NIT game- Wisconsin 81 Bradley 62

[LittleBrave]

Sure doesn't feel like it, unlike the 22-13 07' Braves that beat Providence in the first round of the NIT, or even the 16-15 10' braves team that beat Illinois.

Absolutely disagree with mid-majors not being able to compete with the big boys and I expect Drake to win vs Miami. Nuff said.

Bradley should take these last 2 embarrassing games to heart and work hard in the offseason to get better.
Story of night was poor shooting, which hurt us the last 3 games.

[carter]

Also I really think we would have seen a different team if we would have had a home game as we should have been rewarded.It sounds like Wisconsin was going to have a home game with Liberty also.I am done with these power 5 teams.Let them have there own tournament and the rest of us have our own.Its always going to favor the bigger leagues no matter how you look at it.

[Tommy]

Well this Wisconsin team put on a display of why they were as high as #14 in the polls before their season went off the rails. Refs helped them all night too, not that we would have won with better officiating with the way we played, but leaves a bad taste in the mouth with the inflated deficit. We have to improve free throw shooting to get to the tourney next year.

I have to disagree with this. They had one player that put on a display, but the fact is Wisconsin overall looked terrible and will get crushed when they play Liberty. They didn't play overly impressive defense and as a team, they really don't shoot very well.

We played a terrible game, had tons of open shots and couldn't get them to fall. We played some of the worst defense I've seen from this team and showed little to no energy for most of the game. We out-rebounded them and had every opportunity to win this game, but you won't win anything going 1 for 10 from 3 in a half and it didn't get much better until the very end of the game. It was an abysmal performance by BU and not an incredibly talented Wisconsin team that created the outcome of this game and finding out 24 hours before game time that you're traveling to Wisconsin certainly didn't help our preparation.

I still think it's bogus that almost all the home court advantages went to power conference teams and if this game had been played at Carver arena, I tend to think we would have seen a much different outcome, but we'll never know because the selection committees will never give an advantage to a mid-major team.

We played terrible and I'm not making excuses for that, but let's not make this into how power conference teams are so much better than we are. It was our poor play and not the talent discrepancy that led to this abysmal loss.

[Stryker]

....

I still think it's bogus that almost all the home court advantages went to power conference teams and if this game had been played at Carver arena, I tend to think we would have seen a much different outcome, but we'll never know because the selection committees will never give an advantage to a mid-major team.

We played terrible and I'm not making excuses for that, but let's not make this into how power conference teams are so much better than we are. It was our poor play and not the talent discrepancy that led to this abysmal loss.

BU's performance last night just proved to the committees they are making the right choice. How can we keep saying BU is better than this when they lay an egg every time they play a decent team? If the only teams that can be beat are conference rivals and garbage teams it proves nothing. Poor play and talent discrepancy is exactly why the power teams are better than most mid-majors.

[bradleyfan124]

For anyone who doesn't know, Jim is an Illinois grad. He's a good guy, though.

I beg to disagree with you Da Coach. His business is to serve the community he is in and the sports in that community. Not just talk about his personal favorites

[bradleyfan124]

Bradley is not ready for prime time yet. They are getting close. They are knocking on the door. Next year if they can keep the core of these players they will be opening of few of those doors

[houstonbrave]

We seem to be allergic to National TV. Loss at Drake, loss in tournament final, loss at Wisky.

[Tommy]

BU's performance last night just proved to the committees they are making the right choice. How can we keep saying BU is better than this when they lay an egg every time they play a decent team? If the only teams that can be beat are conference rivals and garbage teams it proves nothing. Poor play and talent discrepancy is exactly why the power teams are better than most mid-majors.

Because 1 game does not make a season and we can only play the competition that is afforded to us. Your argument would make a lot more sense if power conference teams actually agreed to play home and away games against us once in a while.

[bradleyfan124]

Because 1 game does not make a season and we can only play the competition that is afforded to us. Your argument would make a lot more sense if power conference teams actually agreed to play home and away games against us once in a while.

Bingo!! Tommy you hit it right on the head. It's what is wrong with the college landscape right now. The NCAA seems to be unable or not wanting to solve the problem

[Stryker]

Because 1 game does not make a season and we can only play the competition that is afforded to us. Your argument would make a lot more sense if power conference teams actually agreed to play home and away games against us once in a while.

We haven't had just "one game" this year. It is double digit losses to Utah State, Arkansas, Auburn, Liberty, and twice to Drake. I'm not saying BU hasn't had a fun and successful season. All I'm saying is we as fans have over estimated them, and they are not as good as we thought they were despite a championship season and 25 wins. BU is literally 1-6 against good teams this year. They had 7 chances to get signature wins and only getting 1 win (at home) out of those 7 games tells the tale.

