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Final score: Bradley 93 Drake 66

Da Coach

Da Coach

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Staff member
Bradley's next game is Wednesday, Jan. 7 at Carver Arena. Note the later than usual start time of 8:00 pm, because the game is the second game of two games on the MVC-TV Network.
The game will be on ESPN+, and is on the MVC-TV Network, which includes local Peoria channel WHOI 19.1. It can be seen on Xfinity channels 220 (SD) and 1019 (HD).

ESPN+ direct link- https://www.espn.com/watch/player/_/id/5b53f49a-6914-4674-9043-33f23aac3b4d
Chat room- https://www.chatzy.com/bradleyfans
Live Stats- https://bradleybraves.com/sidearmstats/mbball/summary
WMBD radio - https://wmbdradio.com/player/?playerID=2045
Tickets- https://www.ticketmaster.com/bradle...ia-illinois-01-07-2026/event/07006342B01B4791

Bradley (10-6, 3-2, NET 127) vs. Drake (8-7, 2-2, NET 163)- This is a far different Drake team than their last several seasons. Drake has averaged over 27 wins per year in the last 5 years and played in the NCAA Tournament 4 of those 5 seasons for Darian DeVries and Ben McCollum.
Drake historical record- https://www.sports-reference.com/cbb/schools/drake/men/

Schedule/results- https://godrakebulldogs.com/sports/mens-basketball/schedule
Roster- https://godrakebulldogs.com/sports/mens-basketball/roster
Stats- https://godrakebulldogs.com/sports/mens-basketball/stats/2025-26?path=mbball

Drake is under a new head coach for the second year in a row. Eric Henderson, who replaced Ben McCollum, had success at South Dakota State for 6 seasons with a record of 129-60, four Summit League regular season titles, two Summit League Tournament championships and 2 NCAA Tournament appearances.
This year's Drake team includes only one returning player from last season, 6'3" junior guard Andrew Alia, who only played in 7 games last year for Ben McCollum.
The rest of Eric Henderson's 13-man roster is comprised of 8 portal transfers from other 4-year schools, and 4 freshmen, only one of whom has played (6'10" forward Griffin Goodbary), and the other three are redshirting.
Henderson's playing rotation is usually 8 or sometimes 9 players, so these are the players Bradley is likely to see-
Leading scorer is 6'3" senior guard Jalen Quinn, a transfer from Loyola. He has also re-taken the MVC lead with 17.33 ppg (Jaquan Johnson is now 2nd with 17.19 ppg average). He shoots 32.6% from three and leads the team in assists (3.5 apg).
6'9" sophomore forward Okku Federiko, a transfer from South carolina, averages 12.6 ppg and a team-leading 6.2 rpg.
6'3" senior guard Jaehshon Thomas, a transfer from Charlotte, averages 12.0 ppg and is one of their top three point threats at 44.6% from three.
6'6" junior forward Wilgues Jr. Exacte, a transfer from Bowling Green, averages 8.6 ppg and 5.3 rpg.
6'6" redshirt-junior guard Braden Appelhans, a transfer from New Mexico, averages 7.3 ppg off the bench, and he shoots 43.5% from three.
6'6" guard Eli Shetler, a transfer from indiana State, averages 6.8 ppg and 4.1 rpg. He has played mostly off the bench this season, but was a starter in their last game against Indiana State. He is shoots 35.3% from three.
6'3" redshirt-junior guard Andrew Alia averages 6.5 ppg, and he has shot 54.5% from three this season (24-44).
6'1" sophomore guard Owen Larson, a transfer who played for Henderson at South Dakota State, missed their first 9 games. He has played in the last 6 games, starting the last 5 games. He is averaging 3.7 ppg, and shooting just 18.8% from three.

As a team, Drake averages 77.2 ppg (6th best in MVC), and yields 69.6 ppg (3rd best in MVC). They shoot 36.3% from three as a team (4th in the MVC).
Bradley stats- https://bradleybraves.com/sports/mens-basketball/stats
MVC stats- https://mvc-sports.com/documents/2025/11/4//2025_26_MVC_MBB_All_Game_Stats.pdf
 
ollienanyes said:
Note: if you have paper tickets, they say 7 pm, which is incorrect
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Yes, Thanks Ollie. Even the electronic tickets show the game time as the originally scheduled time of 7:00 pm.
Note that the start time has been moved to 8:00 pm.

