Final score: Bradley 79 Missouri S&T 47

[Da Coach]

Bradley went 2-1 in the Bahamas, and is now 4-1 on the season. They next play Missouri S&T on Wednesday, Nov. 22, at 7:00 PM at Carver Arena. This game is also part of the Islands of the Bahamas Showcase.
The game will be available to view on ESPN3.com.

The Missouri S&T (Missouri University of Science and Technology) is an NCAA Division II program located in Rolla, Missouri. They are members of the Great Lakes Valley Conference, arguably the top D2 conference in the country. They were picked 4th in the West Division (out of 3 Divisions) of the GLVC.

They are 1-2 on the season. Their 2 losses have been to Blackburn and Lincoln College of Missouri. They also played 2 preseason exhibition games against D1 opponents, and lost both by large margins (to SEMO & Tulsa)
Schedule & Results-

http://www.minerathletics.com/schedule.aspx?path=mbball&

Missouri S&T website-

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

Roster-

http://www.minerathletics.com/roster.aspx?path=mbball&

Stats-

http://static.minerathletics.com/custompages/mbb/2017-18/teamcume.htm#TEAM.IND

Bradley stats-

http://www.bubraves.com/documents/2017/11/11/bradley_stats.pdf

[YATittle]

Hard to get excited about Missouri Science and Technology. Primarily a school for engineering majors. I worked with several Missouri-Rolla graduates in a 40 year Caterpillar career. Glad to see BU rebuilding but this is a soft opponent.

[BUfan39]

Hard to get excited about Missouri Science and Technology. Primarily a school for engineering majors. I worked with several Missouri-Rolla graduates in a 40 year Caterpillar career. Glad to see BU rebuilding but this is a soft opponent.

It was a handpicked opponent as part of the Bahamas tournament.

[tornado]

do all the other teams in the Bahamas tourney come home & face a low DII?
Iona doesn't have any DII's anywhere on their schedule..

[pfcmsh]

Certainly Vermont and Weber State were solid opponents and very close outcomes. Perhaps the Tournament organizers at least matched the teams fairly closely. I think both Vermont and Weber State had considerably higher RPIs than us and were picked for 1st or 2nd place in their conferences. I know from other posts that RPI may not mean much these days.

I agree that Missouri S & T is a soft opponent. We are on our way back to competitiveness among mid majors I hope. Certainly we are on the right, upward track. I am hoping also that our not signing a fall recruit means that we have our talent target set ever higher as we become a winning team again.

Go Braves! Go Coach Wardle and all the assistants!

[Da Coach]

Bradley had to agree on this game in order to get into the tournament. It is the only non-Division I opponent on their 2017-18 schedule.
Every other MVC school also plays non-Division I opponents, many of them play lower level than D2, and four MVC teams play more than one non-D1.

Illinois State has a home game against D2 Quincy
Evansville has games against NCCAA (National Christian College Athletic Association) Oakland City Unversity, and against NAIA Midway College (Kentucky)
Loyola played a home game against Division 3 Eureka College
Valparaiso's first 2 home games were against D3 North Park and NAIA Trinity Christian College (Illinois)
Southern Illinois played a home game against D2 UI-Springfield this past Saturday, and struggled to beat them.
Drake's opening game was against D3 Coe College, which they won by 47 points.
Northern Iowa played D3 Wartburg, and has an upcoming game against D3 University of Dubuque
Missouri State has a home game this Friday against NAIA Evangel University.
And Indiana State also plays two non-D1 schools- They play D2 Missouri-St. Louis this Wednesday, and they play D2 University of Indianapolis on Dec.9.

[tornado]

Missouri State's game against Evangel is also tied to their tournament in Florida - the Gulf Coast Showcase
"Seven of the eight teams will play a home game against a non-Division I opponent that’s tied to the event."

https://www.bloggingthebracket.com/2017/11/8/16215678/2017-gulf-coast-showcase-primer-manhattan-missouri-state-penn-towson-georgia-southern

So why do these tournaments do this - and draw in a bad NAIA?

[Da Coach]

In some cases, it is a way for the tournament organizers to make a little extra money. D1 teams like the exempt tournaments, because they get 3 or 4 games without having to schedule them. Usually, if a D1 team has a lower level school play them on their home court, they will pay anywhere from $40,000 to $80,000 for the "buy game". In this case, the tournament organizers act as a middle man to broker these games, and they get paid for that. It helps finance the tournament, which as anyone can see from the video of the games, does not draw enough fans to make a profit off ticket sales or TV revenue. In return, the D1 teams get the tournament games, transportation and hotels costs paid for by the tournament.

[Future Walk-On]

And Illinois is playing Augustana tomorrow night as well. Just as an FYI.

[Da Coach]

Luuk van Bree is due to be back for the game tomorrow.

[Da Coach]

Bradley wins 79-47

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

http://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/game?gameId=400989615

[Da Coach]

Box score from BradleyBraves.com-

http://www.bubraves.com/boxscore.aspx?id=14036&path=mbball

Attendance was 4,655, and there a lot fewer no-shows....not bad considering it was a Wednesday game before Thanksgiving, and a D2 opponent.

Dwayne Lautier-Ogunleye left the game with a foot injury after starting and playing only 4 minutes. Jayden Hodgson left the game immediately after he checked in with what looked like an ankle sprain.


FWIW, the ISU game in Normal against Quincy only drew 3,733

https://twitter.com/Pg_Benson/status/933544764741509120

[tornado]

two others, Luuk & Nate, had to come out with bleeding as well, but I think they're ok

[Da Coach]

Wardle said after the game that the inuries to DLO and Jayden were not too serious, and that they could have returned to the game is they were needed. That's good news.



One other note- Bradley's next opponent Georgia Southern, lost tonight to Towson. They are now 5-1-

http://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/boxscore?gameId=401001955

[YATittle]

Really impressed with Childs. Looks like a great recruiting find.