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I wanted to share a funny story that was told to me tonight before the game by the widow of Bob Carney....she knew Wichita was a highly ranked team but thought just maybe we could catch them looking past this game tonight......
and she told me a story about how her husband - Bob Carney and the 1953-54 Bradley team faced a similar situation back in 1954.-
That year Bradley was not ranked, but was good --- just not really considered a threat to go all the way....
At the end of the season Bradley was 15-12 but got an invite to the NCAA Tournament because we had played well enough to knock of some pretty good teams during the season like Notre Dame & BYU..
anyway - as Bradley continued to upset each opponent in the NCAA Tourney we advanced to the Elite Eight and faced Oklahoma State in the Regional Championship game -- OSU was a Top 5 ranked team that we were NOT expected to beat.
The Game was the NCAA Regional Championship and "more than coincidentally" happened to set to be played on the home court of Oklahoma State in Stillwater, OK.
Anyway - JUST BEFORE the tipoff - the public address announcer, totally ignoring the possibility that Bradley might just win this game, made the public announcement to the largely HOME crowd that tickets for the Final Four were already printed and available and could be picked up right after the game was over ----
well - that caused the BU players to play twice as hard knowing the Oklahoma State guys were expecting Bradley to get out of the way and not spoil their Final Four party...
well, BU did play hard and knocked off the highly rated Oklahoma State on their home floor 71-59 that night - and BU advanced to the Final Four and finished 2nd behind Tom Gola's LaSalle...
and she told me a story about how her husband - Bob Carney and the 1953-54 Bradley team faced a similar situation back in 1954.-
That year Bradley was not ranked, but was good --- just not really considered a threat to go all the way....
At the end of the season Bradley was 15-12 but got an invite to the NCAA Tournament because we had played well enough to knock of some pretty good teams during the season like Notre Dame & BYU..
anyway - as Bradley continued to upset each opponent in the NCAA Tourney we advanced to the Elite Eight and faced Oklahoma State in the Regional Championship game -- OSU was a Top 5 ranked team that we were NOT expected to beat.
The Game was the NCAA Regional Championship and "more than coincidentally" happened to set to be played on the home court of Oklahoma State in Stillwater, OK.
Anyway - JUST BEFORE the tipoff - the public address announcer, totally ignoring the possibility that Bradley might just win this game, made the public announcement to the largely HOME crowd that tickets for the Final Four were already printed and available and could be picked up right after the game was over ----
well - that caused the BU players to play twice as hard knowing the Oklahoma State guys were expecting Bradley to get out of the way and not spoil their Final Four party...
well, BU did play hard and knocked off the highly rated Oklahoma State on their home floor 71-59 that night - and BU advanced to the Final Four and finished 2nd behind Tom Gola's LaSalle...