Final score: Bradley 86 Evansville 50

[Da Coach]

Next game: Evansville (10-5, 1-3) at Bradley (10-5, 2-2), Wednesday, Jan. 10, 7:00 pm at Carver Arena.
Streamed on ESPN+ - https://www.espn.com/espnplus/player...9-ab1d6a728bac
Chat room- https://www.chatzy.com/bradleyfans
Live stats- https://bradleybraves.com/sidearmstats/mbball/summary or https://stats.statbroadcast.com/broadcast/?id=483617
Radio- www.wmbdradio.com

Evansville won their first 6 games and 10 of their first 12. But they have now lost 3 in a row to drop to 10-5 overall and 1-3 in the MVC. They are coming off a 81-59 loss at home to Murray State, their only home loss of the season. They are 3-4 in road games.
Bradley is coming off a 86-60 home win over Missouri State. They are 6-2 at home with losses to Indiana State and Cleveland State. Bradley's next 2 games after this game are on the road at UIC and SIU.

Evansville schedule/results- https://gopurpleaces.com/sports/mens...tball/schedule
Roster- https://gopurpleaces.com/sports/mens-basketball/roster
Stats- https://s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/s...UEMBBStats.pdf

Evansville's leading scorer is Ben Humrichous, a 6'9" senior forward transfer from NAIA Huntington University. He is averaging 16.3 ppg and has shot 48.4% from three. However, he has missed their last 3 games (all losses) due to a foot injury. Little information has been released about the injury, but he was still wearing a boot at their last game Saturday (Jan.6).
Evansville shoots 33.4% from three (7th in MVC), but excluding Humrichous, they have shot just 29.7%.
Bradley is shooting 35.2% from three (ranks 6th in MVC)

Bradley stats- https://s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/s...ume.pdf

MVC stats- https://mvc-sports.com/documents/202..._MBB_Stats.pdf
MVC Standings- https://www.espn.com/mens-college-ba...ngs/_/group/18

[Stevezall]

Will be hoping Bradley can extend there winning streak to 5 by taking care of Evansville! Evansville is the most improved team in the Valley this year and I'm sure Bradley will not take them lightly. Another crucial and best MVC game Wednesday will be Indiana St.@ Drake. Can't wait to hear the final score on this game! Just as an outside remark to note: Utah State is now 14-1 and Ranked # 18 in one of the college polls I saw! Who would have thought there only loss was to Bradley! When Bradley Beat them, everyone thought a nice win for Bradley. Noone though expected they would win there next 14 Games! So this really turns into a great signature win for Bradley!!! I feel good that we can say this year, Bradley has beaten a top 25 team!!!!!

[Stevezall]

Correction I believe Utah State was 1-1 after losing to Bradley so now they are on a 13 game win streak. ( not 14 as I mentioned above)

[Stevezall]

One final statistic: I checked FOX MVC standings and included in all the Valley teams records are wins over a top 25 team. No Valley team so far as beaten a top 25 team! I'm not sure what the rules say, but now that Utah State is in top 25 poll, does Bradley get credit for this to be 1-0 against ranked teams? If not then I guess Utah State would have had to be ranked when Bradley played them earlier in the season. But was just fun to think about this Stat! And fun that Bradley Beat Utah State!

[Stryker]

One final statistic: I checked FOX MVC standings and included in all the Valley teams records are wins over a top 25 team. No Valley team so far as beaten a top 25 team! I'm not sure what the rules say, but now that Utah State is in top 25 poll, does Bradley get credit for this to be 1-0 against ranked teams? If not then I guess Utah State would have had to be ranked when Bradley played them earlier in the season. But was just fun to think about this Stat! And fun that Bradley Beat Utah State!

Typically a top 25 win only counts if the team was ranked at the time the game was played. For instance, often a team starts pre-season ranked top 25, but is no where near as good as everyone thought. That team then loses several non-conference games and ends up out of the poll quickly. The teams they lost too do not get credit for a top 25 win.

