Final score: Bradley 81 Valparaiso 75

[Da Coach]

Bradley (10-2, 1-0 in MVC) vs. Valparaiso (7-5, 0-1 in MVC) on Sunday, Dec. 29., at 3:00 PM at Carver Arena.
Valparaiso was picked 10th in the MVC Preseason Poll. Bradley was picked 1st.

ESPN+ - https://www.espn.com/watch/player/_/...2-74cdef1bbaab
Live stats- https://bradleybraves.com/sidearmstats/mbball/summary
Chat room- www.chatzy.com/bradleyfans
Radio- https://wmbdradio.com/player/?playerID=2045
Tickets- https://www.ticketmaster.com/event/070061309A581F9F

Valparaiso links-
Schedule/results- https://valpoathletics.com/sports/me...tball/schedule
Roster- https://valpoathletics.com/sports/me...ketball/roster
Coaches- https://valpoathletics.com/sports/me...etball/coaches

This is Roger Powell's second season as head coach. It is Valparaiso's 8th season in the MVC, and they have not had a winning season in the MVC yet. They finished dead last in 2023-24 with a record of 3-17 (7-25 overall).
Valpo is 11th in FG% and 10th in FG% defense. They are also 10th in 3 point FG%.
Valparaiso stats- https://valpoathletics.com/sports/me.../stats/2024-25

They are lead by Cooper Schweiger, who was last year's MVC Freshman of the Year, and was a 1st team preseason All-MVC pick (13.0 ppg, 7.6 rpg).
They have 4 players who average double-digits, but they are 10th in 3 point FG% with 34.1%, compared with Bradley who leads the country with a 3-point FG% of 45.7%.

Bradley stats- https://bradleybraves.com/sports/mens-basketball/stats
MVC stats- https://mvc-sports.com/documents/202...Game_Stats.pdf

[LittleBrave]

Let's continue the Valley season strong and get a convincing 20+ pt win at Carver.
The goal (as I see it) is 9-1 at home and 6-4 on the road to have a good shot at the MVC title and stay on the bubble before Arch Madness. This may be more of a dogfight in the league this season than most thought, which is a good thing for the Valley!

[daveineureka]

Regarding the last post, your aim is to win all your home games and at least split on the road. I will take 6-4 on the road. We win all home games and go 6-4 on the road, that will put us as possible conference champions. Have stated before, win the conference tournament in St. Louis and leave no doubt. We go dancing. " Go Braves"

[basketball nut]

We should be at a maximum 7-3 on the road and really think 9-1 should be a realistic goal with no home losses.
Drake is very good and Belmont and UNI aren't bad but we should get by both of those teams

[Tommy]

This short ref doesn’t like Wardle and never blows the whistle on Valpo.

[Tommy]

The level of physicality allowed in this game has been extremely lopsided. Just terrible officiating.

[BengalFan14]

Okay. The rust is off. We survived. Thank goodness.

[Big Mike]

What a game....double OT....Braves Win...Soo how big was the 3 bomb by Dean at the half?
Am I wrong or did Atlason not score a single point?

[BUfan14]

Well not our best, but we won.

Powell ran some nice sets and his team played hard. I thought he coached well. Give him a couple years and this team could be pretty decent.

I almost never complain about refs, but what a weird and inconsistently refereed game.

The main stays in the rotation are obviously Deen, Hannah, Zek, Davis, Atalson, and Johnson.

Between Thomas/Meta we need one to step up in conference play. It seems both will continue to get a shot, and Thomas would be my bet, but we need one to give us some good rebounding minutes with some occasional post points and do it consistently.

On the perimeter it is between Burch and Dillon, who had a good game today. Different skill sets, but one needs to step up with consistency.

If we can get one from each of those groups to step up that gives us our 8 main rotation players with 2 extra guys that can give us some minutes. I’ll be fascinated to see how it develops throughout conference play. Maybe we stay 9-10 deep all year, but either way it would help us tremendously and will be needed to gain a little more consistency from anyone not named Deen, Hannah, Zek, Davis to win conference.

[Nashville Cat]

What a game....double OT....Braves Win...Soo how big was the 3 bomb by Dean at the half?
Am I wrong or did Atlason not score a single point?

Big Mike, you are correct that AA didn't score a point and I'll add that he was a liability on defense as well. He's an 8th or 9th man imo.

[Tommy]

Refs were terrible, the one guy that didn’t like Wardle particularly. The free throw differential tells the story well enough. The fact that we still found a way to win says a lot about this team.
Roger Powell definitely gets a lot out of his guys, but they got away with murder under the rim. That being said, we still do a terrible job of blocking out and give up too many offensive boards.
wonder if Burch is still not 100% considering his limited minutes. Seems like his slashing ability would have really come in handy in the OT’s.
Good crowd for a Sunday afternoon game. Always a good day when we win.

[Da Coach]

Official box score- Bradley 81 Valparaiso 75 - https://valpoathletics.com/sports/me.../boxscore/9929

We knew there would be games where the three point shots weren't falling. Valparaiso's defense was geared toward their players getting right in the Braves' perimeter players faces and defending against threes. Bradley should have focused on feeding the inside players better than what they did. But Bradley still found a way to win.

Pretty good crowd for a Sunday afternoon.
Attendance- 6,201

[braves16]

https://bradleybraves.com/sports/mens-basketball/stats/2024-25/valparaiso/boxscore/22348

[NashvilleBU]

Seems to be the same show with Duke, Zek, Hannah and CD. 1-4 (Johnson Dillon Omarion are solid backup guards) we are solid but we really struggle with our big men (Meta/Thomas are tough for me to watch). Almar is a nothing burger if he’s not hitting his 3’s. I’d love to see some minutes from Linke.

[Tommy]

Seems to be the same show with Duke, Zek, Hannah and CD. 1-4 (Johnson Dillon Omarion are solid backup guards) we are solid but we really struggle with our big men (Meta/Thomas are tough for me to watch). Almar is a nothing burger if he’s not hitting his 3’s. I’d love to see some minutes from Linke.

Agree about Linke, disagree about Almar. I think he’s shown a nice inside game quite a bit this year already.