Final score: Evansville 73 Bradley 70

[bigjimmy]

After the game the last thing Brian said on the post game show was "It's going to be a long bus trip home". Nuff said.

[Da Coach]

Final score: Evansville 73 Bradley 70
Stats- https://stats.statbroadcast.com/broadcast/?id=484465

Yeah, a tough loss to take. Duke had the tying three at the final buzzer, but did not quite release it in time.
But give the Braves credit for coming back after trailing by 17 points in the first half, and taking the lead several times in the 2nd half. But when Evansville needed to score or make their free throws, they did.
Malevy had possibly his worst game this season, 9 points, 9 rebounds, 6 turnovers, and fouled out late. Hickman (14 pts) and Deen (15 pts) carried the Braves. Almar and Darius came up big many times, but Bradley did not get much from anyone other than those 5 starters.

Bradley drops to 17-7, and 9-4 in the MVC. They remain in 3rd place by themselves, now 3 games behind 1st place Indiana State and 1 game behind 2nd place Drake.
MVC Standings- https://www.espn.com/mens-college-ba...ngs/_/group/18

[Dubl R 1]

Bradley did not play well, had many chances to take over, but my gosh, is there any team that ends up on the wrong end of such free throw disparities as us??
only 2 foul shots the entire 2nd half is just silly, and they shoot 23 to our 10 for the game. Seems like this happens to us a lot.. do u guys think we foul at this high of a rate compared to our opponents?

[Da Coach]

Bradley did not play well, had many chances to take over, but my gosh, is there any team that ends up on the wrong end of such free throw disparities as us??
only 2 foul shots the entire 2nd half is just silly, and they shoot 23 to our 10 for the game. Seems like this happens to us a lot.. do u guys think we foul at this high of a rate compared to our opponents?

Teams see that officials constantly are calling defensive fouls against BU players whenever the opponent bangs their way into the lane or toward the basket. However, Bradley doesn't seem to get the same calls when they are on offense. Malevy appeared to get fouled a couple times with no call, and Hannah was clearly fouled by Humrichous on his last dunk late in the game, but no foul was called. Humrichous did a lot of banging on defense, but he got called for ZERO fouls in 28 minutes, while Leons, a great defender, fouls out with 5 fouls, and Hannah ends up with 4 fouls, many of them called when it was the Evansville player initiating the contact.

[Stryker]

Bradley did not play well, had many chances to take over, but my gosh, is there any team that ends up on the wrong end of such free throw disparities as us??
only 2 foul shots the entire 2nd half is just silly, and they shoot 23 to our 10 for the game. Seems like this happens to us a lot.. do u guys think we foul at this high of a rate compared to our opponents?

No personally I am into conspiracy theories and this one is right up my alley. There were multiple fouls on Bradley tonight I thought should not have been called. Not sure what the refs were seeing but I wasn't seeing it on camera that's for sure. This disparity is unexplainable to me. But I've played, coached, or ref'd D1 basketball before so what do I know?

[Dubl R 1]

No personally I am into conspiracy theories and this one is right up my alley. There were multiple fouls on Bradley tonight I thought should not have been called. Not sure what the refs were seeing but I wasn't seeing it on camera that's for sure. This disparity is unexplainable to me. But I've played, coached, or ref'd D1 basketball before so what do I know?

I have played been around a lot of basketball myself Stryker, , and I’ve just never seen the weird calls consistently go against a team like they do Bradley. The only reason I ask is I’m such a Bradley fan that maybe I’m too biased. But like da coach said Leon’s got fouled twice on the same layup, no call, then somehow called the foul on him, Darius was surely fouled on the dunk, we get shooting fouls called on the floor a ton, one guy rolled his ankle and fell down, yet they called atlasson for the foul. It’s perplexing.

[BUBraves2006]

I have played been around a lot of basketball myself Stryker, , and I’ve just never seen the weird calls consistently go against a team like they do Bradley. The only reason I ask is I’m such a Bradley fan that maybe I’m too biased. But like da coach said Leon’s got fouled twice on the same layup, no call, then somehow called the foul on him, Darius was surely fouled on the dunk, we get shooting fouls called on the floor a ton, one guy rolled his ankle and fell down, yet they called atlasson for the foul. It’s perplexing.

I feel it too, but I think we all have our inherent biases, as much as we want to see it evenly. There was an over and back not called on us as well as one time Leons clearly hacked a guy in the back court. Do I feel like they got more of the breaks that we did, yes, but it probably wasn't as lopsided as it feels sometimes, in reality.

