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Final score: Nevada 91 Bradley 69

Da Coach

Da Coach

Moderator
Staff member
Bradley's next game is at home against University of Nevada Wolfpack, as part of the Mountain West/Missouri Valley Challenge.
Bradley is 4-3 coming off their 87-83 win at Eastern Illinois on Tuesday (11/29). Nevada is 6-2 coming off a 77-67 home win Tuesday night (11/29) against University of Pacific.

The game will be broadcast live by Comcast SportsNet Chicago.
It will also be available by video stream on ESPN3.com-
http://www.espn.com/watchespn/index/_/type/upcoming/search/bradley/

Live stats-
http://www.sidearmstats.com/bradley/mbball/

Nevada finished last season 19-13 and 10-8, and tied for 4th in the Mountain West.
They were picked 2nd in the MWC in the 2016-17 preseason poll-
http://www.themw.com/news/san-diego...6-17-mw-men-s-basketball-regular-season-title

Nevada is averaging 76.9 ppg and they are a good three point shooting team (36.5% from three). They are lead in scoring by 6'3" guard Marcus Marshall, who spent his first 2 years at Missouri State. He is averaging 20.0 ppg. They also have another starter who is a former MVC player, 6'7" sophomore forward Jordan Caroline, who was an All-Freshman Team player at SIU. He is the team's leading rebounder averaging 9.1 rpg, and he also is their 5th leading scorer at 9.9 ppg. They are not very deep, and only have 6 players who average more than 7.4 minutes per game. And their depth took a hit Monday when one of their starters, 6'8", 240 lb. junior forward Elijah Foster was arrested for domestic battery, and was suspended indefinitely from all team activities by their coach Eric Musselman. He did not play in Tuesday night's game, and it remains to be seen if the suspension will cause him to miss Saturday's game at Bradley.
http://www.rgj.com/story/sports/col...ds-some-light-elijah-fosters-arrest/94616768/

Nevada stats-
http://www.nevadawolfpack.com/sports/m-baskbl/stats/2016-2017/teamcume.html

Nevada schedule & results-
http://www.nevadawolfpack.com/sports/m-baskbl/sched/unv-m-baskbl-sched.html

Roster-
http://www.nevadawolfpack.com/sports/m-baskbl/mtt/unv-m-baskbl-mtt.html

Coaches-
http://www.nevadawolfpack.com/sports/m-baskbl/spec-rel/coaching-staff.html


Bradley stats-
http://www.mvc.org/mbb/stats/BRAD.HTM


MWC/MVC Challenge games-
Sat. Dec. 3-
Boise State at Evansville 1 PM
UNI at Wyoming 2 PM
Fresno State at Drake 2 PM
San Diego State at Loyola 3 PM
Wichita State at Colorado State 4 PM
Nevada at Bradley 7 PM
New Mexico at Illinois State 7 PM
Indiana State at Utah State 8 PM
Missouri State at Air Force 8 PM

Mon. Dec. 19
Southern illinois at UNLV 8 PM
 
Bradley vs Nevada

Bradley vs Nevada

As the Nevada game approaches, what are your thoughts out there about our chances against Nevada? Where would they finish if in the MVC? Are they a pretty good team?

I am praying for only 12 turn overs :)

Thank you in advance
 
pfcmsh said:
As the Nevada game approaches, what are your thoughts out there about our chances against Nevada? Where would they finish if in the MVC? Are they a pretty good team?

I am praying for only 12 turn overs :)

Thank you in advance
Click to expand...



I like our chances. Marshall can really score if he shoots a high % we are in big trouble.. Oliver is a horse down low, but he has 9 fouls in his last 2 games go right at him with Koch and maybe he doesn't play much.

They arnt super deep so we have them in that department.

Win the free throw line and rebounding battle. Less that 12 tos would be great.
Give up less easy buckets.

I'm praying for a sat night crowd of 8000 to 9000 .
 