[Stryker]

Will be hoping Bradley can extend there winning streak to 5 by taking care of Evansville! Evansville is the most improved team in the Valley this year and I'm sure Bradley will not take them lightly. Another crucial and best MVC game Wednesday will be Indiana St.@ Drake. Can't wait to hear the final score on this game! Just as an outside remark to note: Utah State is now 14-1 and Ranked # 18 in one of the college polls I saw! Who would have thought there only loss was to Bradley! When Bradley Beat them, everyone thought a nice win for Bradley. Noone though expected they would win there next 14 Games! So this really turns into a great signature win for Bradley!!! I feel good that we can say this year, Bradley has beaten a top 25 team!!!!!

Going back to Coach's thread on the Bradley vs Utah State game, its a bit depressing to me how quickly Utah State has reloaded...See Da Coach's pre-game information:

....Utah State finished the 2022-23 season 26-9 and 13-5 in the Mountain West Conference, tied for 2nd place. They lost in the title game of the Mountain West Tournament to #1 seeded San Diego State. They played in the NCAA Tournament, losing 76-65 in their first round game to Missouri.
They finished last season with an NET ranking of 23.
This season, they were picked 9th in the 11-team Mountain West Preseason Poll- https://themw.com/news/2023/10/12/sa...ason-favorite/

Bradley played at Utah State in Logan, Utah last season, and lost 84-62-
Box score- https://bradleybraves.com/sports/men...boxscore/21481
Utah State guard Steven Ashworth went crazy and scored 28 points off the bench for the Aggies to help beat Bradley. He is now at Creighton.

Last year's Head Coach Ryan Odum is now at VCU. They have a new head coach, Danny Sprinkle, who was at Montana State last year, and an entirely new coaching staff. Sprinkle had to do a massive rebuilding job, similar to Coach Wardle's first season at Bradley. The big difference now is that rebuilding can be done quicker with the transfer portal.
Virtually all their players from last year that still had remaining eligibility transferred elsewhere. This year's team does not return a single player who scored a single point from last year's team.
The team lost all 10 players from last season who either started a game or scored any points last year. They return only 1 player from last year's roster, and he was a walk-on who only played a total of 9 minutes in 6 games, and was scoreless for the season.
So this year's team is composed of 4 freshman recruits, 9 portal transfers from other 4-year universities, one juco transfer, a player returning from redshirting his freshman year, and the returning walk-on from last year's roster...

[tomahawk chop]

Going back to Coach's thread on the Bradley vs Utah State game, its a bit depressing to me how quickly Utah State has reloaded...See Da Coach's pre-game information:

Utah St. has proven that if you go out and recruit the right mix of players it gives you a better chance at winning many games. Recruiting has always been one of the the most important part of winning games. The staff should know now what type of players they need to recruit for next season. We already have 2 freshman coming in , one point guard and a forward, hoping for a couple more guards and a power forward.

[Da Coach]

Going back to Coach's thread on the Bradley vs Utah State game, its a bit depressing to me how quickly Utah State has reloaded...See Da Coach's pre-game information...

And, the Utah State case is a little different than Bradley's. Their head coach last year, Ryan Odom, left after last season to take the VCU job. And yes, most of their roster left Utah State. But, they hired a new coach, Danny Sprinkle, who had great success as the head coach at Montana State. He was able to bring a couple of his top players with him to Utah State, so that helped fill the void right away- Former Montana State player Great Osborn is now the leading scorer and rebounder at Utah State (18.5 ppg and 9.5 rpg). and former Montana State point guard Darius Brown has started every game for Utah State and averages 10.5 ppg and 7.3 assists per game.
Sprinkle did come out better with the portal, but that might have had more to do with luck, since he also got a late start recruiting the portal players, and ended up signing a couple who became available late, after many other schools had already filled their scholarships.
But for every case like Utah State that has rebuilt quickly, there are a boatload of programs like Valparaiso that have struggled mightily with their rebuild.

