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Final score: Bradley 90 Indiana State 89 in overtime

Big Mike said:
Bradley deserves the W with the bullshit discrepancy in foul calls!:mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad:
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Yes. 36 FTs for Indiana State, 15 for Bradley. At one point it was 30-10. ISU-blue would drive into the lane and either get a foul or a basket. Apparently this wasn't a game for Meta, but after drive after drive I would have liked to have parked him under the basket on defense to stop that strategy.

Road wins are tough. Somehow we gutted this one out, while Drake couldn't do the same earlier in the day. We're back to being Valley favorites, IMO.
 
Again, I hesitate to ever blame refs, but for the second straight game they were awful. I hope it’s not that way all Valley season. I get part of it is reputation and playing style, but the Christian Davis fifth foul he never even touched him at all.

Senior leadership helps in these games. Duke and Zek are great. I liked adding Zek back, but didn’t think he’d replace Hick. I was wrong. He’s much better offensively now than he was. Still better when he works inside out than shooting pull up threes, but he’s dynamic offensively and certainly the better play on that end than Hick, though Hick may still have him on defense.

Nice to see Dillon, Jaquan, Burch, Atlason, and Thomas all do some nice things to help. But I still believe we need someone from that group to step up as the season goes and become a fifth consistent presence to get where we want to go. The other four we know what they can do. I’m not worried about Hannah having a rough game, though I do want to see him back in the post more offensively rather than hanging around the perimeter. I think he’s gotten too comfortable standing out there.

We are not a top 50 team yet by the look test or the NET. I’d like to be there by year’s end. Those players I mentioned above and their development, especially in the post will be key. Nice to win while trying to get better and that was a nice crowd they had too. On TV, it sounded loud. I also liked a Deen, Burch/Dillon/Johnson, Zek, Davis, Hannah lineup on occasion for small ball. Could be a nice change of pace against smaller teams or if we’re getting nothing from the post some nights. Overall, we pulled a rabbit out and it’s a nice win, let’s keep getting better.
 
Coach Wardle needs to play more zone defense. Teams now seem plan their offense against Bradley to just drive into the lane, and know the officials will call a foul on BU every time.
 
Another huge OT win. The foul discrepancy was so bad. Winning on the road will be tough all season with the weak officiating. CD never fouls out so that’s how you know it’s bad.

The combo of Zek and Duke is special. I thought Hannah had an off night. CD is always super efficient. Burch had a great game after not playing much against Valpo.
 
I think it was a great move by Coach Wardle to call a timeout with 3:20 left in OT and ISU up by 5. Without that timeout, ISU might have pulled away.
 
Btw, though Bradley had their second sub-par 3-point shooting game in a row (10-31), they still lead the county in 3-point FG% with 43.3% (156-360).
 
That was the most over-officiated game i've ever seen him my life. I'd be curious to know when the last time Bradley was called for 18 fouls in a half. The refs absolutely took over the game. Indiana State's strategy in the second half was simple - drive to the basket and initiate contact. If you miss it's an automatic call on the defender. What are the interior defenders supposed to do? Even when they are straight up and down, in a set position, and don't move it's called a foul. The last foul on Davis was particularly egregious, but there were so many phantom fouls it was just ridiculous. It's like the refs thought everyone came to see them instead of the players. Great to get the win, but really had to overcome maybe the worst officiated game I've ever seen. Just awful.
 
That had so many twists and turns, it's hard to articulate where to start with it. Coach Wardle said in the postgame he'd never seen a team take 30 threes AND shoot 30 FTs in the same game in his entire coaching career. He was almost giddy to get out with a win in that situation.

I wish I could understand what the MVC refs are noticing differently about us than other teams. I was checking through the box scores and nobody had close to the number of fouls we had today, so it wasn't just a MVC reffing problem. The biggest ones I take issue with is when our players jump straight up, which is how you're defensively told to defend nowadays, and just because the opposing team jumps into your lower half, it's always a foul on us. Even Coach Wardle alluded to "you can't even try to take charges anymore" so this is the way you're supposed to defend. That's where I'd like a better explanation from the refs and ask them what we're supposed to do to actually defend and not get a foul called every possession the ball goes in the lane.

Back to my pregame notes:
  • Indiana State's schedule has been just lousy aside from their last game. They have a lot of bad losses in there. But, they've got two Valley wins already. Very curious to see how they actually measure up against us with so much turnover. POST: I think they were about as I anticipated - upper half of the Valley probably although if it was officiated differently, it could be a much different story.
  • Was Valpo actually just better than people think? Between their game against us and Drake, it seems like its so. If so, Indiana State feels like one of the teams they could jump in the standings and as a result be a very winnable road game for us. But, these things are always tricky, especially the night after New Years. POST: Valpo gets a road win (even a meager one) tonight to help building their case that they are greatly improved.
  • Even after watching every minute of the 12 games so far, I can't quite figure out how good we actually are. Are we in the top 4 of the MVC? Yeah, I think that's obvious. Top 2? Likely. But, where do we stack up against Drake? How about other potential tournament teams? Are we really just about a top 70ish team or are we really a top 30-50 team? Maybe this is still to be written and we can't really know fully yet, but this is one I had circled just to see where we really stand so far. POST: I think I'm falling more into the top 70 camp now unless we start getting more consistent contributions from guys like Atlason.
Another big win, let's keep it going!
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Disgraceful officiating. Glad the guys never gave up. Hard to keep your composure with the BS calls we got. :mad:
 
BRAVE82 said:
Disgraceful officiating. Glad the guys never gave up. Hard to keep your composure with the BS calls we got. :mad:
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Yep Braves82. It’s almost unbelievable. The last 2 games the officiating was horrible! Last 2 games we are 30-36 from the line and Valpo and Indiana State are a combined 54-69…How does that even happen?
 
