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Final score: Evansville 73 Bradley 70

Disagree with this loss blowing our chances of an At Large. If we lose 1 more and reach the Arch Madness final game, we will have a shot still.
Our resume is strong and losing just 1 more puts us at 18 wins in last 21 (23-8 overall) and likely in a tie for 2nd at worst.

Let’s put that 1st half behind us and take some good things about the 2nd half. Evansville earned this one and played well.and are a very good home team. Not making excuses as we should have still beat them, but maybe a kick in the rear so this team doesn’t let up the rest of the way.
 
These Braves are still a very tough group and can beat nearly any team on any given night.

We came out very flat tonight - game after the huge high following the rivalry win and before our biggest home game.

Leons can’t play like this anymore, and I don’t think he will.

Deen, Hick (in 2nd half), and Hannah keep rollin along with their strong seasons.
 
Tough loss. Hopefully this motivates them to do work on Saturday and beat Drake. These games also deflate a team and could make Saturday a long night. Hopefully they take this on the chin, bounce back, and get back into a 2nd place tie. I can’t add much to the things that didn’t go our way. The horrible first half, or the bonehead plays have already been covered extensively.

However, why did we keep fouling and allowing their best FT shooter, Thomas, to get the ball? I couldn’t believe it. I’m not saying anyone else would have missed but AT shoots like 86% from the line and we just kept sending him there and he loved every minute of sticking it to us.
 
Bradley has now won 11 of their last 13 games, and the 2 losses were an overtime loss at Indiana State, and last night's game that was a millisecond away from going to overtime. That is about as close as a team can get to 13 straight wins.
The remaining 7 conference games include several tough ones-
Sat, Feb 10vsDrake - DrakeDrake
Wed, Feb 14vsUIC - UICUIC
Sun, Feb 18@Northern Iowa - Northern IowaNorthern Iowa
Wed, Feb 21@Missouri State - Missouri StateMissouri State
Sat, Feb 24vsIllinois State - Illinois StateIllinois State
Wed, Feb 28vsSouthern Illinois - Southern IllinoisSouthern Illinois
Sun, Mar 3@Drake - DrakeDrake

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Tough loss last night. Past three games Bradley has not played up to potential on the defensive end. Need that defensive intensity heading into Saturday's game and down the stretch and into St. Louis. All the reasons we lost can be discussed. But bottom line is by the way we played that first half cannot happen. Have to play a more complete game. That happens and we win last night.Let's play great basketball down the stretch.Discount all the possibilities of at large bids. Just play great and win the tournament. Leave no doubt and get the automatic bid. We have the talent to do it. On any given night we can win. Especially on a neutral site. "Go Braves":mad:
 
LittleBrave said:
Disagree with this loss blowing our chances of an At Large. If we lose 1 more and reach the Arch Madness final game, we will have a shot still.
Our resume is strong and losing just 1 more puts us at 18 wins in last 21 (23-8 overall) and likely in a tie for 2nd at worst.

Let’s put that 1st half behind us and take some good things about the 2nd half. Evansville earned this one and played well.and are a very good home team. Not making excuses as we should have still beat them, but maybe a kick in the rear so this team doesn’t let up the rest of the way.
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No chance. NET of 55 or whatever we were before this loss is nowhere near as good as it takes to get an at-large. In addition, BU has Q4 losses, and only 1 Q1 win. That is not an at-large resume to the committee. That at-large chance was lost when Hickman was injured and BU lost 5 straight.
 
This was a terribly bad loss. It negates the good wins. I think Bradley is very talented but inconsistent but I guess every team can say that. Otherwise why would Northwestern beat Purdue then lose to Chicago State. Bradley has a very tough schedule coming up. I think we will need to win the MVC tournament to go anywhere
 
I understand the thing about our defense was not good. Thing is all the turnovers on offense and missed layups were the main reason in losing.We have zero chance at getting an at large bid. We need to figure things out before Sat. night because Drake presents a lot bigger problem then Evansville. That loss last night will cost us a lot in ticket sales for the rest of our home schedule.
 
