• Welcome to BradleyFans.com! Visitors are welcome, but we encourage you to sign up and register as a member. It's free and takes only a few seconds. Just click on the link to Register at the top right of the page, and follow instructions. If you have any problems or questions, click on the link at the bottom right of the page to Contact Us.

Final score: Valparaiso 79 Bradley 72

Well a very poor performance most of the game followed up by an extremely frustrating end. All of the momentum down 72-70, and one poor decision after another. Can't play hoping for fouls, especially on the road.
 
Very disappointed. ..Meta a no-show tonight....Smith spends all that time in the weight room and still cannot get a lay up shot off?😵‍💫 Cannot remember anything good from Timothy either...Burch had to many minutes for my liking when he is playing too soft trying not get benched!🎯Missing FTs in a tight game will usually get you a loss! They mauled Alex all night and only called 1 foul?🤬🤬🤬
Last point...scratch the 1-3-1 zone....90% of the time it leads to an open lay up game after game!👎👎👎
 
Last edited:
That was an aggravating game. Bradley played well below what they are capable of, and lead for only 42 seconds of the game. I do not recall seeing a team defend opposing team's layups as poorly as Bradley, yet shoot such a horrendous percentage on their own layups game after game.

Final: Valparaiso 79 Bradley 72- https://stats.statbroadcast.com/broadcast/?id=615795

Valpo played well, especially freshman JT Pettigrew. Pettigrew had 22 points, one shy of his career high.
Bradley's starting 7'1" center, who is at least 5 inches taller than Valpo's center, played 25 minutes and had 1 basket and 2 rebounds.
Corey Thomas played 23 minutes and had 5 points and 1 rebound.
Kai Yu had 6 points and 4 rebounds in just 14 minutes.
Van der Knaap had 1 point and 2 rebounds.
Just an awful performance by Bradley's big men, who by all logic, should have been able to dominate the smaller Valparaiso front line.
Valparaiso outscored Bradley in the paint 28-20.
The officiating didn't help. Bradley was whistled for 27 fouls to just 16 for Valparaiso. Valpo outscored Bradley at the free throw line 20-12.

One other thing... Alex was Bradley's best shooter all game, but down the stretch, when Bradley was trying to come back from the 13 point deficit with 4 minutes left, I recall Alex only touching the ball once. On that occasion, he was fouled and made 2 free throws. He did not get a shot or even an opportunity in those final several minutes of the game. Maybe I'm wrong, but when you need points, shouldn't a team try to get the ball to the best scorer at least a time or two?

Bradley drops to 18-10, and 11-6 in the MVC.
Official box score- https://valpoathletics.com/sports/mens-basketball/stats/2025-26/bradley/boxscore/10743
Attendance- 1,636 and it seems like a big portion of them were students.
Where are all the other Valpo fans? Troubling to see them draw so few fans with a good team.
 
Da Coach said:
That was an aggravating game. Bradley played well below what they are capable of, and lead for only 42 seconds of the game. I do not recall seeing a team defend opposing team's layups as poorly as Bradley, yet shoot such a horrendous percentage on their own layups game after game.

Final: Valparaiso 79 Bradley 72- https://stats.statbroadcast.com/broadcast/?id=615795

Valpo played well, especially freshman JT Pettigrew. Pettigrew had 22 points, one shy of his career high.
Bradley's starting 7'1" center, who is at least 5 inches taller than Valpo's center, played 25 minutes and had 1 basket and 2 rebounds.
Corey Thomas played 23 minutes and had 5 points and 1 rebound.
Kai Yu had 6 points and 4 rebounds in just 14 minutes.
Van der Knaap had 1 point and 2 rebounds.
Just an awful performance by Bradley's big men, who by all logic, should have been able to dominate the smaller Valparaiso front line.
Valparaiso outscored Bradley in the paint 28-20.
The officiating didn't help. Bradley was whistled for 27 fouls to just 16 for Valparaiso. Valpo outscored Bradley at the free throw line 20-12.

