Final score: Bradley 77 UIC 59

[bigjimmy]

To me this is a must win game in the sense that if we want to finish as a top 4 seed in the Mo Valley you have to win these games that you're favored to win. Defense normally travels so hopefully we're ready to go and don't give UIC any hope that they can win. The longer you give a team hope, especially at home, the more they think they can win it.

[Da Coach]

At least 2/3 of the crowd at the UIC arena are Bradley fans.

[BUfan14]

Interesting....Thomas first big off the bench, not Meta today.

[BUfan14]

Bradley with a great opening half.

Just some things I was thinking through: Let’s say we hold on. I don’t want to overstate this streak against the clear bottom four in the league, a D2 team, and SIUE. The four Valley teams we will have beaten in that scenario have a combined three Valley wins, all of which are against each other except Evansville’s overtime home win in December against a below .500 UNI team. These are not good teams. However, we have played really well and blown most of these games out, as we should. We have looked much sharper to the eye too.

The next four are against good Valley teams, that will give a great picture on where we are. I would really like to see 3-1 in those four to prove we are contenders. Win the home games and split the road games with SIU and Indiana State. We should be fired up for Belmont after being the one Valley team we couldn’t beat last year after a tough home loss.

[Da Coach]

Interesting....Thomas first big off the bench, not Meta today.

Wardle apparently said on the pregame interview that he would be playing Thomas in place of Jonovic in this game because it was a better matchup.

[BUfan14]

Wardle apparently said on the pregame interview that he would be playing Thomas in place of Jonovic in this game because it was a better matchup.

Very interesting. I’ve been calling for Meta to be used in the right game matchups game wise and even right matchups/moments with a game since early in the year. I obviously think this is a very good choice and Thomas seems like a decent complementary piece to Meta in terms of what they offer. I hope this continues going forward.

[BUfan14]

Nice game and everyone seemed to continue to do a nice job, even Thomas seemed to be better and into decent backup territory. One other note, Atlason is much better on defense than he started the year, good to see.

As I posted at half time, we’ve looked good these four conference games, but now it’s time to look good against 4 much tougher opponents and prove we are consistent and for real as contenders in the Valley.

[BUBraves2006]

I know it's hard to win on the road in the Valley as I've posted many times ... But that is a really strange line. I would have expected us to be at least a 7-10 point favorite.

Feels good to call this right ... Another beat down. I know we're fattening up on the bad teams of the league but we are doing what we are supposed to do.

The screams about our "horrible" depth sure are pretty quiet. Has anyone even noticed that Ellis is gone? I sure haven't.

[Big Mike]

Nice W' on the road....contributions from all.Wonder why Meta road the bench all game though?

[Bradley8792]

Good win. Lots of positives today. Correct me if I’m wrong, up by twenty with under ten and we stop playing defense, offense goes to sleep and they start to creep back in. They had 3-4 threes back to back that were wide open. To me that’s concerning against a better team.

[Da Coach]

Official box score- https://uicflames.com/sports/mens-ba...boxscore/20052
The official attendance is listed as 2 (?)

That's 6 blowout wins in a row, which ties the earlier win streak at the start of the season.
The average margin of victory in the last 6 games is 23 points. Who expected this?
Duke Deen was on fire again- a game-high 26 points, one short of his career-high of 27 (against SIUE). He was 10-15 from the floor, and 6-9 from three, and only 1 turnover, which happened late in the game. He has had double-digit scoring in 9 of the last 10 games. Duke also had 3 rebounds and 3 assists.
Connor Hickman was also hot again. He had 22 points, the 3rd time in the last 4 games that he has gone over 20 points. He was 7-11 from the floor, and 3-7 from three. He also had 4 assists and 2 rebounds.
Malevy Leon scored only 8 points, but had 12 rebounds, and played terrific defense.
Good contributions from everyone else, including Kyle Thomas, who played 11 minutes, and had 4 points, 2 assists, and a rebound.
The Bradley defense held UIC's leading scorer Isaiah Rivera (14.8 ppg) to 2-8 shooting and 5 points. They held UIC's second-leading scorer Toby Okani (12.1 ppg) to 1-6 shooting and just 3 points. Their 4th leading scorer Filip Skobalj had just 6 points, and 5th leading scorer Jaden Brownell was scoreless.

[Dubl R 1]

On way home from Bradley UIC game and my wifes’s company car got a flat tire. Currently stranded in ODELL. Any fellow Bradley Fans passing thru here on way to Morton/Peoria that could fit 2 of us? Would be highly appreciative!!!

ph. 309-361-9458

[Da Coach]

So sorry to hear about your misfortune, DublR. I wish we could help, but we are staying overnight in Chitown. We'll be headed through there tomorrow. If there is anything we can help with, LMK.

[BUfan14]

The screams about our "horrible" depth sure are pretty quiet. Has anyone even noticed that Ellis is gone? I sure haven't.

The bigger thing that happened was Hickman’s return I think. When Deen and Hickman are playing like they have been and Burch is getting better all the time, that makes our guard play much better and guards are the most important thing to me in the Valley. Atlason getting better at defense and being able to play the three along with Davis has helped too. I hope that trend continues for Atlason against better, more athletic teams.

However, I still think having only three scholarship guards isn’t ideal depth. If we stay very healthy we can still play very well as we’ve seen, and if we don’t stay very healthy at guard, we’ve seen that too. So it’s not that the issue has gone away for me, if this team won the national championship I’d still think more guards would be ideal, but the three we have do have a lot of talent. Brian should wrap them in bubble wrap before and after each game.

[Tomahawk]

Concerning one of the last posts where we have played bottom tier opponents for our four wins. You have to play every team in the league no matter when in the year you play them. If you want to contend or win the title you must protect home court and at least win half your road games. Bradley can do this. "Go Braves"