Final score: Bradley 61 Illinois State 57

[yoda]

Hey Big Mike, this post was from another thread and it was posted well over two years ago...

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Originally posted by Big Mike View Post
I predict that Christian Davis will be a great get for the Braves before it all said and done. Good body, active hands and good shot...
Big Mike

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And I thought I'd resurrect it here to get you some credit for being smart as well as good looking

[basketball nut]

when I watch the replay, what stands out is that the guy who ran over Davis did not make a play on the ball. His team mate beat him there and he just ended up running over our guy without even reaching over toward the ball. Looked just like a body check. Maybe even an intentional one. DR1 I believe is correct. They didn’t call a foul and the review was for clock. If you have a chance to watch it you should. Maybe in Tommywink channel.

I will rewatch it. I sit more in the corner so don't always see exactly what happened. You guys are probably correct about no call being made to begin with.

[basketball nut]

I know everyone likes seeing pretty offense but defense is the backbone behind how we win. Meta set the tone early and the rest of the guys followed his lead. What I really like about this team is that we don't have to relie on one guy being the main scorer. Now would it be better if we win by double digits? No doubt. But as long as we keep stacking up wins I don't care how we do it.

This was a great defensive game and Meta was the best I have ever seen him play on defense. He definitely deserved player of the game.
If he keeps improving it will just make this team even tougher.

[yoda]

....Meta set the tone early....

Chase Walker uses his off hand as a battering ram and Coach chose to use primarily Meta because he's a much more difficult target to knock out of the way, especially if the refs let 'em play and don't whistle every ticky tack. And when he did get the benefit of a whistle, I think Meta had him so worn out that he missed his FT's. Normally a 75-76% FT shooter, yesterday he missed 5 of the 6 that he took.

...Meta has the size & strength to stay in position (well coached by Mike Bargen on that) and makes it extremely difficult for Walker to get a shot off.
Walker got 8 shots off, but a couple came from offensive rebounds and at least one was blocked. So in the end he really only got 3 or 4 decent shots out of their offense that tried to go through him all day long. Credit to Meta, Corey & Almar.

[daveineureka]

Agree with previous post on Meta shooting about ten footers. His free throw technique is very good. Maybe as the season goes on he will attempt those shots. Continued improvement is needed in regards to developing post moves going forward. If he can do that along with occasional ten foot shots what another wrinkle in our offense for teams to have to contend with. "GO BRAVES"

[BengalFan14]

Also, we could use Meta one on one with Walker. Against Thomas and Almar, we doubled him. We basically harassed Walker the whole game. Kinziger had 16, but they weren’t easy points. So I say we minimized both of them in total. Great defensive game plan.

[NashvilleBU]

These rivalry games always seem to be close no matter the differences in both team.

Bad shooting night and still found a way to win.

Hannah plays so much better when he’s at the 4 and have Meta/Thomas on the others teams big 5. Meta played well on D and Hannah was a problem on offense with mismatches.

I’ve been a huge critic of Almar but I’m hoping that big time 3 to break the tie will give him confidence to hit more shots. I don’t think he’s made a 3 in 5-6 games.

[bradleyfan124]

These rivalry games always seem to be close no matter the differences in both team.

Bad shooting night and still found a way to win.

Hannah plays so much better when he’s at the 4 and have Meta/Thomas on the others teams big 5. Meta played well on D and Hannah was a problem on offense with mismatches.

I’ve been a huge critic of Almar but I’m hoping that big time 3 to break the tie will give him confidence to hit more shots. I don’t think he’s made a 3 in 5-6 games.

I am hoping that 3 will give him the confidence to bring him out of his slump

[tomahawk chop]

I thought the overall officiating was good except for 3 things, the non foul called when C.D. was knocked down and the whistle was blown, you cannot not call a foul at that point. The refs not stopping the clock at the end of the first half when the ball was loose rolling to center court after we made a basket, there was 36 seconds left which would have given us 5 or 6 seconds left after we got that rebound instead of just over 1 second. It also happened again in the second half where they should have stopped the clock because the ball got away again after a made basket.

[yoda]

I kinda wonder if our staff expected Landon Wolf to come out gunning.. He averages 3.6 3-pt attempts per game.
But- he took the first shot of the game, made the first two 3 pointers of the game and got off 5 decent 3-point shots
in the first 5-6 minutes- making two, and helping ISU to an early 15-7 lead.
Gotta think our staff made whatever adjustment was needed and the guy was a complete non-factor after that.
He never got another decent look and didn't score another point over the final 34 minutes of the game.
Those kinds of coaching adjustments prob don't get enough notice.

[Tommy]

Thanks Tommy for posting these games. Has fun the other day watching the Indiana State game, especially the first half. My wife always says you already seen that game so why watch it again. I tell her I want to make sure we really did win, especially that UIC game.

You can never see that ISU Blue win enough times!

[Da Coach]

I thought the overall officiating was good except for 3 things, the non foul called when C.D. was knocked down and the whistle was blown, you cannot not call a foul at that point. The refs not stopping the clock at the end of the first half when the ball was loose rolling to center court after we made a basket, there was 36 seconds left which would have given us 5 or 6 seconds left after we got that rebound instead of just over 1 second. It also happened again in the second half where they should have stopped the clock because the ball got away again after a made basket.

I agree... the officiating overall was good and it seemed equally applied to both teams.

Re: the clock incident at the end of the first half, it appeared clear to me that the ISU players intentionally took their time getting the ball and returning it to the player who inbounded it. The final possession by Bradley ended with a Darius Hannah dunk with 40 seconds left in the half to give Bradley a 28-25 lead.
The ball rolled away from the ISU player who was inbounding it, and the other players made sure that a full 10 seconds ran off the clock by walking over to the ball and walking it back before they got the ball and slowly inbounded it so it guaranteed the clock would drop below 30 seconds and they would get the final possession. Yes, the officials should have whistled the clock to stop, but they chose not to. It was actually a smart move by the ISU players.

But I would add one other call that IMO was terrible. In that final possession of the first half, ISU ran the clock down, got the ball to Chase Walker, He backed Corey Thomas down under the basket, and got a shot off that missed with 1 second left on the clock.. Corey was called for a foul despite standing with both feet on the floor under the basket, with his hands straight in the air. There was minimal contact on the shot, but only because Walker jumped into Thomas. With all the banging that was allowed to go on, especially initiated by Walker, that should not have been a whistle. Walker missed the first FT< and made the second, and the half ended 28-26.

[carter]

You can never see that ISU Blue win enough times!

Tommy,could you please explain how to watch the games on you tube.I noticed someone mentioned it on another post.Is it free or do you pay?

[Da Coach]

Tommy,could you please explain how to watch the games on you tube.I noticed someone mentioned it on another post.Is it free or do you pay?

Tommy's YouTube channel is completely free. Just click on the game you want to watch, and it will play.
There are hundreds of games going back decades. Here are the games he has -

https://www.youtube.com/@tommywienke4164/videos

You might have to click on the white arrow in the lower left of the video player to start the video. And you can click on the square icon in the lower right of the player to enlarge to full screen.
Thanks Tommy for all your work!

[carter]

Thank you Coach!!