One other thing... Alex was Bradley's best shooter all game, but down the stretch, when Bradley was trying to come back from the 13 point deficit with 4 minutes left, I recall Alex only touching the ball once. On that occasion, he was fouled and made 2 free throws. He did not get a shot or even an opportunity in those final several minutes of the game. Maybe I'm wrong, but when you need points, shouldn't a team try to get the ball to the best scorer at least a time or two?

Bradley drops to 18-10, and 11-6 in the MVC.
Official box score- https://valpoathletics.com/sports/mens-basketball/stats/2025-26/bradley/boxscore/10743
Attendance- 1,636 and it seems like a big portion of them were students.
Where are all the other Valpo fans? Troubling to see them draw so few fans with a good team.
Click to expand...
Meta is not a starting caliber D1 center. He regularly gets bested by smaller guys.

As for Al3x, I totally agree. I understood the scramble points, get the first best shot. However, they should of played through him, especially at the end.
 
As bad as they played in this game they at least showed their normal fight in the last few minutes but too many poor player and coaching decisions cost us with the biggest one not taking JJ out for defense when he picked up, which was surprisingly the right call, his 4th foul. A couplle of bad shot choices didn't help either. 15 turnovers are inexcusable. After going 6-7, 5-6 from 3, in the first half Alex was just 1-4 overall in the 2nd half. We just didn't do very much to get him open. Have to get more than 2 steals and have to cause more than just 8 turnovers. You just cannot get in a combined 48 minutes 8 points and 3 freekin rebounds from 2 of your starters. Unfortunately this loss brings Thursday back into play. This team just doesn't make it easy on themselves. Or us/
 
Disappointing loss. Not our best performance and officiating wasn’t in our favor either.

I wasn’t sure if they just won a regular season game or the conference championship seeing Powell and the student section. But I guess beating is for the first time in 10 games deserves a celebration.
 
I think this is going to be a tough year for us at AM. With our remaining schedule, we probably finish 3rd place at best and 4th or 5th more likely (6th a worse case scenario). I don't think we match up well with UIC, UNI, or ISU...and one of those is our most likely opponent. Unless Smith and Meta start showing more leadership (feel like Alex is on an island from a senior standpoint), I think it's going to be an early exit. I'm very interested to see how we do Saturday, next week at UIC, and at home against MSU (all teams who smoked us previously).
 
I do not think Meta should start and only play a few minutes. I do not know the plus vs minus points when he is on the floor, but it can't be positive. Play Kai Yu more. Only 3 games left, but two are at home. I do not predict more than one win, but I hope for two.
 
Coach stated after the game he was not happy with his players performance. about the start of the game and the start of the second half. He is the one that made that lineup out and if the starting 5 played poorly why start the same ones in the second half? Last but not least these are his recruits and we have without a doubt the worst front line in the Valley. Our front line players struggle to make layups and 3 ft. shots.
 
molar50 said:
I do not think Meta should start and only play a few minutes. I do not know the plus vs minus points when he is on the floor, but it can't be positive. Play Kai Yu more. Only 3 games left, but two are at home. I do not predict more than one win, but I hope for two.
Click to expand...
This page has the +/- stats for tonight's games in the far right column-

Burch is one of 2 players with a positive +/-, at +10. Kai Yu was +4. Everyone else was negative. Meta's number is not pretty.
 
I was at the game and maybe it was me, but the refs were complete Homers!
Alex got hammered a couple times and no call...2 of Bully's fouls should have gone the other way.

Coach was not happy as my son and I gave high fives to players after the game...he will have them ready on Sat.

Let's face it. This is how the season has gone so we shouldn't be surprised. We look great one game, good enough the next, and not good the next. We win 2 of 3 so I'll take that to close out the season and get the 3 seed at least.

We played hard but not smart at times.
Get over it and lace em up Sat and get a W.
 
With Murray's loss, unbelievably BU is still 2nd in the Valley! But since UIC won we'll have to win the next 3 likely to get the 2 seed unless something strange happens.
I still think the 4 seed is better than the 3 based on recent history at St Lou.
 
Meta and Timo played poorly. AJ played ok but made a few costly mistakes.
Everyone else played decent I thought. Kai Yu is definitely our best big.

I was surprised at how physical Valpo was - they took it to us down low. Reminded me of Loyola 5-10 years ago how they out-toughed us most games.