[BUBraves2006]

One additional observation I had about the game was about game flow. Every game where we had a good game flow, both offensively and defensively, we played well. We absolutely outplayed Wisconsin or at worst played them even in those stretches. When it turned into a whistle fest for long periods of time, then it was when we play poorly. For our team to be successful, our tough defense has to get rewarded and there were way too many bailout or phantom calls that prevented us from stringing stops together. It seems, for whatever reason, that also allowed us to generally prevent too many easy baskets, which also happened once we were out of our flow.

[Tommy]

We haven't had just "one game" this year. It is double digit losses to Utah State, Arkansas, Auburn, Liberty, and twice to Drake. I'm not saying BU hasn't had a fun and successful season. All I'm saying is we as fans have over estimated them, and they are not as good as we thought they were despite a championship season and 25 wins. BU is literally 1-6 against good teams this year. They had 7 chances to get signature wins and only getting 1 win (at home) out of those 7 games tells the tale.

I appreciate your opinion, Stryker, and we're both BU fans and in the end, that's what matters. On this topic, our disagreement is more on a fundamental basis. When you talk about 'signature' wins, I have a fundamental disagreement with that term in and of itself. We can only win the games that are on our schedule and we won 25 of them, as well as winning our conference championship. I believe that is all we should be judged on when it comes to the post-season tournaments as we only had the opportunity to win the games that were put before us. I understand this is never going to happen, and I've accepted that. I just don't like the current system and never will understand why post-season tournaments want to include all the teams that had already lost in their respective tournaments/conference standings. Just seems like they get multiple chances at winning a title and as a mid-major we would have to win both our conference tournament, as well as any post-season tournament to take a title. That's a serious win streak for anyone to go on and seems like an unfair burden put on mid-majors that isn't extended to the power conference teams.

[formerlybis]

Hey guys. There were a few unusual things that went Wisconsin's way. 1) Obviously Crowl, and specifically the 3-point shooting, but he also went 7-7 from the FT line and he's probably less than 60% on the year. 2) The FTMs and FTAs for UW were the most of the year by a wide margin (even though the total fouls were only 21-16). In other words, this was a very abnormal amount of FTs for UW (and they have been bad at making them in most games, too). 3) UW only had 3 turnovers - UW is #1 in the country for not turning it over, but only 3 was the best of the year. 4) While BU had 12 offensive rebounds to UW's 6, Wisconsin won the second chance points battle 10-9 - a team with a +6 in that stat wins the second chance points over 90% of the time.

I do a stats-based recap with some other posters over at Buckyville if you're interested - it's definitely from a Badger fan's perspective, but if you like analytics you might enjoy it. NIT - Bradley box score observations - Buckyville (tapatalk.com)

[Tommy]

Hey guys. There were a few unusual things that went Wisconsin's way. 1) Obviously Crowl, and specifically the 3-point shooting, but he also went 7-7 from the FT line and he's probably less than 60% on the year. 2) The FTMs and FTAs for UW were the most of the year by a wide margin (even though the total fouls were only 21-16). In other words, this was a very abnormal amount of FTs for UW (and they have been bad at making them in most games, too). 3) UW only had 3 turnovers - UW is #1 in the country for not turning it over, but only 3 was the best of the year. 4) While BU had 12 offensive rebounds to UW's 6, Wisconsin won the second chance points battle 10-9 - a team with a +6 in that stat wins the second chance points over 90% of the time.

I do a stats-based recap with some other posters over at Buckyville if you're interested - it's definitely from a Badger fan's perspective, but if you like analytics you might enjoy it. NIT - Bradley box score observations - Buckyville (tapatalk.com)

That was really interesting stuff! Thank you for posting!

[️ Fanatic]

One additional observation I had about the game was about game flow. Every game where we had a good game flow, both offensively and defensively, we played well. We absolutely outplayed Wisconsin or at worst played them even in those stretches. When it turned into a whistle fest for long periods of time, then it was when we play poorly. For our team to be successful, our tough defense has to get rewarded and there were way too many bailout or phantom calls that prevented us from stringing stops together. It seems, for whatever reason, that also allowed us to generally prevent too many easy baskets, which also happened once we were out of our flow.

Our defense gave us a chance to make this a game... mid 2nd half, Bradley was down 9 points... Wisconsin had 5 consecutive possessions that Bradley defense got a stop... We did not score a basket during that stretch. We are lacking a "go-to" scorer!