Final score: Bradley 80 Valparaiso 71

[Da Coach]

I'm still at the "Honey, I'll be back at the start of the 2nd half" stage.

[Da Coach]

Bradley is a 6?? point favorite over Valparaiso-

http://www.vegasinsider.com/college-basketball/odds/las-vegas/line-movement/valparaiso-@-bradley.cfm/date/01-03-18

[Bradleyfan1]

I think we cover the spread.

[Bradleyfan1]

Dating back to last season. Am I correct in saying we are going for 10 in a row at home tonight?

[tornado]

That is right - a win tonight will give us a 10-game winning streak on our home court - who'da thunk it..?
Been a while since we've seen that!

[Bradleyfan1]

If we??™re still talking about our home winning streak at the end of the month. The NIT may not be out of reach.

I hope Bar is ready to go . That two headed monster Valpo has down low and the way Bar has been playing lately has me worried.

But Brown has been tremendous and I look forward to that continuing and the progress of Childs. Open 3??™s for us a flying. Lock down defense.

[Da Coach]

Bradley wins!
Final score: Bradley 80 Valparaiso 71

[YATittle]

For those of you who attended the game, what was your assessment of Valparaiso? Tougher than expected or did you anticipate this kind of game?

[tornado]

impossible to say since the refs went crazy giving them a ton of calls and allowing them to go to the line endlessly...
They play a ton of head-down 1-on-1 and don't make a lot of good passes...

remember - they are shooting 32% so sending them to the FT line is quite a gift
we're shooting 50% so we'd like to play a little offense instead of having the whistle go every time

55 fouls, 67 FTs - it is definitely NOT what people came to watch..
a whole lot of those fouls were very puzzling, phantom fouls...

[Da Coach]

Valpo played very tough. A couple reasons the game was even as close as it was were the hyperactive whistles by the officials who called every touch by Bradley a foul. They called an unprecedented 25 personal fouls on Bradley, probably only half of them were real fouls. Valpo was 23-31 from the FT line.
The other reason Valpo kept it close- coming into the game, Valpo was the worst 3-point shooting team in the league- 31.9% overall, and 29.5% in MVC games. But tonight they shot a little better, 8-22 (36.4%).

I thought Bradley's defense was very good. Coach Wardle did not have as high an opinion of it on his post-game show. The way Valpo plays defense reminded me a lot of the SIU Salukis of a decade ago when they were always putting 2 hands on the offensive players, and doing a lot of holding, pushing, and shoving and getting away with it. But thankfully, the refs started calling it a lot more late in the game, and Bradley made them pay by making almost all their 2nd half free throws.

Box score-

http://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/boxscore?gameId=400989682

Donte Thomas was great- 19 points 12 rebounds
DLO also had a great game- played great defense, and had 6 points & 14 rebounds, and 5 assists
Darrel Brown had 12 points & 7 assists
Nate Kennell had 14 points and some big FTs late
Koch Bar was tremendous, especially in the 2nd half- 14 points, 7 rebounds, 2 blocks, and great inside defense
Everyone else played well, and the effort was superb. If they can come close to that level of effort and execution, they will win a lot more games.
Bradley shot 51% from the floor, 28.6% from three, and 72.2% from the FT line. They outrebounded Valpo 45-30. Their defense held Valpo to 32.8% shooting.

Bradley is now 12-4, 2-1 in the MVC, and undefeated 8-0 at home.
The 12 wins equals the total number of regular season wins Bradley had all last season (they were 13-20 in 2016-17, but one of the wins came in the MVC Tournament).

Valparaiso, which won their first 8 games of this season, has not lost 7 of their last 8 games. They are now 9-7 overall, and 0-3 in the MVC.

Next game Saturday, Jan. 6, 3:00 PM CST at Evansville.

[Dub]

For those of you who attended the game, what was your assessment of Valparaiso? Tougher than expected or did you anticipate this kind of game?

Tougher than I thought. They have good size and beef, and they play very physical. They have a passionate fan base and had a decent representation there. I like them in the Valley.

[Bradleyfan1]

Walker seems real tough. Having him back and healthy should help them a lot.

How bout those bull dawgs ? That loss doesn??™t seem so bad now does it .

Go beat the aces.

[Da Coach]

Box score from BradleyBraves.com-

http://www.bubraves.com/documents/2018/1/3//Bradley_80_Valparaiso_71.pdf

Attendance 5,294

[patrick_o'brian]

Although, nowhere where it has been even 5 years ago, attendance is improving. This 8-0 home record is a major contributor to that. We still have a long way to go, but the quality is getting better. Tom O’Neil was his usual self in blowing every contact a foul and calling the wrong team out of bounds. Overall, the officials were terrible. They totally disrupted the flow for both teams. Dante Thomas played like the veteran he is and had an outstanding game 19 pts 12 rebounds. DLO was a ton on D and had 14 rebounds. Unbelievable for a 6’3” guard. Koch Bar looked like Rob Dye at the free throw line tonight. In my opinion, if the refs allow the game to be played we win by 20, easy. I never like to blame officiating, but it was pretty obvious they were off tonight. Valpo’s Walker kept them in the game, but 10 of his 25 came off FTs that, at least, 3 calls were questionable. Other than that he only made 6 out of 16 FGs. Can’t wait for Saturday at Evansville.

[Da Coach]

Here is the twitter feed of the Valparaiso beat writer who was tweeting throughout the game. It is really interesting to read! He does a pretty good job with his tweets about the game, but he seems obsessed with a single Bradley fan (I suspect from the student section) who was giving Valpo some good-natured heckling. He tweets incessantly about the heckler, who must have really gotten under his skin.

https://twitter.com/NWIOren