Credit to Valpo for playing well most of the night...and to the refs for making it easier for them to come away with the W.

I just praised this BU team for being great at not committing turnovers and forcing them, but the tables were turned tonight...maybe the difference in who came out victorious.
 
carter said:
SSDD with Meta
Click to expand...

LittleBrave said:
I was at the game and maybe it was me, but the refs were complete Homers!
Alex got hammered a couple times and no call...2 of Bully's fouls should have gone the other way.

Coach was not happy as my son and I gave high fives to players after the game...he will have them ready on Sat.

Let's face it. This is how the season has gone so we shouldn't be surprised. We look great one game, good enough the next, and not good the next. We win 2 of 3 so I'll take that to close out the season and get the 3 seed at least.

We played hard but not smart at times.
Get over it and lace em up Sat and get a W.
Click to expand...
They did not play hard!Valpo wanted the game more period.
 
Agree with previous post that Meta is not a Div. 1 center. All year it has been inconsistent play from our front court players. Nothing you can do about it. You play who you have at this point. Have stated in previous posts and bears repeating that this off season Wardle and staff "Must" bring in impactful players that can score at the rim, defend, and rebound. No doubt am sure Wardle and staff are aware of this. Hope they can accomplish this during this critical off season recruiting period.
 
Bradley8792 said:
Disappointing loss. Not our best performance and officiating wasn’t in our favor either.

I wasn’t sure if they just won a regular season game or the conference championship seeing Powell and the student section. But I guess beating is for the first time in 10 games deserves a celebration.
Click to expand...

This is just sour grapes. Sorry, but every single one of you would love it if we A. actually had a student section and B. Wardle got so excited that he was jumping around with the students.

This is not the first time Powell has done it and he's got a great rapport with the students. Sorry, but not burying him for being happy - Valpo played really well last night and we still could have won if we finished the game well. On to the next - this really didn't hurt us other than making it more important to win the remaining games.

We still control our own destiny to the two seed with three games left. Anyone who would have known that before the season (when most thought we'd be 3rd-5th) would have been ecstatic.

----

My recap, https://bubraves2006.substack.com/p/braves-late-rally-falls-short-at
-> Discussed a bunch around our big men's failures
-> Why Bradley struggles in tightly officiated games - it really hurt Jaquan especially.
 
Suddenly, Bradley's outlook might not seem so bright. Looking at the final 3 games, a pessimist might say Bradley could easily go 0-3 and end up 11-9 in the final MVC standings. Or might Bradley play better at home, and beat ISU and Murray State, and pull out a win at UIC, where they have had good success?
1771511535652.png
 
BUBraves2006 said:
This is just sour grapes. Sorry, but every single one of you would love it if we A. actually had a student section and B. Wardle got so excited that he was jumping around with the students.

This is not the first time Powell has done it and he's got a great rapport with the students. Sorry, but not burying him for being happy - Valpo played really well last night and we still could have won if we finished the game well. On to the next - this really didn't hurt us other than making it more important to win the remaining games.

We still control our own destiny to the two seed with three games left. Anyone who would have known that before the season (when most thought we'd be 3rd-5th) would have been ecstatic.

----

My recap, https://bubraves2006.substack.com/p/braves-late-rally-falls-short-at
-> Discussed a bunch around our big men's failures
-> Why Bradley struggles in tightly officiated games - it really hurt Jaquan especially.
Click to expand...

I'll have to disagree with you on this.

1) I couldn't care less if Wardle was jumping around in the student section and with the way their fans were being absurdly immature last night, I would be embarrassed if I were Powell. I love the enthusiasm of the fans but they were a poor representation last night - maybe every home game?
Would I rather have 50-60 students who were loud and proud? Of course, and even a few raucous fans in the midst, but it was like the whole section dishing profantities all night to the BU players and being hard on CT after the Valpo player got injured, when Corey didn't even touch the guy. They were even barking at Gustavo, who is red-shirting.
The other Valpo fans in the arena were fine fwiw.

2) This loss did hurt b/c now it mean we likely need to win out to get the 2 seed as opposed to winning 2 of our last 3.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top