Women's basketball season opener Tuesday, Nov. 4 vs. Judson University

[Da Coach]

The BU women are playing their first game of the 2025-26 season tonight at home against the Judson University Eagles, an NAIA school from Elgin, Illinois.
The Braves are off to a really good start- Halftime score- Bradley 55 Judson 14-
Stats- https://bradleybraves.com/sidearmstats/wbball/media
13 Bradley players have played, and 11 have scored. They are shooting 62.5% overall (20-32), and 53.8% from three (7-13).
Judson shot just 23.8% (5-21), and 1-7 from three (14.3%).
BU has 5 turnovers to Judson's 16 turnovers in the first half.
The game is on ESPN+ - https://www.espn.com/watch/player/_/id/0a5a6735-8910-4c73-98fa-1b116812fce2

 

[Da Coach]

Final score- Bradley 94 Judson 33 -
Final stats- https://bradleybraves.com/sidearmstats/wbball/media

No starter played more than 18 minutes, and the bench players all got a good amount of playing time.

 

[Da Coach]

Every year we see some lopsided scores in the early non-conference season. But this one is really sad. The CSUN (Cal State University-Northridge) women's team played Bethesda University, a small (less than 400 students), private, Christian University in Anaheim, California. They are not NCAA or NAIA, but an lower level of athletic associations, the NCCAA (National Christian College Athletic Association).
CSUN won the game 103-13. The score was 52-0 at halftime, and 72-0 late in the 3rd quarter before Bethesda scored their first points.
Box score- https://gomatadors.com/news/2025/11/4/womens-basketball-csun-defeats-bethesda-in-season-opener

Some crazy stats- Bethesda only dressed 5 players, and all 5 played 40 minutes (they have 9 on their roster, but 4 were out and did not travel to the game).
None of the CSUN starters played more than 15 minutes, and a couple of them played only 10 minutes.
CSUN outrebounded Bethesda 79-17. Bethesda was 4-44 shooting, and 3-22 from three.
CSUN had 52 points in the paint, 31 points off turnovers, 36 second chance points, 38 fast break points, and 67 bench points.
And, CSUN is not exactly a women's basketball powerhouse. Last year, they were 4-25 with a NET of 350 out of 362 teams. This season, they were picked 9th of 11 teams in the extremely weak Big West Conference preseason poll.

Ironically, the Bethesda University men have beaten the CSUN men's team twice in recent years-
100-95 in 2016- https://bethesdaathletics.com/sports/mbkb/2016-17/boxscores/20161216_2z84.xml?view=boxscore
82-80 in 2021- https://bethesdaathletics.com/sports/mbkb/2021-22/boxscores/20211222_48zr.xml?view=boxscore

 

[ollienanyes]

Judson was so badly overmatched that I doubt that BU got much out of it.

 

[Da Coach]

Judson was so badly overmatched that I doubt that BU got much out of it.

Yes, I agree. If there is anything gained, it was that a game like this gives the starters some rest and the reserves get some real-game playing time, which might benefit them at some point. But I think at this early point in the season, coaches would much rather have the starters play more minutes against solid competition to get them ready for the conference games.
The women's next game against DePaul (Wed., Nov. 12) at Carver Arena will be the kind of test they will get a lot more benefit from.