After two straight losses against Belmont and Murray State, Bradley women’s basketball faced Valparaiso and Indiana State, hoping to improve their conference record from 1-2 to 3-2.
Four days before they arrived in Indiana, the Braves put on a show against the Racers, going to double overtime against the second-place team in the Missouri Valley, but ultimately lost by 11. Valparaiso seemed like a much better opponent for Bradley as they hadn’t won a game all year.
The Braves went with a change in their starting lineup against the Beacons.
Sophomore forward Ellie McDermid, who leads the team in rebounds (5.2) and blocks (1.2) per game, was replaced by her senior counterpart Amy O’Hara. The Melbourne, Australia, native saw limited action in November due to concussions and has picked up where she left off from the bench, even scoring 13 points twice earlier this month.
“I think the luxury I have as a coach right now is I have multiple players that are worthy of starting, definitely more than five, and I think that speaks to our depth,” head coach Kate Popovec-Goss said. “Ellie really isn’t a true five for us defensively. We put her there because she has experience, and when Amy was down, it’s a lot to ask Kali [Fortson] to come in and start, so we felt that was the best move being a veteran in the league.”
“But defensively, we need Amy’s presence with the fives early,” Popovec-Goss added. “And we just felt bringing Ellie off the bench helps our substitution patterns with our depth and I think that she’s played great coming off the bench for two outings, so I’m really thrilled with how she’s done things.”
Shutting down the lights
That lineup change did wonders for the Braves’ defense, especially in the first quarter where Bradley was able to hold Valparaiso to only four points. Meanwhile, fifth-year guard-forward Kaylen Nelson led the team with six points and an all-around scoring performance gave the Braves a 10-point lead 10 minutes in.
The second quarter saw both teams turn up their offensive output to 11, with the Beacons finishing with another 11 points. But they were still outscored by the 26 points that the Braves put up, including 18 from beyond the arc. Graduate guard-forward Tamia Perryman led Bradley with seven points and freshman guard Maya Foz was right behind her with six.
This was also the second game of the season where Bradley used all of their bench. Everyone got a chance to play in the second quarter, which in turn helped the Braves go up by 25 at the half.
The lead was extended to 33 by the end of the third quarter. The Braves were able to counter a limited number of Valparaiso runs with runs of their own, led by Nelson’s eight points and Foz’s six. Bradley did eventually take their foot off the gas pedal, but they still outscored the Beacons 15-12 in the fourth quarter, making the final score 80-44.
Nelson and Perryman both had a team-leading 18 points, Foz finished with 12 and sophomore guard Micah Cooper put up a season-high 10 points. McDermid, from the bench, had seven rebounds and sophomore guard Mya Wardle and senior forward Carlie Vick grabbed four assists each.
Undefeated home record at risk
The 36-point victory set Bradley up nicely for their first home game in almost a month. The Braves hosted Indiana State, who were 5-9 with a 1-3 conference record before arriving at Renaissance Coliseum.
However, their previous results didn’t tell the whole story because the Sycamores started the game on an 8-2 run. The Braves hit two threes not long after to tie it up, but they only took the lead with 36 seconds left in the first quarter, and it ended in a 19-19 tie after 10 minutes.
“They were letting threes go,” Perryman said about their early concerns. “We emphasized that, yeah, our hand may be up, but they still don’t feel us enough because they kept making them. So we were trying to emphasize help outside a little bit better but not helping too deep to where we’re allowing threes to just go off.”
Bradley stopped the three-ball in the second quarter, dropping Indiana State from 75 percent from beyond the arc to 40 percent. A three from Nelson started the scoring, but a newfound presence in the paint led the Sycamores to a 9-0 run for over two minutes. The Braves could only get as close as a three-point deficit, which was what they faced at halftime.
“The message to the team in the locker room was the score is 3-0,” Popovec-Goss said. “We have to come out, we have to defend a heck of a lot better, we’ve gotta take care of the ball and we have to keep them off the glass. Those were three things that we talked about the whole game and I don’t think we did a great job of.”
Another problem Bradley caught immediately after the halftime whistle was their rebounding. By the end of the game, Indiana State outrebounded their opponents 35-27 and the Braves only picked up two offensive boards.
“[Coach said] we needed to get on the rebounds because they were up on the offensive glass,” Perryman said. “I think they had like eight and we only had two. So just us being a little bit tougher, doing the nitty-gritty work, and focusing our energy. She didn’t like our energy, so she told us to play with some joy.”
