Bradley’s women’s basketball team started their season with an exhibition matchup against Knox College on Saturday, coming away with a 104-69 victory over the Prairie Fire.
The game started with the score tied at nine halfway through the first quarter. However, the Braves offense started to click, finishing the quarter on a 17-5 run to make it 26-14.
Bradley never looked back after taking the lead and dominated the final three quarters. The Braves controlled the game from there, winning all four quarters with a lot of good offense to show for it. The Braves used a balanced scoring attack. All 11 players who made an appearance scored, with five scoring double digits.
Leading the way in scoring was senior guard Tamia Perryman, who had 17 points off the bench. She was one of four double-digit scorers for Bradley who came off the bench.“It shows that we have a competitive environment,” head coach Kate Popovec-Goss said. “It’s great to have a bench. It’s hard to play when you don’t have a bench. The best teams in our league play nine to 10 players, and I think that we have the ability to play nine to 10 players as well.”
During the offseason, a significant focus of recruitment was players who could rebound. Last year, the Braves finished last in the Missouri Valley Conference (MVC) in rebound margin. Saturday, Bradley finished with 48 rebounds.
The leading three rebounders for the Braves were freshmen.
“I was really pleased with our three freshmen: Ellie McDermid, Lila Posthuma and Mariam Coulibaly,” Popovec-Goss said. “They combined for half of our rebounds, that’s what I brought them here to do. For them to combine for 24 rebounds in their first outing is a heck of a job.”
Long-awaited return
Senior guard Kaylen Nelson made her first appearance in a Bradley uniform in nearly a year in the exhibition game. Nelson averaged 15.6 points per game through five games to start last season before suffering a knee injury that sidelined her for the remainder of the season.
“It felt great,” Nelson said when asked about her return. “I’ve been working really hard these past couple of practices, trying to get my feel back, get my steps back. You get a lot of excitement.”
Nelson finished the day with eight points, two assists, two rebounds and two steals. Since she last played, the Braves have added nine new players to the team.
“We had some slip-ups, but that happens when you have nine new players,” Nelson said. “You’re trying to get to know everybody off the court as well as on the court, so this was a good test for us. But other than that, it was a great feeling, a good start to the season.”
Continuous improvement
Despite the win, the team recognizes that they must improve as they enter the new season.
“We need a lot more energy,” Nelson said. “I think we can play defense better than what we presented tonight. We’re gonna go watch film, we’re going to break it down but other than that it was still a good win, we’ll take the win and we’ll go back and practice and come back out with better energy, better focus.”
Defense has been a major part of Popovec-Goss’s philosophy since she arrived at Bradley, and continuous improvement in that area will be crucial to the team’s success.
“We have to defend a lot better not only individually, but as a team,” Popovec-Goss said. “That’s something we’re going to be working on a lot over the next three practices as we prepare for our next game coming up on Thursday.”
The Braves begin the regular season on Thursday against St. Francis (IL) at the Renaissance Coliseum.
