Bradley vs. SEMO, Monday, Nov. 4, 7 pm

[LittleBrave]

I was most pleased with our returning sophomores and Bully of course. We’re gonna have a run this season, but this bodes well for the future with these 3 guys (JJ, O-Show, and Almar)
I did expect the 2 soph’s to play well, but Bully was a surprise as I didn’t expect him to play much let alone be our leading scorer off the bench!

[LittleBrave]

So good to see Zek back in Bradley red!
Was one of my fave 3 guys on the Championship team 2 seasons ago.

[Da Coach]

Official box score - https://bradleybraves.com/sports/men...boxscore/22281

Attendance listed as 5,014

Bradley's next opponent, Washington State, won their first game last night 100-92 over Portland State - https://www.espn.com/mens-college-ba...meId/401719647

[BengalFan14]

Coach and BUFan, I love the analysis. Thank you. I’ll add that the turnovers need to be minimized. 16 against a team like SEMO is excessive. Some of that is rust, timing with each other and sometimes just not valuing the possession. We tried to hurry quite a bit.
To be fair, their guards were really quick and a bit disruptive. I doubt we’ll see that again.
I don’t worry about Zek, Darius and Duke. As long as they’re efficient we will be okay. This team has plenty of firepower. And plenty of options. Duke is gonna get the top-of-the-scouting-report treatment so it’s key that he doesn’t force things - he took a couple of questionable shots last night. He will be the focus of every team this season. I think he will see a lot of off-ball opportunities - Wardle tried a bit of that last night with JJ and Duke on the floor at the same time. And, Duke doesn’t have to be the ball handler in transition so he’ll have easier chances to score.
We have the best starting 5 in the league.
Enough from me…Onto WSU!

[LittleBrave]

We have 3 guys (JJ, Zek, and Duke) who can run the point, with Duke being the main man.

[Da Coach]

Coach and BUFan, I love the analysis. Thank you. I’ll add that the turnovers need to be minimized. 16 against a team like SEMO is excessive. Some of that is rust, timing with each other and sometimes just not valuing the possession. We tried to hurry quite a bit.
To be fair, their guards were really quick and a bit disruptive. I doubt we’ll see that again....

I agree... in fact, I thought the officials allowed SEMO to get away with a little too much slapping and hacking of Bradley's ball handlers, though I am not blaming that for the 16 turnovers. Turnovers always seem to go up when the pace of the game is fast, which it was, or when a team has an excessive number of substitutions which Bradley did. SEMO's guards were small and quick and played right up in the Bradley guards' faces, which caused a few disruptions, especially when someone other than Duke had the ball. I don't think this will be a big problem in future games.

[Landof10thcoaches]

Having a lead like they did played a little part of turnovers. This team has a lot of talent and can sub without to much drop off. Hopefully Conner can get healthy because right now the poor kid couldn’t guard a scarecrow. Sounds like when healthy he can drop some threes.

[Tommy]

Made up for our less than impressive game against Millikin by D3ing a D1 school. Couldn't be happier with the performance. Some pleasant surprises were how well Almar blocks out and rebounds (he needs to teach Meta how to block out) and Jaquan played like he was a senior. Seemed like Darius was holding back and not playing at 100% (possibly still cautious due to the injury he's recovering from), which makes this win even that much more impressive.

[Nashville Cat]

BTW it was nice to have a full hour pregame show again. WMBD did a good job.

[Da Coach]

Here was one of Jaquan Johnson's highlights. He drove to the basket and scored while being double-teams by 2 much bigger SEMO guys. I was impressed! - https://x.com/icetimecleve/status/1853609588081246517

If anyone is interested, here is the archived video of the game - https://www.espn.com/espnplus/player...b-74dd18122508
I think you need an ESPN+ account to watch.

Coach Wardle's brief post-game comments (thanks to Harry Schroeder) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rh4jkON0EdY

[Dubl R 1]

Official box score - https://bradleybraves.com/sports/men...boxscore/22281

Attendance listed as 5,014

Bradley's next opponent, Washington State, won their first game last night 100-92 over Portland State - https://www.espn.com/mens-college-ba...meId/401719647

Just watched the first half of the Washington St vs Portland State game....Portland State was up 21-5, then kinda fell apart quickly to allow Washington St back into the game well before half time. Washington St showed some full court pressure, and they shot the 3 very well making 15 of 32. Their bigs are mobile and will drive the ball, and appear to be capable passers. The guards are quick, and the wings are both about 6'6" and good, strong athletes. WSU had 6 players in double figures, and 2 guys score over 20pts. Bradley is going to have to play pretty well to win this one IMO.

[Dub]

I’ll tell you what. I’ve been going to these games for a long time. We’ve come a long way from the years where our first home game (seemingly regardless of opponent) was a herky-jerky turnover fest capped off by scraping out a win. Then the interviews and analysts would talk about having realistic expectations and understanding that things take time to gell… etc.

this is a completely different starting point.

Stay healthy and hungry and this team can go far.

[Da Coach]

ValleyHoopsInsider.com's Harry Schroeder was at the Bradley-SEMO game last night, and here is his report - https://www.valleyhoopsinsider.com/t...ht-at-bradley/

[Dubl R 1]

ValleyHoopsInsider.com's Harry Schroeder was at the Bradley-SEMO game last night, and here is his report - https://www.valleyhoopsinsider.com/t...ht-at-bradley/

Great article!

[Da Coach]

Updated article from Dave Eminian - https://www.pjstar.com/story/sports/...l/76046685007/

Darius Hannah was 1-3 from three point range last night. In his first 4 seasons with Bradley he made only one three pointer;