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Mr out said:
Thomas has been questionable most of the year with his ankle injury.
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All of the current BU big guys have been truly questionable for their BU careers and I'm not referring to anything injury-related! Thomas, Jonovic, Yu, Smith, etc. are awful. I put it on the coaching staff. It isn't that hard to find 1 big guy who can do 1 thing well! Get a big who can rebound....or defend and block some shots....or catch and turn and finish strong, etc. It should be easier now with the portal to find that 1 guy each year who at the minimum has 1 skill that is "ok"!!!!! These bigs do not have 1 good skill! Why do they put the ball in Jonovic's hands and run the hand-off action and pick and rolls with the high-ball screen action? It's insane to continue to role these guys out there, get outrebounded and not play to our strengths! Tell Thomas to stop shooting 3's!!!! Bully, Wheeler and Burch should be on the floor together a whole lot more and I would play Richardson and Zobrist with those 3 and pick 1 other stiff to put on the floor with them. I guarantee that playing Bully, Wheeler, Burch and Richardson together for 20 minutes of the Murray State game would not have produced a worse outcome than I watched. The coaches have nothing to lose and the coaching staff actually looks worse as each game passes and they continue to roll these big guys out there (are they expecting them to somehow perform better because of "experience" or some type of coaching that they are getting in practice? I don't think so. Nothing against those players, they just are not very good at basketball and in my opinion should ever be on the roster of a legitimate D-1 program. If I was Richardson and I was watching this non-sense as a deep bench guy, I would hit the portal quickly...
 
To be fair, schools in the MVC do not regularly land quality big men. The league has a couple good big men this year with Chase Walker of ISU and Fred King at Murray State, and maybe you could include Connor Turnbull (Evansville), but after those 3, the caliber of big men really drops off. So to expect the coaches to land high quality big men year after year, is simply not realistic. And if Bradley did land a quality big man like Rienk Mast, we all know what would happen to him. Unfortunately, the big men Bradley has landed have not developed and improved like we all would have liked.
I do think I am hearing a little too much negativity, and gloom and doom after 2 losses that most of us expected.
Personally I think the bigger problem is not with the big men, but with the shooting percentages. While teams like Murray State and Belmont were recruiting guys who can scorch the nets, Bradley, who was the best shooting team in the MVC last year, ranks in the lower half of the league in FG% and 3 point FG% this year.
 
Da Coach said:
To be fair, schools in the MVC do not regularly land quality big men. The league has a couple good big men this year with Chase Walker of ISU and Fred King at Murray State, and maybe you could include Connor Turnbull (Evansville), but after those 3, the caliber of big men really drops off. So to expect the coaches to land high quality big men year after year, is simply not realistic. And if Bradley did land a quality big man like Rienk Mast, we all know what would happen to him. Unfortunately, the big men Bradley has landed have not developed and improved like we all would have liked.
I do think I am hearing a little too much negativity, and gloom and doom after 2 losses that most of us expected.
Personally I think the bigger problem is not with the big men, but with the shooting percentages. While teams like Murray State and Belmont were recruiting guys who can scorch the nets, Bradley, who was the best shooting team in the MVC last year, ranks in the lower half of the league in FG% and 3 point FG% this year.
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Ours are at the bottom talent wise though
 
Don't forget this is Wardle's first season since 2016 without a player named Darrell Brown, Reink Mast, or Duke Deen on his roster.
He thrives with cultivating and holding talent, not finding it in the portal on 1 year contracts.
We can all take a breath and allow him a year of middle of the pack while he cultivates the next generation. And at the same time any team that sees Bradley on their schedule in St Louis is going to be sweating bullets, regardless of our seed.
 
Nice to see AJ Smith have a good game so far. Maybe not starting the last game sent him a message to get his head in the game. Now to have him keep it up and have consistency from here on our.
 
What will the negative nellies say now? Drake isn't as good this year but being up 30 on anyone in the Valley is impressive.
 
Good win for the Braves tonight. We left with four minutes to go, though, which we never do. I was disgusted Wardle had not put Richardson and Zobrist in by then. They need playing time. They were in by the time we got to the car, but should have been in early in the second half.
 
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