves’ next possession, the first beyond the arc for the team in over 11 minutes.
Suddenly, momentum flipped inside Carver Arena. Huibregtse’s shots helped Bradley embark on an 8-0 run, and despite the River Hawks getting the lead back up to seven briefly, the Braves rallied back, eventually embarking on a 14-0 run of their own and pulling away with an 87-77 victory.
“I try not to look into it too much,” Huibregtse said regarding his struggles before Wednesday’s performance. “Basketball is makes and misses, and I like to play the percentages. I think every open shot is a great shot for me. I can’t let a couple misses mess up my confidence.”
Huibregtse didn’t score another point following the three that snapped the Braves’ drought from beyond the arc. But his impact in that moment ignited a run that helped snap a two-game skid.
“He started our run,” senior forward AJ Smith said. “He came down, literally got a rebound, dribbled it all the way down the floor, shot a three and made it. We kind of started rolling a little bit there, and that helped us kind of chip away at the lead.”
Upset threat looms
Coming off back-to-back losses, Bradley head coach Brian Wardle opted to make a change to the starting lineup for Wednesday’s game. Sophomore forward Timoty van der Knaap was given the nod as the Braves looked to shake things up.
“I’m searching to find that rotation that really clicks on both ends, definitely,” Wardle said. “Can we get stops to start a game and start each half is what I’m looking for. I went with Timo [van der Knaap] just for that reason. I don’t know if we do that again, but we’ll find it and hopefully get in that rhythm.”
Bradley entered Wednesday ranked 131st on the KenPom rankings, while UMass Lowell entered ranked 339th.
Despite the sizable gap in rankings, the Braves found themselves in a dogfight early. Neither side generated a lead larger than eight in the first half. Bradley appeared to be the better team through the first 18 minutes, but disaster struck in the final two minutes of the first half.
The River Hawks embarked on a 9-0 run to take the lead into the break, including a buzzer-beater three from Angel Montes Jr. to silence the Bradley crowd. They then added six more points to begin the second half, taking an 11-point lead – a shock to many fans inside Carver Arena.
“UMass Lowell, they’ve been playing 20-30 minutes well in all their games,” Wardle said. “They were tight with Wake Forest for 25 minutes before Wake Forest opened the game up. This is a team that really competes. They’ve got a very good offensive coach, and they were going after mismatches in the first half and they played very well.”
While Huibregtse sparked the Braves’ offense, they still found themselves down 9, needing someone else to step up. This time, Demarion Burch was the one to answer the call, drilling a three and finishing a fastbreak layup off his own steal to bring the lead down to four. River Hawks leading scorer JJ Massaquoi brought the lead back up to seven, but that was the furthest it would get from that point on.
Answering the call
Following their loss to San Francisco on Nov. 15, Wardle called out his seniors in his postgame press conference, saying they need to be better and more consistent.
It’s safe to say they answered the call on Wednesday.
Smith finished with 20 points, including going 4-for-4 from three. Jonovic sparked the home crowd with a dunk on Massaquoi, the first of seven second-half points that proved crucial in securing Bradley’s lead. Huibregtse had his best performance since transferring to the Hilltop over the offseason.
“I feel we responded pretty well,” Smith said. “We huddled up as seniors out of halftime and said that this is our last go-around, and we might as well play our hardest. We found a way to respond and bounce back, and it really showed in the last 12 minutes.”
Wardle agreed that their performances were key to the team’s success.
“They played really well,” Wardle said. “AJ and Alex were very good. I thought Meta [Ahmet Jonovic] was much better in the second half. Corey [Thomas] ran into foul trouble and never got going, so we’ve got to get him playing to the level he can play at. It’s great to fight, focus and find a way to win in the second half.”
It wasn’t just the seniors that delivered for the Braves, though. Freshman guard Montana Wheeler led the team with six assists, while sophomore guard Jaquan Johnson led the team with 21 points and tied for the team lead in rebounds with eight.
The Braves improved drastically in two areas after the break: points in the paint and free throws.
The River Hawks outscored Bradley 24-16 in the paint in the first half, but the Braves responded by winning the paint battle 22-16 in the second. After shooting just 66.7 percent from the line in the first half, the Braves went nine-for-11 from the line in the second period of play, which was crucial, as UMass Lowell shot 84.6 percent from the line on the night.
“We had stints where we let them get downhill and get paint touches,” Johnson said. “I feel like towards the second half, we started picking it up and stopped letting them get downhill, started getting stops and picking up the intensity and energy, and I feel like that’s when we stopped them.”
The Braves’ next game will be on Monday against Princeton as they begin play in the Terry’s Chocolate ESPN Events Invitational. They’ll look to carry the energy and momentum from this contest to their next three in Orlando, FL.
“I thought the competitive spirit was really good at practice,” Wardle said. “We need to continue that. I’ve been very open and honest about our inconsistency in practice, that competitive spirit and competing and doing the right things are going to continue for us to get better. That will be the challenge tomorrow and Friday, before we go to Orlando.”
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