Final: Evansville 66 Bradley 56

[Da Coach]

Bradley's next game is at home against Evansville on Saturday, Jan. 10, at 1:00 PM. Bradley is now 6-10 overall, and 1-2 in the MVC. Evansville, which just lost a tough game at home to Loyola, is 11-4 overall, and also 1-2 in the MVC.
There is no TV for this game.




Evansville features the top scorer in the MVC, D.J. Balentine (21.3 ppg), and the top rebounder, Egidijus Mockevicius (10.6 rpg).

Evansville is also the top scoring team in the MVC at 76.5 ppg, while Bradley remains dead last with a 58.2 ppg scoring average.
Evansville is also the top team in shooting percentage in the MVC at 51.5% as a team. Bradley is dead last at 38.3%.
Evansville also leads the MVC with 18.0 assists per game, and Bradley is 9th with 9.4 assists per game.

This will be the first time Bradley will face Evansville player Mislav Brzoja, who was recruited by Bradley coach Geno Ford, and who was very close to coming to Bradley. He is in his first season of eligibility at UE, after transferring from Villanova. He was a reserve for their first 11 games, but has been moved into the starting lineup their last 4 games, while usual starter Adam Wing has been out with an injury. He is Evansville's 3rd leading scorer at 8.8 ppg (behind Balentine and Mockevicius). He is 2nd on the team in rebounding and assists, and he leads them in steals.

Their other 2 starters recently have been Blake Simmons, and Duane Gibson, who scored a season high 16 points against Loyola.
Jaylon Brown has also started a few games this season.
Another usual starter, Adam Wing, has missed the last 4 games with a strained quadriceps muscle. He is a 54% three point shooter, and he is close to returning.

Evansville website-

http://www.gopurpleaces.com/index.aspx?path=mbball

Evansville stats-

http://www.mvc.org/mbb/stats/UE.HTM

Bradley stats-

http://www.mvc.org/mbb/stats/BRAD.HTM

MVC team stats-

http://www.mvc.org/mbb/stats/CONFLDRS.HTM

[Buesch N Chips]

So does BU all access not exist anymore? There is no way to watch this game online?

[Da Coach]

Bradley All Access does still exist, but they do not show any men's basketball events on their schedule-

http://www.nmnathletics.com/mediaPortal/player.dbml?SPSID=25965&SPID=1498&DB_LANG=C&DB_OEM_ID=3400&db_oem_id=3400

Click on Live Events (above the video screen), then click Sort By (on the right) and then click on All Sports, then select Men's Basketball and Go, and it should list all the remaining men's basketball games that will be video-streamed by Bradley (all the women's games are listed). But there do not appear to be any men's basketball events on the schedule. That is strange, and I can't believe that. So maybe it is just another mixup on the website, except on the schedule page they again do not show that any of the remaining games have video streams available.

[Da Coach]

There are some promotional things for Saturday's BU-Evansville game-

http://www.bradleybraves.com/ViewArticle.dbml?SPSID=25965&SPID=1498&DB_LANG=C&ATCLID=209834495&DB_OEM_ID=3400

[Vent]

This is a game BU has to win if they want to stay out of the play in round in St. Louis.

[Da Coach]

BU Game Center page-

http://www.bradleybraves.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=3400&ATCLID=209840474

So does BU all access not exist anymore? There is no way to watch this game online?

The BU-Evansville game is now back on the list of live events on BU All Access-

http://www.nmnathletics.com/mediaPortal/player.dbml?&DB_LANG=C&DB_OEM_ID=3400&db_oem_id=3400

[bigjimmy]

Will certainly be a battle of different styles. Whoever can dictate their style the best should be the winner. Unless of course we again shoot under 50% from the FT line and shoot 15% for a half.

[battlebasset]

So does BU all access not exist anymore? There is no way to watch this game online?

It looks like the mode is going to be if it isn't on ESPN3, it might be on BTV all-access. Unfortunately, it appears the firm decision to do that isn't being made until a few days before each game.

