Final: Bradley 80 Evansville 74

[bradleyfan124]

I went to watch Zobrist as well. Very impressed with his vision of the court, and his passing. And, obviously, he's a shooter. He needs to improve his dribbling. He had at least three turnovers while dribbling, and a guard like Bully will eat him up. But excited he's coming to Bradley next year!

And I found out this morning he was just getting over being sick

[Tommy]

Maybe the worst officiating crew of all time and I was there for the 53 fouls when Missouri State came to town and we beat them in OT in 2020. Honestly, those guys should be ashamed of themselves. Both the handful of BU fans and all the Evansville fans were complaining about all the whistles, and nobody goes to a basketball game to see the refs perform.
Impossible to take much from a game when the refs stop play more than once a minute.
On the bright side, we won and BW held it in and did not blow up on the refs. Better than I could have done.
Side note - I was really impressed with the Ford Center. Place is very huge and probably the best concourse in the Valley.
Go BU!

[BUBraves2006]

One thing that gave me a laugh thinking about many of you here on the board after watching that ref horror show ...

There was a moment in late in the second half, maybe 5 min or so left, where somebody made a bad mistake (offensive turnover I believe). Coach did his usual frustrated look and started to peel down the bench and give him a flip of his hand to pull someone new to replace whoever made a mistake. Mid gesture, he stops because he realized basically the entire team was in foul trouble and couldn't do the sub. The game carried on ...

I wonder if anyone else saw that. Even if you didn't, it should give you at least a small laugh.

[Bradley8792]

Maybe the worst officiating crew of all time and I was there for the 53 fouls when Missouri State came to town and we beat them in OT in 2020. Honestly, those guys should be ashamed of themselves.
Go BU!

The NCAA needs to figure out how to maintain some level of consistency with officiating. How one game both teams can be beating the crap out of each other and hardly any whistles, and other games where a player glances at an opponent and gets called for a foul. How can players possibly know what to expect. As noted previously, no one is there to watch the ref.

[Tommy]

The NCAA needs to figure out how to maintain some level of consistency with officiating. How one game both teams can be beating the crap out of each other and hardly any whistles, and other games where a player glances at an opponent and gets called for a foul. How can players possibly know what to expect. As noted previously, no one is there to watch the ref.

Couldn't agree more. Officiating like that is what will eventually chase me away from college basketball. I've got no interest in watching any sport where the refs stop play every 60 seconds.

[Da Coach]

Couldn't agree more. Officiating like that is what will eventually chase me away from college basketball. I've got no interest in watching any sport where the refs stop play every 60 seconds.

Here are the total foul numbers for the last few games-
BU vs Evansville- 48 fouls (more than 1 per minute- 28 on Bradley, 20 on Evansville)
BU vs Belmont- 28 fouls (16 on Bradley, 12 on Belmont)
BU vs UNI- 41 fouls (23 on Bradley, 18 on UNI)
BU vs UIC- 28 fouls (12 on Bradley, 16 on UIC)
BU vs ILSU- (10 on Bradley, 15 on ILSU)

Most of the rest of the season has been pretty consistent with Bradley averaging getting between 10-15 fouls called against them each game. But two of the most prolific foul numbers have been in this past week with the UNI game (23 fouls) and the Evansville game (28 fouls), with the Evansville game being the extreme outlier this season. Yet I couldn't see any reason for that.
I even re-watched most of the game, and it was not a very physical game at all. Bradley does not play an extremely physical style, and Evansville is maybe the least physical team in the MVC.
Maybe Bradley needs to do a better job at adjusting to different officials, since that crew appeared to call fouls on even somewhat trivial contact. But that is hard to expect a team to do.

[bradleyfan124]

The NCAA needs to figure out how to maintain some level of consistency with officiating. How one game both teams can be beating the crap out of each other and hardly any whistles, and other games where a player glances at an opponent and gets called for a foul. How can players possibly know what to expect. As noted previously, no one is there to watch the ref.

