Final scores- Sun. 1/31- INSU 60 BU 57 - Monday Feb. 1- INSU 67 BU 55

[PistolP]

Regardless of what anyone thinks of Mast, we need Nolan and East to play well and we certainly want Childs taking more than 8 shots. It's frustrating to watch when we have long droughts without scoring and our team defense is slow as well. I love how the TV guys made the Bradley/ Wardle excuse that lack of practice time affects how they rebound. If you're 18-21 years old and you need a structured practice and a rebounding drill to remind you how to put in the effort to box out and jump and grab a board, I think you have a problem. Even before this game and even when we have outrebounded opponents this year, we have often done poorly with grabbing defensive rebounds on the weak side of perimeter shots. Look back at the game film. Mast is most certainly the most glaring player in that respect along with Ville but even Childs has been lazy at times in games and had trouble with getting a clean defensive board without tapping the ball around. And not to rant, but I will say on record that Mast will never be a star. He will not be Krutwig. I believe that Hannah is getting about half the minutes that Mast is getting this year and I would much prefer this reversed. I don't like the knee injury excuse either. I can't imagine that Mast was incredibly mobile prior to the ACL tear. He doesn't jump, doesn't play big, and can't knock down perimeter shots. He moves like the tin man. I have seen enough of Mast missing perimeter shots terribly as well (missing rim completely) that as a coach I would not encourage him to shoot from the outside, especially early in any possession. Hannah, in my mind, has the opportunity to truly be a star. He is incredibly athletic and hopefully will get stronger over time. I am hopeful that his free throw shooting this year is an anomaly.

[Da Coach]

Mast played some post with his pro team in Netherlands, but a lot of the Euopean teams like to have their big men play away from the basket, and Rienk did much of the time. He will get more consistent with his perimeter shot and I think he'll become more effective inside, too. He is still only halfway through is first season, and big men usually take a couple years to fully recover from ACL surgery.
It is discouraging to lose close games like these last 3, and nobody is using the injury excuse, though this is another one I think that would have ended much different if Ari Boya was healthy and playing.

Game recap-
https://bradleybraves.com/news/2021/...ate-60-57.aspx

Box score-
https://bradleybraves.com/sports/men...boxscore/19721

It's not hard to see why Bradley lost with a look at those stats.
Perimeter shooting- Ville was 3-6 from three, but the entire rest of the team was 0-10.
Fouls- I've never seen a team have such an imbalance of fouls called against them, especially considering Bradley is not the most physical team. Yes, a lot of them were justified, but it sure looked to me that Indiana State got away with a lot more contact and bumping against our shooters without getting called for fouls.
And rebounding... Bradley seems to have gone from one of the better rebounding teams in the MVC to the worst rebounding team overnight. Indiana State is not a good rebounding team, yet they dominated the boards. Maybe that can be partly explained by Ari Boya's absence, but our guards are not helping out much. BUt our top 4 guards totalled only 2 rebounds for the game! Kingsby and East both had ZERO rebounds, and Viile and Nolan each had 1. A total of 2 rebounds among them in 100 minutes of floor time. Jayson Kent had 3 rebounds by himself in just 9 minutes of playing time. The top 4 guards for Indiana State totalled 16 rebounds among them. Our guards are way too athletic to go the entire game without a rebound. On offense, they seem to backpeddle as soon as the Bradley shot is released. On defense, they don't go for the rebounds like they should.
Let's hope these problems get corrected and we turn things around tomorrow.

[Bradley3342]

Totally agree, BU fan14. Mast is going to be a star for us, and everyone expects so much from him forgetting that he's a freshman. A freshman doing as much as he has for us already this year is astounding. Our main problem is we can't seem to rebound without Boya, and secondarily, foul calls are killing us.

I looked up the foul calls for this 5 game losing streak and we've had 104 personal fouls to our opponents 62 (today was 20 to 9, Valpo game was 30 to 16!). For the year, excluding the two D3 games, we are 296 personal fouls for us to 233 for our opponents and we've had 1 game with fewer fouls than our opponent and 1 game with the same amount. That discrepancy equals losing, especially when we aren't hitting the few free throws we get and our opponents are nailing theirs.

We're not playing well, so I'm not going to blame the refs, however, the last seconds of this game, we had our hands on the ball 3 times and each player was severely hacked without a whistle, and as soon as an ISU player touches the ball, they call us for a personal foul to all but end the game. I'm sorry, but that was completely bogus. In the end, we should be blowing out teams like ISU Blue, but we aren't, and right now, we are the worst team in the valley.

Let's hope we can turn things around tomorrow. I still believe, but it's getting harder every day.

I agree with you Tommy. The last possession Kingsby got fouled on the drive with Henry getting the offensive rebound and also getting fouled with the put back. You have to call both of them...

[Classof77]

Thanks Coach.

[Tommy]

Look back at the game film. Mast is most certainly the most glaring player in that respect along with Ville but even Childs has been lazy at times in games and had trouble with getting a clean defensive board without tapping the ball around. And not to rant, but I will say on record that Mast will never be a star. He will not be Krutwig.

Ok, this I agree with. Mast most likely will not be Krutwig, but very few would. Krutwig is the 4th best players statistically to come out of the MVC, so there is quite a bit of room to fit my personal definition of 'star' other than reaching Krutwig (or even Childs) level.

Mast doesn't block out well, you are 100% correct on that, but neither does anyone else on the team right now, How often did we give up an O board when one ISU player was surrounded by 4 red jerseys? So on that, we are definitely in agreement. That being said, Mast is a Freshman and is averaging 5.2 rebounds per game, which is good for 3rd on the team behind Boya and Childs. He is averaging more than Henry at this point and is playing fewer minutes per game, so I think there's room for patience with this kid. He is after all, just a kid, regardless of his size!

