Final score: Illinois State 82 Bradley 71

[BUfan14]

Every time we almost dig ourselves out of this being a disappointing season, we come out and lay an egg. Terrible defensive rotations and weak side defense falling asleep. Duke was awful, including back to back terrible turnovers in a crucial stretch until his shooting show in the last quarter of the game. Davis looked off most of it. Zek was ok on offense, but not on defense again. For all the declaring Almar and Burch back after a good game or two, Almar has went right back to making terrible mistakes and being inconsistent after his one breakout game and Burch loses focus defensively too often and thus can’t keep himself on the floor to give us his offense. Hannah was ok I guess. I thought we should have went to him against Walker more.

As someone mentioned, and this was probably true before tonight, this season will be decided by winning Arch Madness or not. At least that’s how I feel. I don’t love putting all of our eggs in that basket, but it’s where we are now. We have to close strong to get ready for it. Again, this is a pretty good team, but I just thought we should have been a really good team this year. Hate losing to Illinois State, but I think Pedon has them being a good team sooner than later.

[Da Coach]

Refs aren’t the problem. Giving up 20 points of turnovers is the problem.

Yep. Bradley played pretty well on offense, and only had 9 turnovers, but ISU scored 20 points off those 9 turnovers.
They shot 44.3% overall, and 40.0% from three (10-25).
And BU shot 53.1% in the 2nd half, but could never catch up to Illinois State due to a couple factors:
1) defensive lapses- failure to guard Daugherty, a one-dimensional 3 point shooter- a career-high 25 points, 7-10 from three.

2) Some absurd calls- the technical foul on Zek, and a lot of gift fouls resulting in 23 total fouls on BU and 27 free throws for ISU, compared to just 11 for Bradley. A 16 free throw differential in a game that ISU won by 11 points.

Final score- Illinois State 82 Bradley 71
Final stats- https://stats.statbroadcast.com/broadcast/?id=547294

MVC Standings after 17 games - https://www.espn.com/mens-college-ba...ngs/_/group/18

[bigjimmy]

We just get in those modes that we fail to recognize where a teams 3 point shooters are. In this day and age of the 3 your attention must be locked in on those shooters. Credit to ISU for finding Daugherty but you just can't allow a guy to get into double digit land from 3. It's all about basic execution and too often that hasn't been the case. Based on what Brian said in his brief comments on the post game show I would expect our execution to be more focused on Saturday

[Da Coach]

Btw, the attendance for ISU's biggest game of the year tonight was a season-high 5,719.
That included hundreds of Bradley fans, along with a huge student crowd who were there with free admission.
That is about what Bradley's MVC-leading average home attendance is for the season (5,691).

[egib52]

I missed the part of the game with Zek's T, what happened?

As for the 3s, in the second half they were running a lot of screens and high post sets with Walker. I felt like we were too concerned with Walker beating our guys one on one that we were helping a ton

[LittleBrave]

Not particularly upset about losing this one as a single game, but in the scheme of things it meant a lot in the standings. We have no shot at winning the Valley and probably need to close out with 3 str8 wins which we should be able to do if we stay hungry.

Gotta give credit to the Birds tonight. They wanted this one so bad and treated it like their SB. We had beaten them 6 str8 also so they were due especially after almist beating us a few weeks ago.

I think our seniors (except CD) showed up tonight and Hannah and Zek played as aggressive as I’ve seen all season.

Let’s finish strong and get the #2 seed for Arch Madness! NCAA tourney or bust for sure.

[LittleBrave]

Losing 3 straight really hurt us in the long run, but if it made us tougher to get to the Championship game, I’ll take it. I do believe these last 2 road games made us tougher for the home stretch, but the guys can’t let up for a single day between tomorrow and March 9th.

Whoever wins Arch Madness this season can be very proud, as the Top 3 teams are strong like last season, but the middle pack teams are a bit stronger and can burn you on any given night. Much like last season I think the 3 teams at the top are equal strength, but each team had an edge: Drake is more consistent than anyone, UNI is the hottest team, and Bradley has veteran leaders and best fan base.

[daveineureka]

In the grand scheme Bradley must go into St. Louis with the mindset of winning the conference tournament. If not then like last year, we will have to wait and see if we get an invitation to the NIT. Bradley can do it and win in St. Louis. A lot of fans would consider that a disappointment if we do not go dancing. Only way to not have those feelings is just get it done.

[Stryker]

In the grand scheme Bradley must go into St. Louis with the mindset of winning the conference tournament. If not then like last year, we will have to wait and see if we get an invitation to the NIT. Bradley can do it and win in St. Louis. A lot of fans would consider that a disappointment if we do not go dancing. Only way to not have those feelings is just get it done.