Da Coach said:
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.
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Agree in that our inside players seem to be fouled a lot at the rim while making baskets. The thing I hate about our defense is we do not double team the post and allow players to continue to back their way into the basket. The defender needs to take a charge or we need to have another defender come around and strip him or make him give up the ball.
 
I've given up hoping for good and fair foul calling but all in all, the officiating could have been MUCH worse than it was last night. Thought we got some fortunate calls as well as some bad ones and the foul count was fairly close until the end when we were fouling intentionally. And anyone who reads the forums regularly probably knows that I am one of the first ones to complain about the officials, even when we win!

If I had to blame our loss on one thing, it would be the poor passes that turned into turnovers and points. I honestly can't remember having ever seen so many egregiously poor passes from this group! Aside from that, the ball just wasn't bouncing our way in the 1st half when we couldn't get anything to go in while Evansville couldn't seem to miss. Kudos to Evansville for coming to play, though! They definitely played their hearts out and made their free throws.

All in all, with the abysmal showing we had yesterday and still to be within a fraction of a second of taking them to overtime, I'd say that is a testament to just how good this team and the coaching is. We had no business even being in that game if we're being honest!

On a side note, the Evansville announcers are probably the most fair-minded and complimentary announcers in the Valley. Most of the Valley announcers make me scream and pull out what little hair I have left, but those guys were glowingly discussing BU and on several occasions even called out bad calls that went Evansville's way. They even said it was a basketball play when Cuff went down bleeding from the elbow from Leons! Now when is the last time you heard another team's announcer not go ballistic over a no-call when blood is shed? Just thought they were really class acts and easy to listen to. Still would have preferred them to be douchebags and to come away with a win, but I wasn't given that choice, so I take the wins where I can get them.
 
bradleyfan124 said:
This was a terribly bad loss. It negates the good wins. I think Bradley is very talented but inconsistent but I guess every team can say that. Otherwise why would Northwestern beat Purdue then lose to Chicago State. Bradley has a very tough schedule coming up. I think we will need to win the MVC tournament to go anywhere
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The frustrating thing is we aren’t that far from an at large resume, and we have a signature win.

Basically it comes down to these four games that we had no business losing:

Murray State - healthy Hickman, poor effort

Duquesne - listening to that slip away with stupid turnovers was frustrating and this would have been another quality win. We had the lead late and threw it away. We weren’t beat, we lost.

Cleveland State - it’s baffling how bad we played against that level of competition, Hickman or not.

and now Evansville. Unacceptable starting effort in the game.

You win even three of those four, we’re probably top 50 with two games against Drake to get more chances at quad 1/quad 2 wins and to get in the upper 40s, then at large is at least in the discussion.

That’s why some of us are so frustrated after those loses, because every single loss matters for a mid-major to have a shot. This team was right there, and just couldn’t get over the hump, and it’s not all on the Hickman injury (see Evansville and Murray State).

This is still a good team and I hope they win arch madness, but just one year I want to be in the at large conversation again. If Drake, Indiana State, Loyola can do it, we should be able to as well. But for this year it’s time to focus on finishing third and winning Arch Madness.
 
BUfan14 said:
The frustrating thing is we aren’t that far from an at large resume, and we have a signature win.

Basically it comes down to these four games that we had no business losing:

Murray State - healthy Hickman, poor effort

Duquesne - listening to that slip away with stupid turnovers was frustrating and this would have been another quality win. We had the lead late and threw it away. We weren’t beat, we lost.

Cleveland State - it’s baffling how bad we played against that level of competition, Hickman or not.

and now Evansville. Unacceptable starting effort in the game.

You win even three of those four, we’re probably top 50 with two games against Drake to get more chances at quad 1/quad 2 wins and to get in the upper 40s, then at large is at least in the discussion.

That’s why some of us are so frustrated after those loses, because every single loss matters for a mid-major to have a shot. This team was right there, and just couldn’t get over the hump, and it’s not all on the Hickman injury (see Evansville and Murray State).

This is still a good team and I hope they win arch madness, but just one year I want to be in the at large conversation again. If Drake, Indiana State, Loyola can do it, we should be able to as well. But for this year it’s time to focus on finishing third and winning Arch Madness.
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Concur.

