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Bradley-MSU postgame thread

I think the reason for not playing DC in thw second half was due to rebounding. Singh was put in to try to stop all the offensive rebounds. DC did play well in the first half but showed his non strength and weakness when faced with stronger opponents with all the rebounds MSU got. I thought it was a good move by JL to have Sam in there to give us more strength on the rebound side of things.

Overall I think BU can hang their heads high, we did not get the W but I thought we showed we can play with the big boys. lets not forget this was a top ten team that came to Peoria, not many BCS teams would do that, I hope more games like this can come to Peoria in future years as it will help build the program more.

Congrats to MSU for a hard fought win, Thanks to Izzo for not shying away from a tough road game. One of my biggest complaints against BCS schools is their scheduling of tough games especially on the road (hear that Duke).
 
Before getting on Warren too much, remember that he guarded Neitzel a lot of the game and effectively shut him down. Yeah, I love warren to be an offensive threat, but keeping them from scoring points is as good as scoring them yourself.

Rebounding ... ug. Horrendous. Cost us the game.

Officiating .. yeah, they missed a couple calls, but overall I thought it was a well officiated game. Certainly can't blame anything on the zebras. They didnt cause us to get outrebounded by so much.

Ruff. A couple bad decisions at the end that are magnified because it's the end of the game, but he was overall very good tonight. They werent' giving Crouch ANY easy buckets in teh second half.

Credit state's D and rebounding effort. That won them the game.

Thanks to coach Izzo and the MSU program for agreeing to come down to Peoria in a 2-for-1 deal. Hope at the end of this season this can be listed as a "quality win" for you guys. best of luck the rest of the way. Don't think you can have anything but respect for BU after the game today.

and GREAT fans tonight. wow. Let's bring it like that the rest of the year!!

Okay, enough moral victories! Let's go close out some games, beat butler and VCU, and put ourselves back in the discussion.

anybody think we may be pretty darn good in valley play this year? We have played two great teams tough, and I dont know if anybody can compare to Vandy, let alone MSU. SIU looks very beatable. Creighton scares me more than anybody.

GO BRAVES!
 
abraveforlife said:
1. I wanted to go to a Bradley game against one of the best in the country
Check.

2. I wanted State to give us everything they had
Check.

3. I wanted to know if we could play with one of the best in the country
Check.


It is a long season. Come out every game with the same heart and intensity and we will be celebrating at arch madness. Grow and learn from this. The season does not ride and die on one game. I hope all who are reading this who are not posters, will go to the games more and sell that B A S T A R D out every game. This is good team getting better. I hate to sleep on a lost, but I love waking up to a future of growth and progress. Go Braves!!!!
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Excellent post! Well put! Like I said last night, hopefully it won't come down to an at-large bid with the committee seeing that we did not get that one marquee win. However, despite a somewhat down Valley this year, if we win the conference regular season and/or tourney, we're still in the NCAA Tournament. And like you said, if we continue coming out with this type of intensity every night, we will continue to get better and win a lot of games.

I see a lot of similarities between this team and the Sweet Sixteen team from two years ago. They will just keep getting better, and the fans will be in for a treat this year!

GO BRAVES!!! :)
 
After the hear-breaking loss last night, I wouldn't let myself get on to post, so here is my take.

Ruff- Played an absolutely amazing game. I know he had some poor decisions late, but this guy carries the team and without him, I don't think we would have been anywhere close to this MSU team. We're going to miss him next year and that is a fact.

Crouch- I think crouch played very well tonight. The best defense I have seen him play all year. Offensively, he did what he could. Izzo and company knew how good he is, and they played lock down D on him in the second half.

Wilson- Wilson had a few key plays tonight, I would have liked to see a few more of his dominating boards, but the way our bigs were getting manhandled it is unlikely. I'd like to see him take more shots and slash a bit more.

Salley- Best game of the season for this guy. Still not a great game, but he brought some intensity and he hit the easy shots. We still need more production out of him.

Warren- This kid has the athletic ability to be an offensive threat. I think he just lacks the confidence and the fire (i hope les lights one under his *** soon). Defensively, he didn't look good in the first few minutes but he firmed it up after that.

Collins- BRING THE INTENSITY BIG MAN! If we can toughen this kid up, he is going to be a monster. He played VERY VERY soft tonight and it hurt, he got eaten up down low. Make this kid stronger and meaner....watch out Valley!

TCS- Non-factor again. He isn't living up to the hype, but he hasn't had much of a chance to do so. I think a lot of it has to do with his defense which is improving but still sub-par. I hope he can have a break-out game and become another Will Franklin type player.

Sam M.- Wow. What a game for a freshman. He proved to himself and his team that he can go toe to toe with an all-american. Great job defensively tonight. A couple of TOs that looked bad, but overall good game. This kid will be good by the time he leaves the hilltop.

Sam S.- Sam came in and hopefully collins was watching. Sam is a smart player, he knows where to be defensively and offensively and he does EXACTLY what a coach asks him to do. He actually puts a body on the big guys, which is nice to see once in awhile. Good game Sam, keep it up.

Congrats to MSU on pulling off a tough one. They shot poorly tonight which is abnormal, but I think we can attribute that to the hard-nosed D that Bradley brought tonight. The only player who I saw missing open shots was pre-season all-american Drew Neitzel. Good luck the rest of the season.

BU...let's take this as a lesson learned and move on. We can play with one of the top 10 teams in the country and we CAN WIN IF we close out games. I saw how good this BU team can be tonight, and if we can keep this type of play going and tighten up on the glass, we will have a GREAT season in the Valley. 3 big-time games coming up....lets put them in the books as Ws!

-MML
 
for the second game in a row, TCS stepped on a sideline w/out being forced there. really an inexcusable turnover, especially for a guard.