Video highlight of the last 28 seconds of overtime - https://x.com/BradleyUMBB/status/1874653539055935897

Bradley pulls to within 1 point, 89-88 on a pair of Almar Atlason free throws. Then Zek Montgomery, makes a terrific steal and the ball gets into Duke Deen's hands for the final shot. Duke gets the Indiana State defense tied in knots as he drives into the lane for a layup to give Bradley the 90-89 win.

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Hawk84 said:
That was the most over-officiated game i've ever seen him my life. I'd be curious to know when the last time Bradley was called for 18 fouls in a half. The refs absolutely took over the game. Indiana State's strategy in the second half was simple - drive to the basket and initiate contact. If you miss it's an automatic call on the defender. What are the interior defenders supposed to do? Even when they are straight up and down, in a set position, and don't move it's called a foul. The last foul on Davis was particularly egregious, but there were so many phantom fouls it was just ridiculous. It's like the refs thought everyone came to see them instead of the players. Great to get the win, but really had to overcome maybe the worst officiated game I've ever seen. Just awful.
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Hawk84- preach. You know it’s bad when it draws YOU out to make a post about it! Good to hear from you.

Driving home now with a broad smile on our faces. Duke Deen was next-level fired up after the game and that alone was worth the drive.
 
2 road wins in the Valley so far! This one I'm not too sure how we did it. 3 times ISU Blue had runs of 12-0 including one the was during the last 1:15 of regulation and the first 2:15 of overtime. Not too sure, like Brian said on the post game show, I've ever seen a game where 1 team shot more then 35 FT's and 3 point shots. Win it any way you can I guess. Zek had 26, Duke had 24 with 7 rebounds, 3 assists and 0 turnovers. Hope Saturday's game is a little bit easier.
 
bigjimmy said:
2 road wins in the Valley so far! This one I'm not too sure how we did it. 3 times ISU Blue had runs of 12-0 including one the was during the last 1:15 of regulation and the first 2:15 of overtime. Not too sure, like Brian said on the post game show, I've ever seen a game where 1 team shot more then 35 FT's and 3 point shots. Win it any way you can I guess. Zek had 26, Duke had 24 with 7 rebounds, 3 assists and 0 turnovers. Hope Saturday's game is a little bit easier.
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Yep!
 
Not one to complain about the refs, you have to play through how the game is being called. But wow the amount of free throws the last two games by the opposing team. Seems like the refs have it in for BU. Sure that is not the case, but sure makes you think. Hope Saturday's game is not more of the same. "GO BRAVES":p
 
BW hasn't gotten the calls for a few years now, and the last two games have been absolutely horrendous, but the white ref in yesterday's game needs to be kicked out of ever officiating again. Absolutely ridiculous how one-sided it was, and we can't continue to pull games out when we're dealing with an obviously hostile official. Someone honestly needs to file a complain on that guy. From what I could tell, it was him that was blowing the whistle most every time ISU Blue took a shot, but I might be wrong as I was sitting on the opposite end in the 2nd half, so please correct me if you watched on tv and saw it differently.

At any rate, it was nice to see Deen shut up the crowd at the end. Ridiculous how their crowd would throw a fit every time they blew the whistle on ISU with the foul discrepancy. Everyone in that place knew that game was almost stolen because of the foul calls, and they were still calling for a whistle on every play on both ends of the court and going nuts when they blew the whistle on ISU. I will give the ISU crowd credit for being extremely loud and engaged. For the place being about half full, that might be the loudest road crowd I've ever heard in person.

In closing, let me say that what we saw yesterday can hardly even be called basketball, but what a testament to Wardle and the boys to pull yet another win out of their hat after having such lopsided free throws/foul calling.
 
I have a different look at this. The first 10 minutes of the game were terrible for Bradley. A tournament caliber team shouldn’t be held to 10 points and commit 6 turnovers (especially against a team in the first year of a major rebuild). If we come out ready to play, take charge, and we don’t have to worry about crappy officiating.
 
Bradley8792 said:
I have a different look at this. The first 10 minutes of the game were terrible for Bradley. A tournament caliber team shouldn’t be held to 10 points and commit 6 turnovers (especially against a team in the first year of a major rebuild). If we come out ready to play, take charge, and we don’t have to worry about crappy officiating.
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Tournament caliber teams find ways to win games when they aren't playing their best and when the calls aren't going their way. The Braves have done that 2 games in a row now, so I think that says a lot about the character of this team.
 
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