[Bobby Parker]

So does BU all access not exist anymore? There is no way to watch this game online?

Saturday versus Evansville and Tuesday against UNI will be streamed through Bradley All-Access. Most of the remainder of the schedule will be available via ESPN3.

[Da Coach]

Looks like maybe Walt Lemon might be at the game. Dave Reynolds tweeted that he was in Peoria and visiting Bradley while on a break from his team in Finland. Dave reports that Walt doesn't seem to like the Finnish food.

https://twitter.com/DaveReynolds2/status/553645948371738624

[tornado]

I'd like to hear more about his Finnish team...

up til a couple weeks ago Walt Lemon played for Kormend the Hungarian team that he signed with last fall....
If he now plays with a Finnish team, then that's a new deal - as he did leave Kormend right before Christmas...
(this link says Walt left the Hungarian team because of "serious family bereavement" - LINK)

http://www.eurobasket.com/boxScores/Hungary/2014/1220_1192_624.asp

his average after playing 12 games with Kormend was 19 ppg

http://basketball.eurobasket.com/team/Hungary/Egis_Kormend/624?Page=3

[Da Coach]

The latest NCAA stats show Evansville is shooting 51.5% field goal percentage, which is 5th in the country-

http://www.cbssports.com/collegebasketball/stats/teamsort/NCAAB/SCORING/regularseason?&_1:col_1=7

On the other hand, Bradley is shooting 38.3%, which is 332nd in the country.
Here are the bottom teams, and Bradley is 20th from the bottom-

http://www.cbssports.com/collegebasketball/stats/teamsort/NCAAB/SCORING/regularseason?&_1:col_1=7

Note that there are mostly some pretty awful teams among those shooting under 40%.

[Da Coach]

Dave Reynolds' pregame buildup article about Evansville-

http://www.pjstar.com/article/20150109/SPORTS/150109237/12701/SPORTS

One interesting line-
Evansville??™s two big guns are familiar faces ??” junior guard D.J. Balentine, who again leads the league in scoring (21.3), and 6-foot-10 junior center Egidiju Mockevicius, who averages 13.7 points and a league-leading 10.6 rebounds.

Unless he has changed his name, Mockevicius' first name is spelled Egidijus-

http://www.gopurpleaces.com/roster.aspx?rp_id=3427&path=mbball

But I wonder if the different spelling comes from the fact that his name is so long that the MVC.org site lists him with the "s" missing on the end of his first name?

[Da Coach]

Remember the early start time for Saturday's game! It starts at 1:00 PM.

Looks like I'll have to set my alarm and won't be able to sleep in.

[tornado]

For those who do not recall - Evansville has had some pretty good basketball in it's history...
There are very few MVC teams that own any BASKETBALL NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS -
Bradley, of course, has four NIT Championships.....but Evansville owns FIVE National Championships (DII) in 1959, 1960, 1964, 1965 (both with all-time Bulls great Jerry Sloan), and 1971

we have to play extremely physical with Mockevicius - he's not tremendously athletic - he's not a huge scorer but when he gets the ball down low he will create problems.
In each of Evansville's conference losses, he was in foul trouble


BTW - Warren Jones is expected to play Saturday giving Bradley an additional weapon offensively - it remains to be seen how effective he is coming off a stress fracture in his right foot that he believes developed during the Central Michigan game on 12/02 (per his interview with DR), an 11 pt win in which Jones played a team-high 34 minutes.
However - he continued to practice daily and play and even logged 31 minutes in the next game at Memphis - even though he continued to have pain.
Then he practiced again on Sunday after the Memphis game, and went Monday morning (12/8 ) and the injury was properly diagnosed that morning, nearly a week after it started hurting, as a stress fracture..
Stress fractures are not always easy to discover or diagnose, but we wasn't very effective at all (2-11) in the blowout loss at Memphis.
Jermaine Morgan is not expected to be available to play.