Preseason #1, multiple preseason 1st team players on on our team, not winning in St. Louis would definitely be a let down this year. We were supposed to be having the season that Drake is having.

[Tommy]

I missed the part of the game with Zek's T, what happened?

Loose ball struggle between Zek and Cade Boser ended with a whistle. After the whistle, Zek was looking at the ref saying, 'jump ball', while Cade Boser was giving Zek the stare down and quite obviously cussing him out. They gave Zek a foul AND a technical, and Boser also got a technical. No idea why Zek was called for a T, but I'd love to hear the ref explain it. They even looked at the monitor afterward, but nothing changed. Zek looked completely baffled with the call, but that was pretty much the trend for the whole game.

Even BW said in the post game that he knew the game would be a struggle because ISU was coming off a 3 game losing streak and he saw who the crew was going to be. Also didn't hurt that Daugherty had the game of his life going 7-10 from 3 point land. He does shoot 50% from there, though, so we really should have done a better job of guarding him. On several occasions, we left 3 point shooters wide open.

[houstonbrave]

Our overwhelming weakness is letting one dimensional 3 point shooters go off on us. Daugherty, Lindblade, weisbrod, Mascari are great shooters but not a lot else. Seems like our guards need to take them away and play 4 on 4 on the others.

[Bacci'sAftertheGym]

replay of Zek's technical foul:
Zek Montgomery Technical Foul - 2/19/25 - Bradley vs Illinois State

Initially called as a T on Boser of ISU for taunting, refs reviewed the footage for several minutes and somehow decided to call an additional T on Zek making them offset and giving possession back to ISU.
This at a critical moment of the game when a BU comeback was mounting. 2 free throws for Zek and the ball back could have led to a Bradley lead in the 2nd half.
BU couldn't cut the deficit below 4 for the rest of the game.

[BUfan17]

replay of Zek's technical foul:
Zek Montgomery Technical Foul - 2/19/25 - Bradley vs Illinois State

Initially called as a T on Boser of ISU for taunting, refs reviewed the footage for several minutes and somehow decided to call an additional T on Zek making them offset and giving possession back to ISU.
This at a critical moment of the game when a BU comeback was mounting. 2 free throws for Zek and the ball back could have led to a Bradley lead in the 2nd half.
BU couldn't cut the deficit below 4 for the rest of the game.

That was a BS call. Maybe a common foul on Zek but definitely not a technical on him. Boser yelling right in his face was a technical for sure.

[tomahawk chop]

Loose ball struggle between Zek and Cade Boser ended with a whistle. After the whistle, Zek was looking at the ref saying, 'jump ball', while Cade Boser was giving Zek the stare down and quite obviously cussing him out. They gave Zek a foul AND a technical, and Boser also got a technical. No idea why Zek was called for a T, but I'd love to hear the ref explain it. They even looked at the monitor afterward, but nothing changed. Zek looked completely baffled with the call, but that was pretty much the trend for the whole game.

Even BW said in the post game that he knew the game would be a struggle because ISU was coming off a 3 game losing streak and he saw who the crew was going to be. Also didn't hurt that Daugherty had the game of his life going 7-10 from 3 point land. He does shoot 50% from there, though, so we really should have done a better job of guarding him. On several occasions, we left 3 point shooters wide open.

When I saw the crew that was calling the game I knew it would not be good for Bradley. The T on Zek proved how biased they were last night. Bradley made more field goals in the game and more rebounds, ISU shot a lot more free throws , something like 27 to 10. These refs are a complete disgrace to the game.

[Dubl R 1]

replay of Zek's technical foul:
Zek Montgomery Technical Foul - 2/19/25 - Bradley vs Illinois State

Initially called as a T on Boser of ISU for taunting, refs reviewed the footage for several minutes and somehow decided to call an additional T on Zek making them offset and giving possession back to ISU.
This at a critical moment of the game when a BU comeback was mounting. 2 free throws for Zek and the ball back could have led to a Bradley lead in the 2nd half.
BU couldn't cut the deficit below 4 for the rest of the game.

Again, at this level, this is completely unacceptable. How could anybody review that, and consider anything Zek did to warrant a technical foul....maybe in the heat of the play you could mistakenly call that, But to have not been called on him initially, only to review it and come to that conclusion is just remarkable.

That bald ref is total amateur hour..every game he does there are constant monitor reviews, disorganization, and all that doesn't even take into account the fact that his calls seem to be skewed against BU. He's the same guy that called the foul on Almar at the end of the Belmont game. I don't know who picks the refs for our home games...but if BU has say in it...we should never have him do any of our home games again. He kills us.