Bradley vs. Toledo in the Xavier Invitational in Cincinnati, Wed. 11/25 at 2 pm

[Big Mike]

Wow...good win for Braves, was worried with all the missed 3's and t/o's .

[Da Coach]

Nice win with a lot of guys contributing. Despite starting the game 0-12 from three, Bradley made 5-10 threes in the second half to close a double-digit deficit and win.
Stats-

https://s3.amazonaws.com/sidearm.sites/goxavier.com/documents/2020/11/25/Report_319813_2020_11_25_144502.pdf

Leading scorer- Elijah Childs with 14
Leading rebounder- Ja'Shon Henry with 9

[Tommy]

My quick takeaways from the game:

1. East is a true point guard and is everything we were told he'd be.
2. Nolan is awesome. Very DB like. Great defense and can shoot the 3 and also drive the hoop and finish.
3. Ari knows how to finish at the hoop and stayed out of foul trouble.
4. Mast didn't get much playing time. I wonder if that will increase as the season goes on.
5. No minutes for Antonio Thomas. Going to be hard to share minutes with all the guard talent on this team.
6. JaShon was his same old self and made our first 3 pointer of the game (where we struggled mightily).
7. Ville is still Ville.

Team looked tentative, but they played good defense, but need to get better against the 3. All in all, they didn't play great and still came away with the win. As they learn to play with one another more, I think this team is going to be tough to beat.

[houstonbrave]

Agree with what has been said. I’m really impressed with Ari’s improvement. We really must defend the 3 much better (UNI would kill us). Really like East - a true point guard. Jashon is just so consistent. I thought a really average game for Eli-good but we expect so much from him. An off night for Kingsby,Mcadoo and Mast we need more from them. Nolan is going to be fun to watch.

We better shoot the 3 better tomorrow. Xavier looked really good against a weak Oakland team.

[Dub]

Really fun finish to a pretty frustrating and disappointing game in my opinion. Lots of nerves and rust, and clearly we will take time to be more organized and more effective.

I think seeing our talent, my expectations were too high for a first game performance. Plus we had just been watching Illinois score 122 on poor Carolina A&T pre game.

However, we’ve got some real potential when we add some play execution, and it will. #1 deficiency today was 3p defense. #1 asset was the ability to finish at the rim by Nolan.

[bigjimmy]

Some good (4 guys in double figures, 6 guys with at least 5 rebounds and holding Toledo to 33% from the field) and some bad (15 turnovers, 5-21 from 3 and too many quick shots) adds up to the first game of the season. Might take a while for the guys to jell, especially when 3 of them (Mast, McAdoo and Nolan) hadn't played a game in 2 years. But at the end of the day a win is a win no matter how you slice it. Will need to execute better against Xavier.

[Da Coach]

The Elijah Childs dunk on the lob from Sean East is #5 on the ESPN Sports Center Top 10.
https://twitter.com/bradleyumbb/stat...55066710618112

And the Terry Nolan last-second basket was shown as one of the Best Finishes of the day.
https://twitter.com/bradleyumbb/stat...20650373824513

Nolan was named the Player of the Game-
https://twitter.com/bradleyumbb/stat...67741980811269

Game Summary from BradleyBraves.com

https://bradleybraves.com/news/2020/11/25/mens-basketball-last-second-basket-leads-bradley-past-toledo-in-season-opener.aspx

[Tommy]

Watching that Nolan game winner again. Really amazing that thing went in. Crazy angle shot and strange bounce off the rim. Someone was looking over BU on that play!

[Da Coach]

It is very early to make judgements about this team, but the most obvious difference is that in the first 2 games, Bradley is getting less production from their guards than they did last season. We knew that losing 2 All-MVC guards (Brown, Kennell) was going to make a difference, but here is a comparison. In 2019-20 BU averaged about 42 points from 4 guards. In the first 2 games of 2020-21, BU got 26 and 23 points from 5 guards.
It is fair to say that we need to get more production from our guards, and I am sure it will improve, hopefully starting today.

2019-20 averages
Guard.....Points....FG%.....3pt%....Asst...+/-.
Brown......15.5.... 35.8%... 32.7%...4.7
Kennell....12.5.... 42.7%... 44.7%...2.2
Kingsby.... 7.2.....39.5%... 36.1%...2.1
Ville......... 6.6......46.6%... 39.1%...1.0

2020-21 numbers so far
Guard.....Points....FG%.....3pt%....Asst...+/-.
Kingsby
Game 1.....2..........1-4........0-1.........0......4
Game 2.....2..........1-2........0-0.........0....-18

McAdoo
Game 1.....0..........0-4........0-3........1.....-15
Game 2.....0..........0-4.......0-0........0......-3
.
East
Game 1.....8.........3-10.......0-4........8.....18
Game 2.....5..........2-6........1-2........3......6

Nolan
Game 1.....10.......4-8.........2-5........1.....14
Game 2......5........2-6.........1-2........2......6

Tahvanainen
Game 1......6.......2-6.........2-6.........1.....-8
Game 2.....11......4-9.........3-5.........1......9

[Heemeskerk]

Toledo up early on Xavier. Toledo may be better than folks think.

[houstonbrave]

Toledo may be but Xavier hurt a lot by Fremantle picking up 3 fouls in first 7 minutes.

[Heemeskerk]

Ah did not see that.

[houstonbrave]

It was actually 2 fouls then they sat him down then he came in got a T for mouthing off. Sat for rest of first half. In second half played well until he hung on the rim on a dunk with 12 min left in game-getting a second T and disqualification.

[Da Coach]

Toledo played very well and lead most of the game. But Xavier finally pulled ahead in the final minute and hung on for a 76-73 win over Toledo.

https://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/boxscore?gameId=401257486