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Final score: Bradley 83 SIU 60

Da Coach

Da Coach

Moderator
Staff member
Well that was enjoyable, unless you are an SIU fan.
A real butt-whipping by Bradley.
Final score- Bradley 83 SIU 60 - https://stats.statbroadcast.com/broadcast/?id=549586

The only negative- Duke Deen left the game in the 2nd half with possible concussion-like symptoms.

Bradley shot extremely well- 31-61 overall (50.8%) and 14-22 from three (63.6%)
 
Other highlights-
Bradley had 20 assists, a season high against D1 opponents (they had 29 assists in the 107-41 win over Judson)
14 steals is also a season high against D1 opponents (they had 24 against Judson)
No player played more than 30 minutes, which is good to see
63.6% is a season-high for 3-point FG%- the previous high was 50% (7-14) against Northern Illinois
only 9 turnovers and 3 or 4 of them were in the final few minutes when the starters were all off the floor.

Freshman Jaquan Johnson had a terrific stat line- 9 points, 3 rebounds, 5 assists, 5 steals
Corey Thomas got 18 minutes of playing time, his most this season, and contributed 2 points, 5 rebounds, 2 assists, and no turnovers
And the starters all had terrific games-
Christian Davis- 5 points, 2-4 overall, 1-1 from three, 2 rebounds, 3 assists, and 2 steal, plus great defense on SIU's leading scorer Kennard Davis.
Duke Deen- 10 points, 2-3 from three, 3 assists and no turnovers
Almar Atlason- 17 points, 5-7 (all from three), 2 rebounds, 3 assists
Darius Hannah- 9 points, 5 rebounds, 3 blocks, and 4 steals
Zek Montgomery with a terrific game- a Bradley-career-high 22 points (he had a 30 point game at Rhode Island last year), 5-6 from three, and good defense.
 
Jaquan Johnson's future is bright. Hopefully he doesn't have to fill in for Duke too long, but he could really be something by the end of the year and in 4 years too!
 
I remember a few years back many on this board pleading for Bradley to recruit shooters. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the 2024-25 Bradley Braves.
 
I thought the first 10 minutes our defense looked as good as it has all year. The second half mostly too. It faltered a little the second 10 minutes of the first half, but overall I think our defense is getting there, even though I know Brian wants to keep seeing improvement on that end. Southern is not great, but always good to get a big conference road win. Scott Nagy has had a lot of success and could build the program, but have to think they'd be better this year with Mullins.

Deen looked good until the injury - hope he's ok. I really don't love the idea of Johnson and Zek being the only two point guard options.
Zek was great, and his shot is much improved and better than I remember from his previous Bradley tenure.
Hannah was good and great on defense. Ditto Davis. Almar keeps getting better on both ends, and may finally be getting the fouling and turnovers under control. He looks more confident lately. That would be huge.

As for the bench, I mentioned last week, Johnson has the best hands on defense I've seen in a while. He is like Peanut Tillman for the Bears back in the day. He is just so much better than almost every player at punching the ball out. He's a great passer too, even if he has to learn to reign it in at times. He's a fun player to watch and seems to have a high basketball IQ. Thomas is a really good rebounder and keeps getting better. Meta wasn't great tonight, but made one nice post move. Thomas/Meta continue to rotate depending on matchups for the most part and I think that's fine. I do expect Thomas's minutes to grow as he gets better in D1. I really wish Dillon was getting in the rotation a little more consistently, as I think shooters are always a good thing to have plenty of, but it is hard to find too many minutes right now. Burch looked a little off tonight to me. He forced a few things, but I imagine he is still working his way back after some time off. Nice to see him hit a three at the end.

Overall, a nice night for the Braves, and I love having all this three point shooting I have been asking for for many years now. I wonder who wins a shootout, the 06-07 team or this one? Need to finish the conference season strong, so rest up, Duke get healthy, and lets get a few more wins before conference!
 
BUSongwriter said:
I remember a few years back many on this board pleading for Bradley to recruit shooters. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the 2024-25 Bradley Braves.
Click to expand...

I was definitely one of them. Isn't it great? It is so nice to finally be the ones hitting those demoralizing threes after a mini run from another team. I love our program focus on good defense, as it keeps you in a lot of games, but having so many shooters makes it really hard to keep a team down offensively for long, and opens up things inside for guys like Hannah and drives from guys like Deen and Johnson. It is a necessity for the best mid-majors in today's world. I think of it like this: defense keeps you in games, shooting wins them.
 
Here is the play early in the 2nd half where Duke was injured and asked to come out of the game - https://x.com/icetimecleve/status/1864137226939961725

Click the settings icon and set the playback speed to the slowest setting and enlarge the video.
He collided with SIU's Antwaun Massey at the top of the key. Duke immediately bends over and raises his arm to signal to the bench that he's hurt.
Maybe I'm wrong, but to me, it appears that Massey raised his right elbow at the last instant and gave Duke a shot to the head. You can see Dukes head lurch forward at the instant of contact.
I do not think it was a leg injury as Dave Eminian suggests. Duke walked off the court normally. If it had been a leg injury, I think his gait would have been noticeably altered.
Does anyone else see what I am seeing? Like everyone else, I hope it's nothing serious.
 
I thought we played great for 75% of the game. Some of the turnovers were bad ones and allowing SIU too many offensive rebounds needs to be corrected. Johnson really did great on help defense and some of our other players could learn from watching him in how he is able to come up with steals in knowing where the ball is on the floor. The 3 point shooting continues to be a high point for this team. This is a great team win as far as going on the road and dominating against a team that does not lose many home games.
 
BUSongwriter said:
I remember a few years back many on this board pleading for Bradley to recruit shooters. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the 2024-25 Bradley Braves.
Click to expand...

Then I guess it looks like those fans were right!

Jaquan with 5 steals -BUT ….
the cleanest steal and the slickest one was the one he didn’t get credit for because the ref called a foul. But personally, I think 9 out of 10 refs would have let that one play on.

the attendance there looked horrible. They listed 4300 but I’m pretty confident it was just 1/2 of that at best. They drew 5126 last year.
 
Speaking of attendance numbers... despite a below average attendance for the Judson game of 5,064, Bradley's overall average attendance is # 1 in the MVC.

attendance.png
 
Da Coach said:
Speaking of attendance numbers... despite a below average attendance for the Judson game of 5,064, Bradley's overall average attendance is # 1 in the MVC.

attendance.png
Click to expand...

I'm really encouraged by these numbers and was surprised to see how many people were at the Judson game. I suspect this will easily be our best attendance season since the Les years and we'll see a rapid increase come conference time!
 
BUSongwriter said:
I remember a few years back many on this board pleading for Bradley to recruit shooters. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the 2024-25 Bradley Braves.
Click to expand...

OMG how true!!! We are so deep from deep! 5 guys who are deep threats, and you've got Burch and Hannah who are capable too!

Just a fun team to watch and good to see we are clamping down on D, though sometimes the pts in the paint for the opposition seem too easy.
 
Nice to see at this point in the season that we can go 10 deep. Burch, JJ, Thomas contributing off the bench. Jonavich and Dillon should provide some help during the season. I didn't think Jaquan would be ready to go in the Valley, but boy - he is so ready, and fearless! For a freshman, he makes good decisions, with a few hiccups a game, but not critical. And he is not a liability on D as some of us worried about before season.
 
Tommy said:
I'm really encouraged by these numbers and was surprised to see how many people were at the Judson game. I suspect this will easily be our best attendance season since the Les years and we'll see a rapid increase come conference time!
Click to expand...

Especially since I plan to attend a BU home game in 2025, which will spike the numbers!! ;)
 
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