Two-hundred and seven days ago, Bradley women’s basketball played their final game of the 2024-25 season, losing in the second round of the MVC tournament to Murray State. Now, the Braves enter their fourth year in the Coach Pop era.
With only four and six wins in head coach Kate Popovec-Goss’s first two seasons in Peoria, the team improved to 14-19 last year with a 7-13 conference record and an 8-6 record at home. After a couple of months of practice, the team’s vibes seem better than ever.
“I think one of the things this team is learning is that our standard is different from what it was a year ago at this time, and they’re learning to respond to that,” Popovec-Goss said. “I’ve been especially hard on this team, really challenging them in practice to attain a different level of performance because I believe that this team is capable of that.”
This year’s team has ten returning players compared to six last year, including difference-makers at the guard and forward positions, such as junior Claire McDougall, fifth-year Kaylen Nelson and graduate Tamia Perryman.
The Braves also brought in some exciting new additions, including Maya Foz and Kali Fortson. However, the biggest news of the offseason was when sophomore guard Mya Wardle announced she would be transferring to Bradley. The daughter of men’s basketball head coach Brian Wardle spent her first season of college basketball at Eastern Kentucky, playing 32 games, all of them coming off the bench.
Big changes
As a team, the Braves are looking as dangerous as ever.
In the MVC preseason polls, Bradley was placed seventh, a jump from 11th the year before. However, this team believes their ceiling is much higher.
“For us, were we pleased with our jump last year? For sure,” Popovec-Goss said. “Are we excited that people have more respect for us in the league this year? Absolutely. But all that really matters is what we’re building and what we believe we’re capable of.”
One of the bigger subtractions from the team was Soleil Barnes. Last year, Barnes led the team with 15.5 points per game while also totaling 4.7 rebounds and 2.8 assists per game. However, multiple candidates have stepped up to claim that pressure-packed leadership role, one of them being Perryman.
“I’ve got to make sure I do my part as well because, granted, I am a returner, but this is only my second year in Division I,” Perryman said. “So, I’m also still learning a new role, too, because with Soleil leaving last year, I have a new role this year with Kaylen trying to work through everything but also help newcomers and everything and still be that extra leader, even though I’m not a captain.”
While they more than doubled their win total from six to 14 in the 2024-25 season, the philosophy is mostly the same for the Braves.
“We have to raise our standard. We’re really big on the process, we’re not big on the outcome,” Popovec-Goss said. “We feel like we can finish in the top five of our league, but we don’t talk about that every day. What we talk about is ‘what does that look like?’ play by play, minute by minute, practice by practice to get there.”
Focusing on improving
Last year, the Braves’ defense was the best in the Missouri Valley, allowing only 60.3 points per game. On offense, Bradley relied on a couple of top performers to score. Before the regular season, the team has had multiple chances to show what they have on both sides of the ball and identify what they can improve.
“One of our goals is to be one of the best defensive teams in the conference, and I think we’ve been struggling to have the same intensity on defense as much as we do on offense,” Perryman said. “I think [last Wednesday] we emphasized defense a lot. So, I think that’s a good sign for us as one of our goals at the end of the year. Yes, we made some mistakes, but they’re very teachable mistakes and stuff that we can work on and hopefully bring it all together.”
With the Red/White Scrimmage, an exhibition against Saint Louis and their first regular season game against Judson, out of the way, the Braves have already won twice, only one of them counting for their record, replicating the start of last season. With one of the most experienced rosters Popovec-Goss has had in four years, they have some advantages that will help them this time around.
“I think we saw it a little bit in our exhibition; as a coach, basketball is not a game you can control for 40 minutes,” Popovec-Goss said. “They’re not going to look at me every single minute of every single play and ask me what to do. They’ve got to go execute it themselves. They also have to be able to make adjustments in real time that in other sports, you’re not always forced to make, and I think that’s where experience comes in because our kids have confidence.”
From the offseason to the preseason, the Braves went through a period of ups and downs, recruiting players and losing players. Now that the regular season is here, goals are being made in the locker room, both by the coaching staff and the players.
“[We want to] prove people wrong, because within the conference, we brought back the most people and we were there a lot of games that we lost by four to six points,” Perryman said. “But that kind of gives us a little fire, like, ‘y’all just don’t know who we are about to be,’ so I think that just gives us more fire every day.”
Similarly, Popovec-Goss wants to hold the team to the highest standards they think are possible.
“I think we’re capable of making a run in the postseason tournament,” Popovec-Goss said. “I think all those things are there, but that’s not really my focus. I think goals are something you talk about and then you really focus on the process of getting there and, for me, the biggest goal I have for this team is that they leave this season feeling like they met the standard that they believe they could meet. That’s everything to me.”
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