Two things have been crystal clear for me for a couple months now about this team and it is true almost every game:

- if a game is called loosely, hard defense is allowed and our big three are good (Mal, Hick, Deen), we are basically unstoppable.
- if a game is called really tight OR two of our three guys are off, we can beat many teams but leave ourselves open for an upset.
- if a game is called really tight AND two of our three guys are off, we could lose to anyone. luckily that almost never happens but it almost did tonight because Mal was awful and Hick had one good and one bad half.

[Bradley3342]

I just knew that falling behind big in the first half was going to bite us in the butt at some point and tonight was the night. Now we really need a win on Saturday night

[ManMythLegend]

Disappointing performance against a team we should have beat by 10+, even on the road. They out toughed us for most of the game. Mal was really bad tonight. Duke only shows 2 turnovers on the box score but I counted 4 at least, and that's generous. They absolutely owned us in the paint for most of the game but the box score looks better due to an improvement in part of the second half. That coupled with points off turnovers did us in. Duke definitely has earned the greenlight to shoot when he pleases but that 2nd to last three he took I felt was a bad decision. That one stings.

Someone commented about this loss blowing any chance at an at large we may have had. Let's be realistic, we had zero chance at an at large. We could have won out and went to the championship game in STL and we weren't going to get a sniff of an at large. Let's take care of business, finish the season in 2nd or 3rd and peak at the Arch.

Onward and upward.

[Classof77]

Agreed. Unless we wake up tomorrow and we're part of the Big 10, we were not going to get an at large bid. The only way to the dance is by winning the tournament, and to win we have to beat the best team(s) in the league. Doesn't matter whether we play them first or last, we have to win out in St. Louis. Getting to the title game and losing gets you a sad bus trip home, same as if you lose in the fist round. Let's learn from this game, play to finish in the top four so we don't have to win four in St. Louis.

[LittleBrave]

Disagree with this loss blowing our chances of an At Large. If we lose 1 more and reach the Arch Madness final game, we will have a shot still.
Our resume is strong and losing just 1 more puts us at 18 wins in last 21 (23-8 overall) and likely in a tie for 2nd at worst.

Let’s put that 1st half behind us and take some good things about the 2nd half. Evansville earned this one and played well.and are a very good home team. Not making excuses as we should have still beat them, but maybe a kick in the rear so this team doesn’t let up the rest of the way.

[LittleBrave]

These Braves are still a very tough group and can beat nearly any team on any given night.

We came out very flat tonight - game after the huge high following the rivalry win and before our biggest home game.

Leons can’t play like this anymore, and I don’t think he will.

Deen, Hick (in 2nd half), and Hannah keep rollin along with their strong seasons.

[patrick_o'brian]

Tough loss. Hopefully this motivates them to do work on Saturday and beat Drake. These games also deflate a team and could make Saturday a long night. Hopefully they take this on the chin, bounce back, and get back into a 2nd place tie. I can’t add much to the things that didn’t go our way. The horrible first half, or the bonehead plays have already been covered extensively.

However, why did we keep fouling and allowing their best FT shooter, Thomas, to get the ball? I couldn’t believe it. I’m not saying anyone else would have missed but AT shoots like 86% from the line and we just kept sending him there and he loved every minute of sticking it to us.

[Da Coach]

Bradley has now won 11 of their last 13 games, and the 2 losses were an overtime loss at Indiana State, and last night's game that was a millisecond away from going to overtime. That is about as close as a team can get to 13 straight wins.
The remaining 7 conference games include several tough ones-

Sat, Feb 10	vsDrake
Wed, Feb 14	vsUIC
Sun, Feb 18	@Northern Iowa
Wed, Feb 21	@Missouri State
Sat, Feb 24	vsIllinois State
Wed, Feb 28	vsSouthern Illinois
Sun, Mar 3	@Drake

[Tomahawk]

Tough loss last night. Past three games Bradley has not played up to potential on the defensive end. Need that defensive intensity heading into Saturday's game and down the stretch and into St. Louis. All the reasons we lost can be discussed. But bottom line is by the way we played that first half cannot happen. Have to play a more complete game. That happens and we win last night.Let's play great basketball down the stretch.Discount all the possibilities of at large bids. Just play great and win the tournament. Leave no doubt and get the automatic bid. We have the talent to do it. On any given night we can win. Especially on a neutral site. "Go Braves"