Actually I am thinking this team is not as good as we may have thought. We have scored a lot and done well winning against the below average teams in the MVC. Now, we have Drake twice and we already lost twice to the other top team, ISUb. Plus road gamesa at UNI and MoST as well as a game at home vs SIU coming up. I honestly would not be surprised if BU loses 3-4 more games before heading to St. Louis since the MoST and UNI games are both on the road. BU could do well though, you just never know.
 
BUfan14 said:
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This is still a good team and I hope they win arch madness, but just one year I want to be in the at large conversation again. If Drake, Indiana State, Loyola can do it, we should be able to as well. But for this year it’s time to focus on finishing third and winning Arch Madness.
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I know you aren't saying that those teams (Drake, Indiana State, Loyola) all have gotten at-large bids. In fact, the MVC has only gotten one at-large bid in the last 7 years (Drake in 2021).
Loyola got bids in 2017, 2021. and 2022, all three times were auto-bid because they won the tournament. They have never got an at-large bid in their program's history.
Indiana State got an auto-bid in 2011, but has never gotten any bids since then, and has never gotten an at-large bid in their history.
Drake got one at-large bid in 2021.

In the 2005-06 season, the MVC got 4 bids, and should have gotten 5 (Missouri State is still the highest RPI not to get an at-large bid), here are the number of bids each year-
2007- 2 bids - Creighton won the tournament and got an auto-bid, and a 10-seed; Runner-up SIU received an at-large bid and a 4-seed
2008 - 1 bid - Drake won the tournament and got the auto-bid, and a 5-seed
2009 - 1 bid - UNI won the tournament, and got an auto-bid, and a 12-seed
2010 - 1 bid - UNI won the tournament and the auto-bid, and a 9-seed
2011 - 1 bid - Indiana State won the tournament and the auto-bid, and a 14-seed
2012 - 2 bids - Creighton won the auto-bid, and an 8-seed, Wichita State got an at-large and a 5 seed
2013 - 2 bids - Creighton won the auto-bid, and a 7-seed, Wichita State got an at-large and a 9-seed
2014 - 1 bid - Wichita State won the auto bid and a 1-seed
2015 - 2 bids - UNI won the auto-bid and a 5-seed, Wichita State got an at-large and a 7-seed
2016 - 2 bids - UNI won the auto-bid and an 11-seed, Wichita State got an at-large and an 11-seed
2017 - 1 bid - Wichita State won the auto-bid and a 10-seed
2018 - 1 bid - Loyola won the auto-bid and an 11-seed
2019 - 1 bid - Bradley won the auto-bid and a 15-seed
2020 - 1 bid - Bradley won the auto-bid- the NCAA Tournament was cancelled due to the Covid pandemic
2021 - 2 bids - Loyola won the auto-bid and an 8-seed; Drake got an at-large and an 11-seed
2022 - 1 bid - Loyola won the auto-bid and a 10-seed
2023 - 1 bid - Drake won the auto-bid and a 12-seed
 
Our ball movement and offensive flow is excellent and generates great shots. Our defense is really good, sometimes great. Our rebounding is solid. Our free throws are much better. I look for us to put it all together down the stretch and crush it in STL where it matters.
 
Da Coach said:
I know you aren't saying that those teams (Drake, Indiana State, Loyola) all have gotten at-large bids. In fact, the MVC has only gotten one at-large bid in the last 7 years (Drake in 2021).
Loyola got bids in 2017, 2021. and 2022, all three times were auto-bid because they won the tournament. They have never got an at-large bid in their program's history.
Indiana State got an auto-bid in 2011, but has never gotten any bids since then, and has never gotten an at-large bid in their history.
Drake got one at-large bid in 2021.
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Right, I was referring to their being at large contenders or having an at large resume should they not have won Arch Madness in some of those cases. Indiana State is referring to this year's team of course. Drake and Loyola were in that conversation several times. At-large resume type season is what I want, but of course I will still take an Arch Madness win in any case!
 
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