With two seconds left on the shot clock, sophomore Ahmet Jonovic lobbed a ball to senior Duke Deen. Using one second to settle himself and the other to shoot it, the ball soared through the air as the shot clock expired and the ball reached its destination.
Deen had just made his third straight three of the night.
“I don’t think I’ve been on a losing streak like this in my life, so it’s been tough if I’m being honest,” Deen said. “It’s very important, it meant alot to me.”
Carver Arena has seen its fair share of stunning performances this season from graduate Malevy Leons and senior Darius Hannah. But on Thursday night, it was the Duke Deen show.
“I love it when guys get hot, it’s fun to watch and they start making tough shots all over the floor and fans love it,” Bradley head coach Brian Wardle said. “He’s 5’ 8” so everybody thinks, ‘well I’m 5’ 8” I can go out there and do it’ but they don’t realize how much work he puts in mentally and physically to compete.”
Deen ended the night with 27 points, breaking his previous scoring record of 26 against Stonehill, a year and two days after that game had been played. Going 10-17 from the field and 7-12 from beyond the arc, Deens seven threes also matched his mark in that category from a year ago.
After dropping five straight games, Bradley (7-5) broke the unlucky stretch with a 75-64 victory over the SIUE Cougars (7-6). History and past misfortunes plagued the Cougars as the Braves held a 5-0 record against SIUE, with the wounds of a 57-55 defeat from last season still fresh.
“I know this was the last game before break and this game is usually about who wants to be here more,” Deen said.
After a tight first half, the Braves eventually pulled away with six Deen threes to give them a 39-35 advantage. After only registering two points in the first half, Leons stepped up offensively and defensively to provide Bradley with 10 points and 10 rebounds for his third double-double of the season.
As some fans were still finding their seats, Hannah let out an early dunk to set the tone for the Braves. Despite the early shot, the Cougars responded with equal ferocity leveling the score and taking leads, while the Braves did the same.
After an initial stalemate at five, SIUE built up a 6-0 run, giving them an early 11-5 lead over Bradley with 15:49 left. Demarco Minor was constantly involved in the Cougars comeback efforts as he ended the game with 18 points, going 9-10 from the free throw line. While fellow guard Ray’sean Taylor added a further 20 points going 4-9 from beyond the arc.
“I thought in the first half we let them be too comfortable, they got going,” Wardle said. “In the second half we tightened some things up… I thought we used our length better, I thought our ball screen defense was better.”
With the game tied at 19 all and 8:28 left in the first half, Carver was witness to a group of Braves that are hardly seen together on the court. The combination of Jonovic, redshirt junior Christian Davis, junior Cade Hardtke, freshmen Almar Atlason and Demarion Burch is not one you see often.
With 7:57 left in the half, the two freshmen put Bradley in front as Atlason made a pass to Burch, who waited on the outskirts near the SIUE bench completely unmarked for his first points of the game.
Once Bradley took the lead they didn’t let go. With the core group back on the court, a play that started with Deen, ended with another Deen 3-pointer, his sixth of the half. Despite the Cougars crawling back via free-throws, Bradley ended the half with a 39-35 advantage over SIUE.
During the Braves first possession of the second half, Leons pushed his way to the basket drawing contact from three separate Cougars before making his shot for his second couple of points in the game.
“We tried to make sure our intensity was high coming out into the second half,” Davis said. “That’s our identity… we talked about it before the game, playing the Bradley way and rebounding is huge for us, so that reminder at halftime, just make sure we do what we do and that’s how we win games.”
With a nine point lead, Hannah once again delivered a dunk that made the Bradley bench and Bradley faithful go wild.
Cooling down a bit in the second half, Deen eventually broke his 26 point mark with a pull-up jumper as the Braves reached the nine minute mark with a 59-48 advantage. The celebration didn’t stop there as Hardtke took a shot from the corner, marking his first career 3-pointer.
“I’m confident in the player I am, I know I’m not flashy or skillful like the other players or 6’ 9’’ and all that,” Hardtke said. “I think it’s really important to have some heart, some toughness, that sort of thing. I think our whole team honestly has a lot of heart, toughness, passion, we just have to carry that over, game to game.”
The heart and passion was evident as Leons constantly dove for balls and fought for every loose one as the clock continued to wind down. Providing much of the bench support, Burch went 3-6 from the field while also generating four assists and rebounds.
“When a person that cares about you loves you, challenges you and your character comes out,” Wardle said. “I thought Malevy responded, I thought Burch responded and those two guys had a much better second half.”
That final push to the finish line was the element that this Bradley team had been missing in their previous defeats. This time, the Braves finished the job, going into their holiday break with their losing streak broken.
“We still got to get better, there are still a lot of areas that we got to clean up and continue to get better,” Wardle said. “Proad of the guys because I’ve been pushing them in practice, we’ve been watching a lot of extra film, shooting extra, we just needed to get this win.”
Taking a short break from the action, Bradley basketball returns after the holidays to take on Truman State tomorrow.
