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Gut check time

D

daveineureka

Member
As all Bradley fans are aware of, this Wednesday's game at SIU will be a great test for our Braves. No doubt SIU are playing good basketball as well. Bradley may even be the underdog in this game. The way we have been playing as of late, let's hope it continues. Play good defense and rebound and I like our chances. Of course SIU will have something to say about it too. Let's hope for a BU win. Sorry I will not be able to watch as I have a prior commitment. Will keep tabs of the game on my phone though. "Go Braves":p
 
Tomahawk said:
As all Bradley fans are aware of, this Wednesday's game at SIU will be a great test for our Braves. No doubt SIU are playing good basketball as well. Bradley may even be the underdog in this game. The way we have been playing as of late, let's hope it continues. Play good defense and rebound and I like our chances. Of course SIU will have something to say about it too. Let's hope for a BU win. Sorry I will not be able to watch as I have a prior commitment. Will keep tabs of the game on my phone though. "Go Braves":p
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We are the better team, play solid defense, rebound and score 74 points. This is a very important game as far as the standings go so hoping the staff looked at the film on how Drake was able to handle them on their home floor.
 
It will go as the guards go. Will need good performances from Duke and Connor imo to be successful against the mid & upper tier MVC teams. BU will easily lose if they play like they did at Murray State.
 
Xavier Johnson should be the captain of the "Most Improved" team this year. Last year for SIU, he averaged 7.0 ppg. And in his 3 seasons as a starter at George Mason, he averaged 7.1, 3.3, and 7.7 points per game. This year, he is averaging 23.8 ppg so far.

In SIU's two MVC losses, he was 5-17 for 16 points against Indiana State, and 6-17 for 19 points against Drake.
In their 4 MVC wins, he scored 31 against UIC, 18 against Belmont, 26 against ILSU, and 27 against Valpo.
So he gets a lot of points pretty much every game (season low is 16 points), though their MVC losses have come in games where he shot a poor percentage (combined 11-34 in those 2 games).
Only about 1/3 of his shot attempts are 3-pointers. So, even though he is a good 3-point shooter, most of his points come from 2-pointers (59%).
30% of his points come from three pointers, and a whopping 31% come from the FT line.
He has attempted 139 FTs this year. The next highest is 85 by Donovan Clay of Missouri State.
Bradley needs to make him take lower percentage shots, and not get stable, open looks at the basket, and avoid fouling (he's a 91% FT shooter).

Xavier Johnson game log- https://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/player/gamelog/_/id/4592439/xavier-johnson
 
Study up on this guy and contain him… if we do that and have a decent offensive showing we have a good shot… I don’t think they have enough other firepower to backfill him if we can contain. Should be a nice challenge for our team, and it’ll be fun to watch.
 
Johnson dominates the ball as he averages 15 more points, 4 more assists, 2 more turnovers then anyone else on the team. It'll be a fine line between being our usual aggressive nature on defense since we have just Duke, Conner and Demarion as our main guards. They can't afford to get in foul trouble, please don't be reaching in, and Johnson loves to draw contact on his shots. I just hope we don't get our seemingly every game foul call on a 3 point shot. The thing I've really liked during this 6 game winning streak besides our defense is who do you guard on our offense. All 8 of the main guys have been in double digits during this winning streak which makes us hard to guard. 1st of 4 straight games against the upper half of the Mo Valley so boys go down to Carbondale and get it!
 
First observation is that SIU has back to back home games (against 2-top opponents)… they had these games circled as key wins for success in the season. And now the best they can do is win one of the two games… Good teams don’t lose back to back home games, I hope we can take it to them on Wednesday

I have been thinking about the matchup with X-Johnson… I assume Hickman will start off guarding him, and I am wondering if Malevey gets some time defending him (especially in the 2nd half of a close game). I believe XJohnson will have his way against Deen/O/CD AND like said earlier, there really is not many other serious offensive threats on this SIU team.

We have to move the ball around on Offense against the SIU defense

Should be a great game, a big win for either team (hopefully ours). Go BU!!
 
Tomahawk said:
As all Bradley fans are aware of, this Wednesday's game at SIU will be a great test for our Braves. No doubt SIU are playing good basketball as well. Bradley may even be the underdog in this game. The way we have been playing as of late, let's hope it continues. Play good defense and rebound and I like our chances. Of course SIU will have something to say about it too. Let's hope for a BU win. Sorry I will not be able to watch as I have a prior commitment. Will keep tabs of the game on my phone though. "Go Braves":p
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What I worry about is a slow start or a 2nd half slump where we can go several minutes without scoring. It seems that there are fewer instances of this and that the team comes out of those 2nd half slumps faster this year. Go Braves!!
 
bigjimmy said:
Johnson dominates the ball as he averages 15 more points, 4 more assists, 2 more turnovers then anyone else on the team. It'll be a fine line between being our usual aggressive nature on defense since we have just Duke, Conner and Demarion as our main guards. They can't afford to get in foul trouble, please don't be reaching in, and Johnson loves to draw contact on his shots. I just hope we don't get our seemingly every game foul call on a 3 point shot. The thing I've really liked during this 6 game winning streak besides our defense is who do you guard on our offense. All 8 of the main guys have been in double digits during this winning streak which makes us hard to guard. 1st of 4 straight games against the upper half of the Mo Valley so boys go down to Carbondale and get it!
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The key to containing Johnson is not letting him get into the lane, stop him out front if you have to double on him and make him give up the ball. The defense needs to travel tonight because we need to hold them to 60 points or less.
 
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