Final: Missouri State 66 Bradley 69

[Da Coach]

Bradley (11-7, 3-3) hosts Missouri State (5-13, 3-3) on Saturday, 1:00 PM.

The only video is from Bradley's BU.tv.

MSU website-

http://www.missouristatebears.com/sports/m-baskbl/mosu-m-baskbl-body.html

MSU schedule and results-

http://www.missouristatebears.com/sports/m-baskbl/sched/mosu-m-baskbl-sched.html

Roster-

http://www.missouristatebears.com/sports/m-baskbl/mtt/mosu-m-baskbl-mtt.html

MSU stats-

http://www.missouristatebears.com/sports/m-baskbl/stats/2012-2013/teamcume.html

BU stats-

http://www.bradleybraves.com/ViewArticle.dbml?ATCLID=205731544&DB_OEM_ID=3400

MVC stats-

http://www.mvc.org/mbb/stats/confstat.htm

[Rick LeHew]

I predict this will the best game of the year. Close game that will go down to the buzzer and end up a 1 or 2 point game. Winner may be out of Thursday game. Loser most likely will be in Thursday game. The Valley gets much tougher for BU after this game.
Good Luck Braves!

[Da Coach]

...The Valley gets much tougher for BU after this game.
Good Luck Braves!

Yes. After this game, here is Bradley's schedule for the rest of the season (except the BracketBuster game)-
Wed, Jan 23 at Evansville
Sat, Jan 26 at Wichita St.
Tue, Jan 29 Illinois St.
Sat, Feb 2 at (12) Creighton
Tue, Feb 5 Evansville
Sun, Feb 10 Northern Iowa
Wed, Feb 13 at Illinois St.
Sat, Feb 16 Indiana St.
Wed, Feb 20 at Drake
Wed, Feb 27 (12) Creighton
Sat, Mar 2 at Missouri St.

How many more wins are left? I am not real optimistic we can win more than 3 or at most 4 more games out of that list, unless we pull some major upsets or win tough road games.

[LittleBrave]

[/I]

I predict this will the best game of the year. Close game that will go down to the buzzer and end up a 1 or 2 point game. Winner may be out of Thursday game. Loser most likely will be in Thursday game. The Valley gets much tougher for BU after this game.
Good Luck Braves!

Another must win for BU!

Perhaps both teams will still be in the Thursday round no matter who loses, unless 7 league wins will get you to the #6 spot.

2 other game we need to win is vs. Evansville and vs. ISU-red. What a sour thumping we took from Evansville at home last year...I've always thought we should beat Evansville and Drake at home every year, as they are almost always middle-pack or worse.

[BUBalum05]

Yes. After this game, here is Bradley's schedule for the rest of the season (except the BracketBuster game)-
Wed, Jan 23 at Evansville
Sat, Jan 26 at Wichita St.
Tue, Jan 29 Illinois St.
Sat, Feb 2 at (12) Creighton
Tue, Feb 5 Evansville
Sun, Feb 10 Northern Iowa
Wed, Feb 13 at Illinois St.
Sat, Feb 16 Indiana St.
Wed, Feb 20 at Drake
Wed, Feb 27 (12) Creighton
Sat, Mar 2 at Missouri St.

How many more wins are left? I am not real optimistic we can win more than 3 or at most 4 more games out of that list, unless we pull some major upsets or win tough road games.

I think we can win 5 without being overly optimistic. MSU is a must win, Evansville might be beatable both home and away, ISU red should be beatable both home and away, UNI at home is winnable, at Drake and at MSU could both be wins, then throw in one more upset at home out of the remaining slate. That's 9 games we could win and if we only win half of those, I'll round up to 5. Finishing 8-10 in the MVC would be quite an accomplishment for this team.
Bigger question then would be how the rest of the league settles out and if that raises us above the Thursday games in StL. Some years 8-10 ties up to 5th ('08-'09) and other years its 8th ('11-'12).

