Final: Bradley 53 Loyola 51

[Bradley3342]

Great start!

[elmerb]

Take care of the ball!! GO BRADLEY

[InMnBob1]

Nice game. How many years has it been since we were in the championship game?

[elmerb]

Magic number 1!!! Go Bradley

[Big Mike]

Wow....great win, nice to see Nate step it up with 19.....not sure I have ever seen Bradley have that many blocks in a game....YES!

[ihatetea]

That fire Wardle thread (that must have been deleted cuz I can’t find it now) feels especially foolish right about now. What a great turn around to the season. What the hell happened there in the middle of the season? We were good at the beginning and end of the season, bad at the end. Whic is better than being good at the beginning and middle and bad at the end I guess. Kennel on fire in the first half. Some mistakes cuz his confidence got so high but I’ll take that bad with all the good he brought. Glad the refs let the teams play. Helped us a lot more than it hurt. I feel good about our chances tomorrow regardless of our opponent.

[Bradley3342]

Unreal!!!! Love our chances tomorrow too. I can’t remember a Bradley team that played defense the way they played today. Huge game by Nate too! 1 more game and hopefully we’ll be dancing!!!!!

[Da Coach]

I was able to acquire tickets from a nice Loyola family who are headed home tonight, and believe it or not, there isn't a hotel room available in Downtown for less than $300. So I had to settle for Collinsville. (because Garth Brooks is performing at the Dome).
I hope a huge number of fans can come down tomorrow!

Stats- Bradley 53 Loyola 51

http://stats.statbroadcast.com/mobile/?id=251344

[64NIT]

If BU hadn't been in that funk at the beginning of the Valley season, who knows where they would have been seeded. They really turned things around and they're picking up momentum at just the right time. Let's go Braves!!

[Mikovio]

Kinda reminds me of that 2006 team that also had a lull in January. But something clicked going into February and they played as well as anyone in the conference. Unlike that team though, 2019 isn’t in the at large picture so it’s tournament title or bust!

[bigjimmy]

Just a gutty, gritty, grimey effort today. Nate was feeling it thankfully as the rest of the guys struggled for the first 30 minutes. DB finally broke through at the 10:00 mark for his first points which gave us a 37-36 lead. The teams traded the lead 5 times during the next few minutes until a DB 3 put us up 46-43 with 7:01 left. A leaf that we would not give up. Between DB and Childs they scored our next 14 points for the next 7:00. Henry was 1-2 from the FT line with 3:11 to go to put us up 50-46. Loyola came down and missed 2 3’s and we got the rebound. We came down and missed a shot the Cooper Kaifes made a NBA 3 with 1:47 left to close the gap to 50-49. After a timeout Nate got open for the biggest 3 of his career putting us up 53-49 with 1:21 left. Marques Townes then made a layup with 1:05 left to make the score 53-51. DB was called for traveling with :38 left. With only commiting 2 fouls for the half we fouled them 3 times in the next 20 seconds. With :13 seconds left we played tough defense and made Loyola put up a contested shot that they missed and JaShon grabed andbthe clock went to :00. BALLGAME BABY! VALLEY TOURNAMENT FINALS BABY! We get either Drake, who we played 1 really bad game against and 1 game that the refs took away from us, or UNI, who we lost at home to but beat up st Cedar Falls for the first time in 12 years. Won’t be easy either way but I think the boys are up to it. GET ER DONE BOYS!

[Go_Braves]

I "truly" do not recall a defensive effort as the one that I witnessed this afternoon. Blocked shots, take aways, time expires, etc., etc., etc. Porter Moser was "stoked" from the very beginning of the game. From my angle / point of view - we out hustled Loyola, but missed enough shots and had enough turn overs to allow Loyola to stay in the game. Bradley just kept on grinding and grinding and grinding it out - they never quit or gave up. I do not receive CBS-SN at my home so I went to a Sports Bar and told my server - " Is there a Defibrillator in the house - I am going to need one before the end of this game. " LOL GO BRAVES …..

[BUBraves 33]

I just got my tickets purchased for the game tomorrow. Section 115. I'm guessing ill be sitting amongst the Northern Iowa fans? Oh well. Win one more game and we're going dancing!

[Da Coach]

Another highlight video from Saturday's win over Loyola-
https://twitter.com/MattMcClain3/sta...22019390001154

On the final shot by Loyola's Marques Townes that Ja'Shon Henry rebounded and laid on the floor with until the final buzzer sounded (starts at about 1:40 of the video), does anyone else have the recollection that those last 2 seconds seemed like they were really a lot longer time? I couldn't wait for that time to expire. I thought it was going to get called a jump ball and be given back to Loyola for another chance, or a foul (BU was not in the bonus yet) that still might have given Loyola a chance to steal an inbounds pass and score. But Ja'Shon did a nice job of shielding the ball from the Loyola players!