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Final score: Evansville 73 Bradley 70

Hard seeing a loss on the road at Evansville after the drubbing we gave them in Peoria. This is hard. I figured we would one more loss that was not real explainable, but I wasn't expecting this one.
 
Wow...this is a bad loss....terrible 1st half just too much to overcome. Leons should have fouled hard enough to stop the basket.....:mad:
 
We deserved to lose, took them for granted and decided to play only 25 minutes of decent basketball. It also was not coaches best moments as far as subbing and not playing enough zone defense. The turnovers were really bad on are part. Time to regroup for Sat. night. Very disappointing loss to a very ave. team.
 
It’s just so disappointing that this high character team came out with that little effort and overlooked a team. The turnovers and box outs were just lazy. We just killed any small chance of an at large and winning the conference again.

And I love Leons, he’s a great player, but his effort out there was the worst I’ve ever seen from him. He looked like he didn’t care and liked he was spaced out most of the first half. Hannah had subpar rebounding effort tonight. Even Hick just made some poor decisions tonight.

On to Saturday I guess, but this one hurts.
 
After the game the last thing Brian said on the post game show was "It's going to be a long bus trip home". Nuff said.
 
Final score: Evansville 73 Bradley 70
Stats- https://stats.statbroadcast.com/broadcast/?id=484465

Yeah, a tough loss to take. Duke had the tying three at the final buzzer, but did not quite release it in time.
But give the Braves credit for coming back after trailing by 17 points in the first half, and taking the lead several times in the 2nd half. But when Evansville needed to score or make their free throws, they did.
Malevy had possibly his worst game this season, 9 points, 9 rebounds, 6 turnovers, and fouled out late. Hickman (14 pts) and Deen (15 pts) carried the Braves. Almar and Darius came up big many times, but Bradley did not get much from anyone other than those 5 starters.

Bradley drops to 17-7, and 9-4 in the MVC. They remain in 3rd place by themselves, now 3 games behind 1st place Indiana State and 1 game behind 2nd place Drake.
MVC Standings- https://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/standings/_/group/18
 
Bradley did not play well, had many chances to take over, but my gosh, is there any team that ends up on the wrong end of such free throw disparities as us??
only 2 foul shots the entire 2nd half is just silly, and they shoot 23 to our 10 for the game. Seems like this happens to us a lot.. do u guys think we foul at this high of a rate compared to our opponents?
 
Dubl R 1 said:
Bradley did not play well, had many chances to take over, but my gosh, is there any team that ends up on the wrong end of such free throw disparities as us??
only 2 foul shots the entire 2nd half is just silly, and they shoot 23 to our 10 for the game. Seems like this happens to us a lot.. do u guys think we foul at this high of a rate compared to our opponents?
Click to expand...

Teams see that officials constantly are calling defensive fouls against BU players whenever the opponent bangs their way into the lane or toward the basket. However, Bradley doesn't seem to get the same calls when they are on offense. Malevy appeared to get fouled a couple times with no call, and Hannah was clearly fouled by Humrichous on his last dunk late in the game, but no foul was called. Humrichous did a lot of banging on defense, but he got called for ZERO fouls in 28 minutes, while Leons, a great defender, fouls out with 5 fouls, and Hannah ends up with 4 fouls, many of them called when it was the Evansville player initiating the contact.
 
Dubl R 1 said:
Bradley did not play well, had many chances to take over, but my gosh, is there any team that ends up on the wrong end of such free throw disparities as us??
only 2 foul shots the entire 2nd half is just silly, and they shoot 23 to our 10 for the game. Seems like this happens to us a lot.. do u guys think we foul at this high of a rate compared to our opponents?
Click to expand...

No personally I am into conspiracy theories and this one is right up my alley. There were multiple fouls on Bradley tonight I thought should not have been called. Not sure what the refs were seeing but I wasn't seeing it on camera that's for sure. This disparity is unexplainable to me. But I've played, coached, or ref'd D1 basketball before so what do I know?
 
Stryker said:
No personally I am into conspiracy theories and this one is right up my alley. There were multiple fouls on Bradley tonight I thought should not have been called. Not sure what the refs were seeing but I wasn't seeing it on camera that's for sure. This disparity is unexplainable to me. But I've played, coached, or ref'd D1 basketball before so what do I know?
Click to expand...

I have played been around a lot of basketball myself Stryker, , and I’ve just never seen the weird calls consistently go against a team like they do Bradley. The only reason I ask is I’m such a Bradley fan that maybe I’m too biased. But like da coach said Leon’s got fouled twice on the same layup, no call, then somehow called the foul on him, Darius was surely fouled on the dunk, we get shooting fouls called on the floor a ton, one guy rolled his ankle and fell down, yet they called atlasson for the foul. It’s perplexing.
 
Dubl R 1 said:
I have played been around a lot of basketball myself Stryker, , and I’ve just never seen the weird calls consistently go against a team like they do Bradley. The only reason I ask is I’m such a Bradley fan that maybe I’m too biased. But like da coach said Leon’s got fouled twice on the same layup, no call, then somehow called the foul on him, Darius was surely fouled on the dunk, we get shooting fouls called on the floor a ton, one guy rolled his ankle and fell down, yet they called atlasson for the foul. It’s perplexing.
Click to expand...

I feel it too, but I think we all have our inherent biases, as much as we want to see it evenly. There was an over and back not called on us as well as one time Leons clearly hacked a guy in the back court. Do I feel like they got more of the breaks that we did, yes, but it probably wasn't as lopsided as it feels sometimes, in reality.

Two things have been crystal clear for me for a couple months now about this team and it is true almost every game:

- if a game is called loosely, hard defense is allowed and our big three are good (Mal, Hick, Deen), we are basically unstoppable.
- if a game is called really tight OR two of our three guys are off, we can beat many teams but leave ourselves open for an upset.
- if a game is called really tight AND two of our three guys are off, we could lose to anyone. luckily that almost never happens but it almost did tonight because Mal was awful and Hick had one good and one bad half.
 
I just knew that falling behind big in the first half was going to bite us in the butt at some point and tonight was the night. Now we really need a win on Saturday night
 
Disappointing performance against a team we should have beat by 10+, even on the road. They out toughed us for most of the game. Mal was really bad tonight. Duke only shows 2 turnovers on the box score but I counted 4 at least, and that's generous. They absolutely owned us in the paint for most of the game but the box score looks better due to an improvement in part of the second half. That coupled with points off turnovers did us in. Duke definitely has earned the greenlight to shoot when he pleases but that 2nd to last three he took I felt was a bad decision. That one stings.

Someone commented about this loss blowing any chance at an at large we may have had. Let's be realistic, we had zero chance at an at large. We could have won out and went to the championship game in STL and we weren't going to get a sniff of an at large. Let's take care of business, finish the season in 2nd or 3rd and peak at the Arch.

Onward and upward.
 
Agreed. Unless we wake up tomorrow and we're part of the Big 10, we were not going to get an at large bid. The only way to the dance is by winning the tournament, and to win we have to beat the best team(s) in the league. Doesn't matter whether we play them first or last, we have to win out in St. Louis. Getting to the title game and losing gets you a sad bus trip home, same as if you lose in the fist round. Let's learn from this game, play to finish in the top four so we don't have to win four in St. Louis.
 
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