[bravesfan6]

I think we can finish 9-9. 2 wins against Evansville. Ric will shut down Colt and we match up well with them otherwise. 2 wins against ISU Red. 2 wins against Missouri State. Even though they are playing better in MVC play, i still think we can beat them. Maybe we steal a win at home against Indiana State or Northern Iowa. Because I know we will play them tougher than we did at their place.

[SFP]

OK after the thumping we got against UNI the other day I'm not stepping on the ledge against them even at home. ISUred regardless of how good they are or how good we are it will always be a dog fight. Evansville looks pretty good with Colt Ryan and I'm not sure who will shut him down. He's a real tough match up for us. He's got length, speed and skill. Stopping him comes down to us playing intense TEAM defense. Not one person on our team can stop him one on one and for that fact in our league.

MSU and Drake seem like logical sweeps if we're going to have any other.

[LittleBrave]

I tend to the optimistic side and am thinking we will be doing well with 4 more wins...provided we win on Sat. We will not be favored to win in any of our next 5 road games, and don't see us coming out with a win in any of those.
I think we get 3 more home wins provided we play to the level we have for most of the year, but the likelihood is we don't win every home game we are favored to win.
I will consider 7 total wins and staying competitive in our losses a relative success. 9 is a stretch and just can't fathom it after the last 2 seasons with a combined 6 league wins.

[Bobby Parker]

Here are your Missouri State pregame notes: http://www.bradleybraves.com/ViewArt...CLID=206005864

[AZ BU Fan]

Hi Bobby,

Favor to ask..... Any interesting BU stuff you could donate as the 1st, 2nd, 3rd place prizes for contestants in the 2012-13
MVC Regular Season Pick Em Contest for BF.com posters??

Feel free to PM me if you think you can!

Thanks!

AZ BU Fan




.

[Bravesfan]

Yes. After this game, here is Bradley's schedule for the rest of the season (except the BracketBuster game)-
Wed, Jan 23 at Evansville
Sat, Jan 26 at Wichita St.
Tue, Jan 29 Illinois St.
Sat, Feb 2 at (12) Creighton
Tue, Feb 5 Evansville
Sun, Feb 10 Northern Iowa
Wed, Feb 13 at Illinois St.
Sat, Feb 16 Indiana St.
Wed, Feb 20 at Drake
Wed, Feb 27 (12) Creighton
Sat, Mar 2 at Missouri St.

How many more wins are left? I am not real optimistic we can win more than 3 or at most 4 more games out of that list, unless we pull some major upsets or win tough road games.

I think there are 7 winnable games left, the key word being winnable. Two games against MSU, two against ISU red, the road game at Drake, and home games against Evansville and UNI.

Obviously there are no such things as easy road games, and I think it's possible we don't win any more games on the road. And while we're at it, there's no reason to believe that we can't slip up at home and lose to an MSU either as they are looking much improved from a month ago. But these are all games we can win as well. I cited UNI and Evansville as they are two "middling" teams from the Valley that can beat ranked teams one night, and lose to the worst teams another night, just like UNI lost to us last year. So while I don't think we win all 7 games, the potential is there for us to win 5 or 6 and play in the CBI or CIT this year. Will Bradley be able to pull this off? I don't know, but we can only go one game at a time and hopefully take care of an improved MSU team this Saturday. We will need to play better defensively than we did against SIU in order to win this game. Then we'll worry about the rest.

[Gary the Gargoyle]

I see 3 wins on that list.

[Bravesfan]

I see 3 wins on that list.

They may very well only win three more games. But I'm saying there are at least seven that they could win. Maybe they "win the lottery" and win all seven of those games I mentioned, but I'm not counting on that.

[Buesch N Chips]

I would be surprised if we won 4 of those games. I am thinking more like 1.

[Bravesfan]

Just to clarify, the game is also being shown on ESPN3, assuming it is not blacked out here.