[LittleBrave]

Much better today, but on start side again.

Solid defensive effort for all but about 5 min. in 1st half.

When 2 guys you expect a lot from score like 2 total, very slim shot to win.
Need East and Nolan to get back to how they are capable of playing.

[wily coyote]

Do we get the game on ESPN3 if so what is the link please.

[Classof77]

See if this works for you.

https://www.espn.com/watch/player/_/id/db20bb5d-7a48-4a9c-b8f5-049de493e4ab#bucketId=29899

[Da Coach]

Join the Bradleyfans chat room-

http://us21.chatzy.com/bradleyfans

[Big Mike]

Cannot say I'm surprised by the loss.....6 in a row in league play is really bad. There is no way to sugar coat this, player's are beaten and the coaches are right there with em. Nolan is playing terrible....makes me wonder what East said or did to miss a whole game and Nolan is playing worse and gets big minutes? Henry no show today....Hannah needs more minutes and Kent will also improve with more time on court. Childs has also lost his confidence on O'....I am looking at a Thursday night play on for the Braves....not even close to playing as a unit right now and the funk continues.......

[Da Coach]

Indiana State 67 Bradley 55

https://gosycamores.com/sidearmstats/mbball/media

Another ugly game and awful performance by Bradley. I think we can all agree this team was greatly overrated. Many of the same issues keep showing up, and in fact are getting worse every game..
Poor shooting- Bradley manages to score only 55 points, 22-57 (38.6%), and 4-23 from three (17.4%). Bradley was 3-16 yesterday (18.8%)
Excessive fouling- Yes, the officiating seemed to allow Indiana State to bump our shooters all game, but Bradley again commits more fouls than the opponent.
Bad defense- allowing Indiana State open looks- 7-16 (43.8%) from three, including 2-2 by Cam Bacote who had made one three all season. They were 24-50 (48%) overall

The good- Elijah Childs struggled, but did manage a double double- 11 points (5-13 shooting), 12 rebounds
Rienk Mast had another nice game- 17 points, 5 rebounds, 2-7 from three
Ville got a bit of his shooting touch back- 10 points, 2-6 from three
Darius Hannah- 8 points in 10 minutes

The bad- Our guards are really struggling. Other than Ville's 10 points, the other guards- Kingsby, Kent, Nolan, & Thomas combined for a total of 9 points, 2-15 overall, and 0-8 from three. Our starting 3 guards combined for a total of 4 rebounds, 8 fouls, and 6 turnovers.

Bradley drops to 9-10 and 3-7 in the MVC.
Their next games are Saturday, Feb. 6 & Sunday, Feb. 7 at home vs. a struggling SIU. SIU is 8-6, 2-6, and had lost 6 in a row until beating UNI in a close game Sunday.

[Tommy]

Childs wasn't as aggressive as he usually is, especially on posting up. Wonder if he's struggling with that hip injury and just playing through it?

Would love to know what's going on with East. Was at least glad to see him court side cheering on the team. He appeared to be dressed, but no minutes means some behavior issue or rule broken unless, let's hope not, he's injured and we just don't know it.

Hard to find positives in the midst of a 6 game losing streak, but to try to stay on the positive side, here are a couple:
1. Regular season doesn't really matter much (just don't want to be in the play in game), we just need to win the tournament.
2. We're not getting blown out while playing poorly. If we can figure things out, we could still surprise a lot of people.

I still believe we're a much better team than we're showing right now. Agree with a lot of the sentiments from others here, and would love to see more time for Hannah, Kent, and call me crazy, but I'd like to see what Linke can do. He seems to have a big body and good effort from the couple minutes he's gotten so far this year. Just don't see what we have to lose right now with our abysmal performance. That being said, I trust Wardle and imagine he is a slightly better coach than I am.

Can we assume that McAdoo is done for the year? It would have been nice to have him as an option at the guard position these last few days. Maybe he could hit some shots.

[Big Mike]

I also think we miss the experience of McAdoo .....do not have any insight but my gut feeling is he is done playing at BU.

[Basketballfan9224]

We are running an NBA Offense and have to get to more screening action (Cross screens, down screens, flare screens back screens) and then I think we will see how good our guards are. Screening actions forces bigs to help on the shooters and screeners to slip when their defenders over help. Think about Kent, against Missouri when he scored, he was moving and coming of various screens as well the ball was push early. Just think how are guards would expose teams if defenders had to chase our guards off screens. Watch Out.

Hannah is a true talent who just needs to be on the floor. He is mobile and understands how to finish at the rim. Just think how he is going to do when the handcuff are really taken off. Our freshmen Kent, Hannah are going to be special players but right now they are playing not to mess up because one mistake they know they are coming out. So not a lot of confidence at times. Playing to keep coaches happy.

Rienk played well again have him screen and repost would open his game up. Ville played well coming off and gave us some scoring off the bench. Just like Kent, Ville would give us more if he was coming off screens which forces the bigs to help and giving our inside players the opp. to get good post position.

Not sure what was going on with East. Nolan i think is a talent but that "I am the man" mindset has to go to team. Teams are playing him tight and making him make decisions. Again get him moving without the ball and we will see him get back in the groove of things. Childs is Childs but has to work way too hard to score the ball. The iso NBA offense isn't showing his full range of his game. Again, get him moving without the ball which forces the bigs guarding him to struggle and we will see his game go to another level.

Screening Action / Motion Group - We would be hard to guard
Nolan
Ville
Kent
Hannah
Childs

Scoring off the Bench - Make us cause problems
East
Henry
Rienk

[Tommy]

I also think we miss the experience of McAdoo .....do not have any insight but my gut feeling is he is done playing at BU.

My gut says you’re right, Big Mike. Disappointing if true.