The women’s basketball team bid adieu to Renaissance Coliseum for the season last weekend as the Braves hosted Southern Illinois and rival Illinois State in the team’s final home stand.
The women were looking to avenge a 16-point loss to the Salukis earlier in the month but fell short in their quest for revenge. The game was tied at 60 with five minutes left when the Salukis took advantage of a Braves scoring drought, which lasted more than four minutes.
“[We] couldn’t put the ball in the hole,” head coach Michael Brooks said. “We executed decently, but we had point blank layups that we missed. I thought we went through a stretch where we got good shots, [but] we couldn’t finish them and we started to press a little bit.”
Despite the drought, the Braves cut the deficit to three with less than a minute remaining. However, Southern Illinois made their free throws at the end of the game and secured their victory over the Braves 72-66.
The story of the team’s final home game was a bit different. The Braves hosted the Redbirds last Sunday in hopes of securing a sweep of the in-state rival.
The women started the game strong, going up by as much as 12 at one point. However, foul trouble and an ISU press caused problems for the Braves, as they were able to tie the game up at the half, 27-27.
“We were very handsy,” Brooks said. “Sameia Kendall, Dani Brewer, Whitney TInjum and Tamya Sims all had two fouls, and that’s four players that play [a] predominant amount of minutes for us. When they’re in foul trouble, we have a huge second line in there, and they didn’t do a very good job of holding on to the ball.”
ISU grabbed the early second half lead, but the Braves didn’t give up when they were faced with adversity.
“Just staying persistent was key,” Sims, a freshman forward, said. “The coaches were telling us we have to stay in the game, and we can’t let them go on their run. Then we went on a little run of our own, which helped us a lot.”
That “little run” Sims referred to was a 14-2 burst that gave the Braves a lead they never relinquished. Bradley would hold the Redbirds to only four points in the final 12 minutes of the game and grabbed their sixth win on the year, 60-50.
“I thought we did a great job defensively,” Brooks said. “I thought we did a great job of getting to the free throw line in the second half, we took great shots. We had people who stepped and played big minutes, but I think defensively, we were able to limit what they were able to do and shots they were able to get.”
The Braves finish the regular season against Drake and Northern Iowa before the MVC Tournament in St. Charles, Missouri next week.
Bradley was not able to repeat that defensive performance last night on the road against the Drake Bulldogs.
The Braves got 18 points from Tinjum, but the defense could not stop the Bulldogs in the second half. Drake shot 63 percent in the final 20 minutes and pulled away from Bradley for a 86-70 win.
Bradley’s final regular season game will take place Saturday at 2 p.m. against Northern Iowa.