I would think the Referees get graded after the season or maybe even each game..Also I think a Coach can request that a certain referee not officiate any of his games the rest of the season. I agree with I think it was Tommy. I wouldn't last a game if I was a coach. I would probably be banned the rest of the season. Lol

[Tommy]

Maybe Bradley needs to do a better job at adjusting to different officials, since that crew appeared to call fouls on even somewhat trivial contact. But that is hard to expect a team to do.

True statement. Dub and I were at the game and screaming for them to drive the lane every time because the refs were calling literally everything, yet we continued to take shots from the outside.

Adjusting to the officiating is definitely something I think we could work on, but no guarantees we'll get the calls. I remember the ISU Blue game at their place, and it didn't matter what we did, the refs seemed to be wearing their sycamore uni's that day (but oddly enough, when we did get a call, the entire arena went crazy over it).

[egib52]

One thing of note. You would think we would want to go into Arch Madness with a pretty defined rotation, but with six games left it doesn’t seem like we will get there. Now all the sudden Dillon is out the last two, Timo is in now apparently, and Thomas/Burch/Atlason have been all over the place, though Atlason seems to be back in now. I don’t know if it is good for consistency, but I guess it is what it is at this point.

I disagree with you on the rotation. I think largely the top 6 are set. However, I think it is incumbent on a coach to play matchups with the bench. For example, Meta fairs better against teams with either other strong bigs, or non-athletic bigs. Whereas Thomas does better against the athletic bigs that play in and out. Also, if a shooter is hot they should be getting more run. I also, think Wardle tends to play the kids that are giving the most effort in games AND practices. We just need to make sure by Arch that we have the hottest group playing the most.

[Tommy]

I disagree with you on the rotation. I think largely the top 6 are set. However, I think it is incumbent on a coach to play matchups with the bench. For example, Meta fairs better against teams with either other strong bigs, or non-athletic bigs. Whereas Thomas does better against the athletic bigs that play in and out. Also, if a shooter is hot they should be getting more run. I also, think Wardle tends to play the kids that are giving the most effort in games AND practices. We just need to make sure by Arch that we have the hottest group playing the most.

Wise words. Dead on.

[BUfan14]

I disagree with you on the rotation. I think largely the top 6 are set. However, I think it is incumbent on a coach to play matchups with the bench. For example, Meta fairs better against teams with either other strong bigs, or non-athletic bigs. Whereas Thomas does better against the athletic bigs that play in and out. Also, if a shooter is hot they should be getting more run. I also, think Wardle tends to play the kids that are giving the most effort in games AND practices. We just need to make sure by Arch that we have the hottest group playing the most.

Fair point in terms of matchups. And I suppose I agree on Meta/Thomas. However, it doesn’t always seem matchup dependent and seems more like we are still searching for consistent options to me. Evansville and Belmont aren’t super athletic, yet those are the games Dillon doesn’t play. Burch has been sporadic all year in his playing time (some times due to injury sometimes not), as have Meta (he was out of the rotation a few games), Thomas, and Almar. Plus Linke and now Timo have been thrown out there randomly at points. Basically our main four and Johnson are the only constants, and now mostly Meta too.

I guess the question is this: how much does knowing your role and having consistent minutes affect development and your rhythm going into March? We hear a lot of talk about finding that 8-9 man rotation. I guess I would land on the side of consistent defined roles and minutes, though sometimes playing matchups with players like Burch/Dillon and Meta/Thomas. We certainly haven’t had a great rhythm lately, and Brian does like to sub a lot. It’s an interesting debate I suppose. Either way we need to have a consistent 5, 6, 7 in the rotation. Johnson seems to be becoming more and more consistent. I’m not sure we’ve found anyone else yet.

[bradleyfan124]

I just watched the Evansville game today.. I have not seen it yet because it was on a channel i could not get but thanks to Tommy I finally got to watch it. The refs were whistle happy. Also it reminded me that at one time Connot Turnbull was rumored to be interested in Bradley

[Tommy]

I just watched the Evansville game today.. I have not seen it yet because it was on a channel i could not get but thanks to Tommy I finally got to watch it. The refs were whistle happy. Also it reminded me that at one time Connot Turnbull was rumored to be interested in Bradley

Thanks for the shout out, buddy! You ain’t kidding about the refs in that game!

Sorry took so long to get that game up. I’ve had some computer issues over the last week!