IMO, Coach Wardle and his staff have done a great job rebounding from the unexpected losses of several of their key players in late March (Mast, Montgomery, Tahvanainen) which is a bit late to be forced to start recruiting what's left in the transfer portal, then on top of that, to have a couple highly rated transfers not contribute, give up and leave. Fans can blame the coach or call for a coaching change if they want, but I think that is very shortsighted and a coaching change is not going to happen. This team has had as much or more successes than any other team in the MVC over the last 5-6 years. And they are currently 10-1 when they have everyone healthy. I like their chances going forward.

[Bradley3342]

In case anyone has forgotten, Bradley beat Utah State earlier this season.
And, the Utah State case is a little different than Bradley's. Their head coach last year, Ryan Odom, left after last season to take the VCU job. And yes, most of their roster left Utah State. But, they hired a new coach, Danny Sprinkle, who had great success as the head coach at Montana State. He was able to bring a couple of his top players with him to Utah State, so that helped fill the void right away- Former Montana State player Great Osborn is now the leading scorer and rebounder at Utah State (18.5 ppg and 9.5 rpg). and former Montana State point guard Darius Brown has started every game for Utah State and averages 10.5 ppg and 7.3 assists per game.
Sprinkle did come out better with the portal, but that might have had more to do with luck, since he also got a late start recruiting the portal players, and ended up signing a couple who became available late, after many other schools had already filled their scholarships.
But for every case like Utah State that has rebuilt quickly, there are a boatload of programs like Valparaiso that have struggled mightily with their rebuild.

IMO, Coach Wardle and his staff have done a great job rebounding from the unexpected losses of several of their key players in late March (Mast, Montgomery, Tahvanainen) which is a bit late to be forced to start recruiting what's left in the transfer portal, then on top of that, to have a couple highly rated transfers not contribute, give up and leave. Fans can blame the coach or call for a coaching change if they want, but I think that is very shortsighted and a coaching change is not going to happen. This team has had as much or more successes than any other team in the MVC over the last 5-6 years. And they are currently 10-1 when they have everyone healthy. I like their chances going forward.

Well said DaCoach. Losing those 3 players would have been devastating for some teams.

[tomahawk chop]

Another must win, Evansville did not look good at home against Murray St. in their last game. Take it to them early so our reserves can get a few more minutes.

[LongTimeFan]

DC, I still have not seen a call for dismissing Wardle. Can you show me where? Why is it OK to criticize calling timeouts or not calling timeouts? Also I have seen substituting during a run criticized. The quality of this year's portal recruits seems to be a sore spot. I don''t see how that opinion differs.

I still am hoping for Thomas to make contributions.

[Da Coach]

I have never been someone who dragged out old posts for the purpose of embarrassing fans over what they have said, but there have been comments overly critical of Wardle in the last year or so, despite the unparalleled success he has had and some suggestions that Bradley should consider a coaching change.
I'll PM them to you if you want, but I don't really have time to spend searching everything that has been said.
Posters are free to express opinions, just as they are to post the facts supporting the successes of the program under Coach Wardle and his staff.

[Stryker]

I have never been someone who dragged out old posts for the purpose of embarrassing fans over what they have said, but there have been comments overly critical of Wardle in the last year or so, despite the unparalleled success he has had and some suggestions that Bradley should consider a coaching change.
I'll PM them to you if you want, but I don't really have time to spend searching everything that has been said.
Posters are free to express opinions, just as they are to post the facts supporting the successes of the program under Coach Wardle and his staff.

I think that was so minor it isn't worth mentioning or acknowledging at all. Most like troll posts in all likelihood.

[LongTimeFan]

I never like people putting words in my mouth or saying I said something I didn’t say. People disagree with coaching tactics even when we have winning seasons. In my opinion it is the same thing just by different people. Sorry for this statement.

[LongTimeFan]

Thanks for the info on watching the replay.