Not trying to nit-pick, but he needs to improve his court awareness
 
100% of those fans along the sidelines right where that call was made, would strongly disagree with the call.
Obviously the ref saw it differently, but Cole-Scott was NOT on the line, this was another blown call.
 
MSU_Alum said:
I understand that you want to call it good defense. I'd probably do the same thing if I was in your position, but I saw a lot of open looks that they just flat out missed tonight. That's really odd for a team that shoots 50%+ from the field. It was a good game though.
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Uhhh, actually it was your coach who was very worried about playing this game in Peoria. If Tom Izzo knows that Bradley plays great defense, I'm sure you do too.
 
Couple of things.

Our defensive rebounding is absolutely horrible and cost us this basketball game. You can not continually give the opponent 2/3/th shoot opportunities continually. This looked like last year all over again, except we have size sitting on the bench.

Why is JL so adverse to playing 2 "bigs" at the same time. We were a 4 guard offense with either Salley or Singh most of the second half.

If a team is pounding you on the boards, what is wrong with playing a zone to try and protect the rim on missed shots? If even for a possession or two.

MSU yes they are ranked very high but they are worse then us at handling the ball and if that were to continue they will have some serious problems. But, they run an extremely effective half court set when they get organized. And in the last 4 minutes of the game that is what they did ran set that had us out of position and gave them wide open looks.

But this still comes down to rebounding and we were simply terrible rebounding the ball last night.
 
tornado said:
100% of those fans along the sidelines right where that call was made, would strongly disagree with the call.
Obviously the ref saw it differently, but Cole-Scott was NOT on the line, this was another blown call.
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T, this is one time I have to disagree w/ you as I was sitting straight up from the play and he stepped out w/ his back foot and caught the ball before he had brought it back down. According to the rules, if I am not mistaking, if you step out of bounds you are considered out of bounds until you step back on the floor w/ that foot which is why C-S was called for beingout of bounds. All of us in our area agreed that the call was correct.
 
This game looked like the Illini game last year up in Hoffman Estates. Nice lead for most of the game, but couldn't make the plays to put the game out of reach. A couple of big threes and countless offensive rebounds made the difference.

Some new guys are getting better and some guys aren't. BU needs one or two more to step up like Sam M and Wilson.
 
Thought BU played well enough to win the game, but MSU made more plays in crunch time.

DC can't play defense....and is not good at boxing out. You can tell he is someone who is used to playing against smaller opponents and not having to work very hard for the boards...

TCS...also does not impress me on defense, he is very quick and needs to use that to his advantage more...2nd game in a row stepping out of bounds and from my spot it looked like he was....

I thought overall the team played very well and much can and will be learned from this experience!

I feel alot better about this teams ability now then I did earlier this week.
 
Hey... did anybody notice a time out taken by Bradley late in the game got a little "extension"?

MSU had hit a 3 and not long after BU took a time out. Coach Les questioned one of the refs about whether it was a 2 or 3. So the refs go to the monitor.... the shot was pretty clear it was a 3... but the timeout lasted a little longer as they reviewed it. Then as they came out of the timeout, one ref had to tell Coach Les it was a 3... Coach had a smirk on his face. Almost as if he knew he could get an extra 15-20 secs of rest for the players and a little more time for coaching in the huddle.

With that.... I think Coach Les needs to work on his poker face a little more. ;)
 
basketball nut said:
T, this is one time I have to disagree w/ you as I was sitting straight up from the play and he stepped out w/ his back foot and caught the ball before he had brought it back down. According to the rules, if I am not mistaking, if you step out of bounds you are considered out of bounds until you step back on the floor w/ that foot which is why C-S was called for beingout of bounds. All of us in our area agreed that the call was correct.
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Yeah T, I have to agree with the refs. I sit right on that baseline opposite the student section, and my seat has a direct view down that sideline. TCS did step out with his backfoot. Right before the ref called it, I mumbled, Aww @$@$, he's out of bounds. Anyway, on that play Sam M should have hit Crouch on the right wing as he was unguarded for a 3. attempt.
 
Just got back into Chicago. Its going to take me awhile to get over that one. It was a fun game to watch....the crowd was fantastic....that one may have hurt as much as the Illinois loss last year....not to the team or the season I'm just speaking for myself....I wanted that one bad....
 
VromanFan said:
Just got back into Chicago. Its going to take me awhile to get over that one. It was a fun game to watch....the crowd was fantastic....that one may have hurt as much as the Illinois loss last year....not to the team or the season I'm just speaking for myself....I wanted that one bad....
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This one hurts more than the Illinois game last year IMO, at least for me personally. The way we lost ruined what had been such a perfect day it was almost surreal. For all we know it could be another 30 years before we get a Top 10 team in Peoria, and that really, really bothers me. The Illinois and MSU games were actually carbon copies of each other really, only difference was that last year we had an excuse why we got pounded on the boards. This year we really don't. We recruited all of these big men just to watch most of them sit in the 2nd half. One would think a -20 rebounding margin and 20 second chance points might warrant some more size being on the court. If that doesn't warrant more size getting more minutes, I don't know what it's going to take. It's gonna take a while before I get over this one.

:cry:
 
I get so sick of hearing about these "MARQUEE WINS" and RPI, and everything else. Has the NCAA changed the rules? If I remember correctly, win your conference tournament and you make the NCAA tournament right? LET'S JUST DO THAT! Also, to close my rant. Thumbs down to all the people that with 8 min remaining before tip off and the Bradley team taking the court, the whole lower bowl was basically empty. Nothing but shirts on chairs. That's all I am going to say about the fan portion. THANK GOD US DIEHARDS IN THE $8 SEATS WELCOMED OUR TEAM TO THE COURT.
 
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