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Final score: Bradley 93 Drake 66

Very nice to see that when BU plays well, they have the talent to make any game in St.louis a tough challenge for a better seed! They have a shot at surprising in St.louis as long as they are a 5th seed or higher! Dominating Drake tonight sure makes me feel Great!
 
Nice to kick Drake's Heineken!!! Love it!
This is what we need from AJ Smith, Meta, and CT nearly every game. When they are on, our team is SO much better!!!
 
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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I didn't mention anything about expecting the coaching staff to bring in "high quality big men." I don't expect that. However, I do expect that they should find 1 big guy who can be counted on to rebound consistently, every single night. If nothing else, find 1 big who can do this every year. In my opinion, that is not that hard to find. Doesn't matter if through the portal, high school, juco, or over seas. BU can obviously use a great shooter (will it be Zobrist? Who knows, I can't tell from him in a seated position with a warm-up top on for 40 minutes a night) Regarding shooters, hoping that this coaching staff is all over the Knueppel family. With the Milwaukee connection for BU recruiting and Kon's 4 younger brothers all big (and getting bigger) and able to shoot, I would hope that BU is attempting to build a relationship with that family.
 
We do have a very good outside shooter and that was on display last night! I think he's finding his stroke again. He is a high volume shooter, making exactly 3 threes a game, which is solid, but on other nights, he can heat up the nets ALA Duke Deen. No - we don't have a guy who is going to end up shooting 45% or better, which all successful mid-major programs should have in this modern era.

I thought we'd have more reliable 3-point shooters, including Corey T, but 35.5% as a team is not terrible.
Ja'Quan has worked on his shot and is near 40% on the season. I don't think this part of the game has cost the Braves any games - it's more rebounding, defense, and lack of interior scoring.

Last night was the most complete game we've had from start to finish (though the last 5-7 was insignificant garbage time).
Very unselfish play and tough D in the 1st half especially and we got the bigs involved. Need to replicate that on Sat and for the rest of the season as a blueprint for success!
 
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molar50 said:
This explains a lot of his inconsistency in his performance in games this year. I always thought he had a lot of potential
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During the summer camp in mid June, Corey told me his knees were sore...not sure if it was just getting back into things, or a lingering pain he'd been dealing with. He did face off vs. O-Show in the Dunk contest later that day.

On a side note, he has seemed kind of quiet on the court this season for how vocal he was at the camp and the Spaghetti dinner. Very very considerate and likeable young man fwiw.
 
ollienanyes said:
I am trying to figure out what group of imposters were wearing Drake uniforms.
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hey- one of the MVC media guys gave a FIRST PLACE VOTE to Drake back in the preseason
Da Coach

Thread 'Unofficial Preseason Missouri Valley Conference Media Poll and All-Conference teams'

The Missouri Valley Conference chose to only release a Top 5 instead of a full MVC Preseason Poll this season.
https://bradleyfans.com/threads/the-mvc-preseason-poll.529191/
And there were also no Preseason All-Conference teams named by the MVC- only a 39-player “Watch List”-
https://mvc-sports.com/news/2025/10/14/2025-26-mvc-mens-basketball-players-to-watch.aspx

But, Paul Oren, the very good beat writer for Valparaiso, contacted all the beat writers and student sports reporters he could reach for each MVC school and did a poll- 20 people voted. Here is how the 11 MVC...
 
Stockton said:
I didn't mention anything about expecting the coaching staff to bring in "high quality big men." I don't expect that. However, I do expect that they should find 1 big guy who can be counted on to rebound consistently, every single night. If nothing else, find 1 big who can do this every year. In my opinion, that is not that hard to find. Doesn't matter if through the portal, high school, juco, or over seas. BU can obviously use a great shooter (will it be Zobrist? Who knows, I can't tell from him in a seated position with a warm-up top on for 40 minutes a night) Regarding shooters, hoping that this coaching staff is all over the Knueppel family. With the Milwaukee connection for BU recruiting and Kon's 4 younger brothers all big (and getting bigger) and able to shoot, I would hope that BU is attempting to build a relationship with that family.
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I agree with this thought. If I were recruiting for Bradley, I would focus on big men who just rebound well and are active for rebounds and clog up the paint. Obviously, we would all love that top of the Valley first team kind of guy, but it just seems those guys are tough to find. So get guys that do one or two things well.
 
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