Bradley Men's Basketball 2020-2021 Season

This 2020-2021 season continued to slip away from the Bradley Braves after they suffered another Missouri Valley Conference loss last Thursday to I-74 Rival the Illinois State Redbirds. The Braves started out the game very sluggish and allowed Illinois State to jump out to a quick 8-0 lead. Ja'Shon Henry, who was cleared from investigation and was allowed to play, scored Bradley's only basket until a Sean East II 3-pointer with 15:04 left to play made it 13-5. Bradley stretch that run to 8-0 and cut the Redbird lead to 13-10. After ISU's Howard Fleming Jr. and Ja'Shon Henry traded jump shots Bradley found themselves down only 3 with 11:41 left in the first half. This was a game full of mini-runs and Illinois State would go on another one over the next 3 minutes that was capped off with a thunderous dunk Josiah Strong that would put the Redbirds up 21-12. Freshman Forward Connor Linke gave the Braves a surge off the bench and scored 5 straight points to end the ISU run. ...

 Momentum going into this weekends series on the road against Missouri State was very high, the Braves were coming off their first win in almost a month and it came it blowout fashion. But that momentum was gone before the game even started when it was announced via Twitter that 4 Bradley men's basketball players would be suspended for the weekend series due to violations of program standards. That forced Head Coach Brian Wardle to insert Freshman Darrius Hannah and Jayson Kent into the starting lineup for the first time in their collegiate careers. Down their best 3 scorers and their best on-ball defender Bradley did everything they could to make this a competitive game, including starting the game on a 7-0 thanks to a pair of baskets from Rienk Mast and a layup from Kevin McAdoo. Missouri State followed a very slow first 6 minutes, in which the game was tied 9-9, with a 10-0 run that really got them in a nice flow offensively. Once the Bears got going on offense there was very li...

After a losing streak that spanned 6 games and lasted a little under a month, the Bradley Braves finally got back into the win column Saturday at Carver Arena. It looked like the Braves were going to pull away from the Salukis early in this one, building leads of 7, 8, and 9 in the first half before SIU battled back to tie the game at 20 all with just under 7 minutes left to play. The Braves ended up taking a narrow 32-31 lead into halftime due in large part to 6 points each from Forwards Elijah Childs and Rienk Mast. Southern Illinois was carried by a big first half for Lance Jones who scored 12 points and was 4-5 from the 3pt line. Bradley's biggest issues over the course of this losing streak has been very inconsistent play, especially from the Guard position, and getting into foul trouble and sending other teams to the line for easy points at the free throw line. Bradley however was the aggressor early drawing 8 fouls and shooting 11-11 at the free throw line. Their guards comb...

   The Bradley Braves went on the road to Terre Haute, Indiana to take on the Indiana State Sycamores this past Sunday and Monday. The Braves returned to Peoria 0-2 after a very frustrating 0-6 skid that includes and 0-4 record in road games. The first game Sunday was a back and forth for most of the first half until the 6 minute mark when Indiana State pushed their 21-20 lead to 27-20. Each teams traded baskets before the end of the half and the Sycamores went into halftime with a 34-29 lead. Ville Tahvanainen lead the way offensively for Bradley scoring 13 first half points and Cobi Barnes lead the way for Indiana State chipping in 8 points. The second half saw Indiana State jump out early and build leads of 8 and 10 before Bradley began chipping away at their lead. After going up 45-35 with 13:54 left in the second half Bradley went on a 6-0 run to cut the deficit to 45-41 with still over 11 minutes left in the game. A Jacob Laravia 3...