Final score: Bradley 84 SEMO 78

[tornado]

sloppy but better offense - we need to stop the penetration and easy layups

[Da Coach]

Final score:
Bradley 84 SEMO 78

Final stats:

http://www.sidearmstats.com/bradley/mbball/

[BUSongwriter]

Good to be 2-1. Congrats to the Braves and Coach Wardle. JoJo looked great, but this team may have a different lead scorer every night.

And anyone who saw the first three games would have a pretty good guess for one of the two scholarships opening up at the end of the season.

[Da Coach]

Nice game offensively with everyone contributing. jojo was tremendous with a team-leading 19 points, and he also had 5 rebounds; Koch Bar had 9 rebounds and 3 blocks; Darrell Brown had 15 points and 5 assists; and DLO off the bench had 16 points and 6 rebounds.
Bradley outrebounded SEMO 43-23. And they had one of their best shooting nights of the Brian Wardle era with 26-48 overall (54.2%) and 7-15 (46.7%) from three.


The negatives:
Defensively, there again was a weakness inside that allowed SEMO countless easy layups all night. SEMO is a team that does not play a low post type of game at all, yet they managed to score an incredible 42 points in the paint due to easy layups.
Also, Bradley could have put the game away earlier, but for a flurry of missed free throws down the stretch. They were 25-38 on FTs (65.8%).
Coach Wardle was concerned a bit by the 15 turnovers, but liked much of what he saw tonight.

Box score-

http://www.bradleybraves.com/boxscore.aspx?id=13455&path=mbball

Attendance better- 5,142

[Dub]

Really encouraging to see the response in the team tonight. Fun game to be at. Wardle went out and got good jucos who can help "big-league." Also impressed with this year's freshman class as well. Future is bright and we might win some valley games this year as well.

[Da Coach]

...Wardle went out and got good jucos who can help "big-league."...

Are you referring to Jojo? He is the only juco (Foster not really a juco).

[LittleBrave]

Very good game by us and a great response from the poor performance in Gm 2.

JoJo and DB continue to give Braves fans hope and I believe they will have outstanding careers at BU! Brian Lavin compared DB to D-Ruff and before his comment, I had been thinking that a few times during the game! He is poised and has a pretty high b-ball IQ. Looking for Suggs and Pittman to make a bit more of a difference, but both played better tonight.
D-Lo just fun to watch night in and out and just fights out there every night.

[Dub]

Are you referring to Jojo? He is the only juco (Foster not really a juco).

My mistake. What's the story on Foster?

[wily coyote]

My mistake. What's the story on Foster?

Transfer from Texas Tech. Illinois boy from Chicago played for Seaton Acad. that finished 2 nd in the state tourney several years ago.

[Jim]

Alex Foster's minutes

Nice game offensively with everyone contributing. jojo was tremendous with a team-leading 19 points, and he also had 5 rebounds; Koch Bar had 9 rebounds and 3 blocks; Darrell Brown had 15 points and 5 assists; and DLO off the bench had 16 points and 6 rebounds.
Bradley outrebounded SEMO 43-23. And they had one of their best shooting nights of the Brian Wardle era with 26-48 overall (54.2%) and 7-15 (46.7%) from three.


The negatives:
Defensively, there again was a weakness inside that allowed SEMO countless easy layups all night. SEMO is a team that does not play a low post type of game at all, yet they managed to score an incredible 42 points in the paint due to easy layups.
Also, Bradley could have put the game away earlier, but for a flurry of missed free throws down the stretch. They were 25-38 on FTs (65.8%).
Coach Wardle was concerned a bit by the 15 turnovers, but liked much of what he saw tonight.

Box score-

http://www.bradleybraves.com/boxscore.aspx?id=13455&path=mbball

Attendance better- 5,142

It is great to see so many guys contributing! Alex Foster has been very productive on both ends of the court when he gets to play. Any ideas why his minutes are so limited?

[tornado]

Are you referring to Jojo? He is the only juco (Foster not really a juco).

but Jojo never played juco ball so he's really not your standard juco player, he only went to juco so he could transfer later with a degree & full eligibility

[Dub]

JoJo has 4 years of eligibility? Is that what you're saying?

[Fetz86]

2, he is like a RS Junior, he played two years at USU then went to juco, got his associates, didn't play on the team there, transferred here with 2 years to play and no additional sitting out.

[wizard1]

defensive toughness

Very good game last night. Offense and rebounding were great and will get even better as time goes by. IMO our most glaring weakness is that we have very little defensive toughness and grit down low and in the lane. For some reason, our guys are reluctant to establish themselves and put a hard arm/body on anyone who dares to drive the lane or go to the hoop down low. If we take a foul, so be it, but we must send the message that in driving the lane, you will get banged very hard or maybe even hurt....otherwise, we will continue to get killed by these drives and low baskets by an opponent.
Wiz

[Da Coach]

I agree with you wizard. Coach Wardle alluded to the shortcomings on defense last night on his postgame show, and vowed to correct them.

Here are the numbers from the official game stats for the first 3 games:
UI Springfield, a D2 team with a very small lineup had 28 points in the paint.
Delaware had 36 points in the paint, compared to Bradley's 18.
And now SEMO has an incredible 42 points in the paint.

I do believe the interior defensive weaknesses we have seen in all 3 games so far are correctable.
Some changes that I think we might see, IMO:
>>We need to play more physically inside, and on guards who penetrate. I agree that a couple hard fouls can sometimes make a difference. SEMO only shot 59% on Free Throws, but they seemed to make 100% of those layups!
>>We did play some 2-3 zone, but maybe playing more varied zone defenses and more of the time, with Koch Bar planted down low to block or alter those easy layups.
>>Working with our young perimeter players to be more efficient defending the ball screens at the top of the key.
>>We also pressed SEMO on one or two possessions, but we might try more of that. We have more athleticism and depth at each position this season, and pressing, in addition to creating turnovers, can take time off the shot clock and make it harder to for opponents to set up their offense thus hopefully they'll settle for lower percentage shots.