Bradleyfan1 said:
I like our chances. Marshall can really score if he shoots a high % we are in big trouble.. Oliver is a horse down low, but he has 9 fouls in his last 2 games go right at him with Koch and maybe he doesn't play much.

They arnt super deep so we have them in that department.

Win the free throw line and rebounding battle. Less that 12 tos would be great.
Give up less easy buckets.

I'm praying for a sat night crowd of 8000 to 9000 .
Click to expand...



Agreed!!!! We need a HUGE, LOUD, CROWD!!! We could steal one from a potential Top 25 opponent!
 
patrick_o'brian said:
Agreed!!!! We need a HUGE, LOUD, CROWD!!! We could steal one from a potential Top 25 opponent!
Click to expand...

It would be great, but we haven't had a crowd over 5,176 this year, and the biggest non-conference crowd last year was about 6,500, and the biggest MVC crowd was the ISU game at 7,300.
So I am afraid I don't see any way we draw more than about 6,500-7,000 max for the game Saturday. But if the usual no-show season ticket holders in the lower bowl all show up, it could still get real loud and create a more favorable home court advantage for Bradley.
 
Good Thoughts About Nevada vs Bradley

Good Thoughts About Nevada vs Bradley

Those are great thoughts about Nevada. It seems to me then that they are not very deep. If we can stay close we might have their fatique on our side. They are a very good team being in the top 50 or so in the country. So we are playing a Wichita State, Creighton level team. If Koch is as good as he was against EIU, we will get our share of rebounds. I hope we shut off the lane. Luuk is warming up finally. D Brown could get red hot again. Heck we might have a real chance at winning if it all goes our way. I'd put Pittman all over their top scorer.
 
Nevada is currently #22 in RPI-
http://warrennolan.com/basketball/2017/rpi

That #22 RPI is by far the best among Mountain West teams.-
http://warrennolan.com/basketball/2017/conference/Mountain-West

The Mountain West is currently the #8 ranked conference in RPI-
http://warrennolan.com/basketball/2017/conferencerpi

The MVC is currently the #14 ranked conference.
Here are the MVC team's RPI's- Only 1 team in the top 85 (UNI at #26), and they have lost 3 in a row-
http://warrennolan.com/basketball/2017/conference/Missouri-Valley

There are no MVC games tonight (Friday, 12/2), but all 10 teams are playing on Saturday (12/3). 9 of the games Saturday are part of the MWC-MVC Challenge (only the SIU game is not)-
http://sports.yahoo.com/college-basketball/scoreboard/?dateRange=2016-12-03
 
Ronnie Suggs, who missed the last game with a flu-like illness, will dress and be available to play tonight.


Here are the Las Vegas odds for today's games-

MWC/MVC Challenge games-
Sat. Dec. 3-
Boise State at Evansville 1 PM- Evansville is a 1 point favorite
UNI at Wyoming 2 PM- UNI is a 3.5 point favorite
Fresno State at Drake 2 PM- Fresno State is a 4 point favorite
San Diego State at Loyola 3 PM- SD State is a 6 point favorite
Wichita State at Colorado State 4 PM- Wichita State opened as an 8.5 point favorite, and is now an 11 point favorite
Nevada at Bradley 7 PM- Nevada stareted as an 8.5 point favorite, but they are now down to a 6 point favorite
New Mexico at Illinois State 7 PM- ISU is an 8 point favorite
Indiana State at Utah State 8 PM- Utah State is a 5.5 point favorite
Missouri State at Air Force 8 PM- MSU is a 3.5 point favorite


Texas Southern at SIU- there is no Vegas line
 
Da Coach said:
It would be great, but we haven't had a crowd over 5,176 this year, and the biggest non-conference crowd last year was about 6,500, and the biggest MVC crowd was the ISU game at 7,300.
So I am afraid I don't see any way we draw more than about 6,500-7,000 max for the game Saturday. But if the usual no-show season ticket holders in the lower bowl all show up, it could still get real loud and create a more favorable home court advantage for Bradley.
Click to expand...