Just like the previous two quarters, Indiana State started on a run. A foul on a three-pointer and a fastbreak layup gave them an eight-point lead, but Wardle’s three makes from downtown helped Bradley to within one and forced the Sycamores to call a timeout. Some mini-runs from the Braves helped them so much that they were up 61-54 with just one quarter remaining.
In the third quarter alone, Bradley was eight-for-13 from the field, five-for-nine from three, and converted on six of their seven free throws.
“I’m just a huge fan of Mya Wardle,” Popovec-Goss said about Wardle’s nine-point quarter. “I mean, if you look at her [today], she had ten points, eight assists, two turnovers and one steal. Mya has emerged as a true leader for our team and I think she exemplifies ‘what you give to the game, the game gives back.’ And she deserves to hit those shots because she’s in the gym every single day working on them.”
Back-and-forth finale
Once again, Indiana State came out firing in the fourth quarter. Bradley’s seven-point lead melted into a two-point deficit in the blink of an eye and they immediately called a timeout, flipping the tables from what the third quarter was. Fouls started to pile up, leading to more free throws, which in turn created multiple tying and lead-taking opportunities.
With less than two minutes left, Perryman scored what would be the game-winning layup, Nelson picked up a steal, Indiana State blocked a shot, O’Hara grabbed a defensive board, and after a timeout, the Sycamores were forced to foul. That crazy sequence of events all happened within 90 seconds.
“I didn’t realize what the score was after I made that layup,” Perryman said. “Like, I’m thinking we had two, three minutes left. No, we had like a minute. So I think that kind of set in and we were able to take a deep breath. I think, especially when Kaylen got fouled again, that’s when we really took another deep breath because at that point, we were shooting two free throws and we were already up two, so we felt good.”
After the initial foul, Bradley was five-for-eight from the line, but that’s all they had to do. Even though Indiana State scored a layup with 14 seconds left, the lead was too much to overcome, and the Braves stood tall, 79-74.
“I was proud of our team; we got stops when it mattered,” Popovec-Goss said. “I thought we executed well and to be able to take a timeout in advance and execute out of those plays. I thought Kaylen was what a senior should be for us. When we needed a bucket, when we needed a big play, Kaylen stepped up and did it and that’s what we trust her to do.”
Perryman and Nelson tied for the team lead in points again, with 20 each. Foz reached 12 points, and Wardle reached double-digits as well. The Peoria native also led the team in assists with eight and McDermid led the team in rebounds with eight. Despite these point totals, Coach Pop mentioned that this game wasn’t their greatest performance of the season.
“A win is a win, and we take them, and I think we didn’t play our best game, but we found a way to win,” Popovec-Goss said. “And at the end of the day, that’s a sign of a good team that’s growing. I’m not proud of how we played and I made it very clear to the girls, but I am really proud of the fact that you’re not always going to have your A-game, but in the moments where things get hard, you’ve gotta find a way to win it.”
“No matter how poorly we play defensively throughout the game, which again, I think this is not one of our better efforts, we always have confidence in our defense at the end of the game,” Popovec-Goss continued. “So if you put us in a position where we feel like we have to guard, we do that really well. I think as a coach, trust in your players and trust in your veterans is everything, and I really trusted that our kids and the lineup that we have on the court were going to execute what we ask them to do, and usually the chips fall into place from there.”
The Braves are back on the road for another tough stretch, facing two more top teams from the Valley, Drake and Northern Iowa. The two schools are currently third and fifth in the MVC standings, respectively, meaning that Bradley has their work cut out for them.
“Going into Drake and Northern Iowa, I told the team, ‘This is the actual toughest road swing that we have,’” Popovec-Goss said. “Belmont and Murray [State] were picked to be in the top two in the league but Drake and UNI have run this league for a long time. They are historic programs in the Missouri Valley, and these are really hard places to play at.”
“We have not won at UNI since 2004, so I think we didn’t need the confidence from this win,” Popovec-Goss added. “I think that we just have to keep trusting our process and continue to build confidence that we can go win in a tough road environment because we have not executed that yet in the Valley, and we’re about to go into the fire, so I’m really excited to see how our team responds.”
As for the players, they seem to know they can take away both the positives and the negatives from this win.
“I think it’ll fuel us because we know we can be better than that,” Perryman said. “So just getting back to the standard of how we play [will be important]. And the two teams that we have coming up, they’re very beatable, but as long as we come out with the defensive effort, offensive effort, energy, talking and everything, we can go win the game as long as we play our ball.”