We're at Steak & Shake now in EP. If attendance here correlates to game attendance, we should have a good crowd tonight. 😜 Compared to Delaware game, this place is rocking!
 
Still Suspended

Still Suspended

Bradleyfan1 said:
If he doesn't play, that would be big.

Anyone know how many tickets have sold ?
Click to expand...

Yes it would be big and I think it is going to be big! I'm listening to pre game on WMBD (internet) and when they were talking Nevada line up, the talk was that their center still suspended.
 
We are bad defensively. It's not a scheme thing, our players are bad individual defenders, bad at helping to penetration, just bad. Losing track of their guy after penetration/playing with their hands at their sides so they can't get deflections has led to so many easy layups. Just bad on that side.

Offensively we are working for good looks, many open looks that aren't falling. I could see this being a 46-35 game right now if we shot how I expect us to shoot.
 
On his post-game show with Dave Snell, Coach Wardle laid the entire blame for this loss on the players not giving effort, and not executing.
I don't agree. Is anyone else tired of hearing the players always get blamed for losing?
I am not a coach (despite my screen name :)) but it could not have been more obvious that Nevada had far superior size, strength, athleticism, and rebounding and shooting abilities.
If we are going to try to compete with a team with such extreme advantages in all those areas, we can't simply go into the game with our same old game plan of trying to dribble-drive and work the ball inside. Nevada was dropping everyone back into the paint, and with their size, length, quickness, and leaping ability, it was simply no contest. Many times when we tried to get the ball inside in the first half, it was stolen, blocked, or turned over. They were giving Bradley the outside shot, but we did not do a very good job of setting up our perimeter shooters, other than bail-out shots. Bradley had only 3 assists in the first half (too much dribbling, and not enough passing), shot only 37%, and Nevada was able to build a 20 point lead at halftime that they stretched to 30 early in the 2nd half, then coasted.

Clearly we need to improve in many areas- shooting, rebounding, ballhandling/turnovers/assists, defending, decision-making, and more creative game planning if we ever plan to compete at the level of a Nevada, Wichita State, or other top level MVC teams.

One other thought- Nevada's webpage shows 17 players on their roster. I don't know how many of them are active players, but they show 12 on their stats page who have played in games and they had a bunch of kids sitting on their bench at tonight's game who never got in the game despite the blowout. They played essentially just 7 players (an 8th player got 4 minutes of playing time). I am not sure what Eric Musselman's logic is, but even with his team leading by 25-30 points most of the 2nd half, he had players who played 36-39 minutes, and still was playing mostly starters until the buzzer while Bradley had a walkon and subs in. Does he get extra credit for a 20+ point win?
 
Recap-
http://www.bradleybraves.com/news/2016/12/3/nevada-defeats-bradley-mens-basketball.aspx

Box score-
http://www.bradleybraves.com/boxscore.aspx?id=13460&path=mbball

Clearly, I am not the only fan that is getting tired of the poor play and the losing. The attendance tonight was a pathetic 5,384 for a quality opponent, maybe the best non-conference opponent we've played at home in several years. Surely, Bradley cannot be happy with that. Plus, there were a ton of no-shows among the season ticket holders, despite the optimal 7 PM Saturday night start-time, and nice weather.
I know the Coach asks fans to be patient, and he did inherit a disaster from the previous coach and the disastrous policies of the previous AD and President, but fans have put up with dismal results for 6 years now. It did not have to happen, and was predicted accurately by many of us here. The long, proud tradition of Bradley basketball has essentially been replaced with a team that has become the laughingstock of the MVC. And things aren't looking like they are going to get a lot better real soon, so many of the fans may never be coming back. And I expect we could lose a lot more if we don't start seeing better signs of improvement than we have seen so far.
I have been a season ticket holder for 40 years and I have attended almost every home games for the last 50 years, and I'll hang on a little longer. But like every fan, there is a limit to how much suffering we can take.
 
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