Rienk Mast looked composed and calm to start Bradley’s quarterfinal game of the MVC Tournament in St. Louis on Friday afternoon by dropping in a trio of first half 3-pointers and scoring at will in the paint.
With 30 ticks left in the game and Bradley leading 67-64, the Dutch junior forward was calm again, this time at the free throw line by making a pair that sealed a Bradley victory.
Everything that happened in between though was chaos and war.
The Braves handled the Northern Iowa Panthers in the first half and survived a second-half scare, downing UNI 72-66 in a game that saw Mast score a career-high 30-points and Bowen Born singlehandedly carrying the Panthers with 34.
“Our league’s really good this year,” Bradley head coach Brian Wardle said. “Northern Iowa was in first place four or five weeks ago and drew the eight seed and I knew going in this game. This is the best eight seed I’ve ever played as a head coach… it’s a scary game.”
The lead changed hands on what seemed like every possession coming down the stretch in the second half. After Bradley took a 34-28 lead into the locker room, Born erupted for three 3-pointers early in the span of just under two minutes in the second half that brought UNI to just a 42-41 deficit with 15:53 left in the second half.
Northern Iowa took a 56-54 lead with 6:57 left in the game by a layup from Panthers guard Tytan Anderson, but Mast dropped in a layup for his 25th and 26th points of the game to prevent UNI from extending its largest lead.
Then, after struggling mightily from the free throw line all game, the Braves, namely senior forward Ja’Shon Henry, went 2-for-2 at the stripe to give the Braves a lead they would come close to relinquishing, but never would.
“You know, it ended up being a heck of a game,” Northern Iowa head coach Ben Jacobson said.
Teetering on the edge
Playing with four fouls for the final 12:14 of the game, Henry made eight of his final 10 free throws – all coming late in the second half – to help ice the game for the Braves and totaled 12 points and eight rebounds in the process. Senior forward Malevy Leons was also in high risk of fouling out, getting his fourth foul with over nine minutes to play, yet played the defense that the MVC Defensive Player of the Year should do, while not fouling out and chipping in 10 points.
“We were battling foul trouble the whole game,” Wardle said. “So guys had to step up and we definitely did that for us.”
With all the foul trouble, the Braves tried to cobble together a defensive gameplan for Born after he sliced through, sped past and stepped back on the Braves every which way. In the last few minutes though, Leons joined sophomore guard Connor Hickman in locking Born up offensively down the stretch, including a big swat from Leons on a Born layup attempt.
Leons’ three total blocks on Friday made him the first player in MVC history to reach 50 blocks and 50 steals in a single season.
“There’s many great players in this league and it’s really cool to be able to write some history,” Leons said. “I wanted to get it this year obviously because next year I want to get it again. I don’t want to wait till next year to get it.”
Born could only make three of his final 13 shots and tried to carry his team by attempting UNI’s last nine shots. Eventually, his magic ran out.
“I didn’t want to put [Leons] on him in the first half just because you pick up fouls and Born is very good at drawing fouls,” Wardle said. “I didn’t want to get him in foul trouble, but he got in foul trouble anyway.”
“Thanks Malevy,” he added with a laugh.
Rienk’s revenge tour
Born’s play was similar to Mast’s in the first half for Bradley. Both were making baskets at will and infecting their team and fans with energy each time their shots hit twine, but Mast, a recent All-MVC first team honoree, was the one whose hand would have been lifted up by a boxing referee when the buzzer sounded.
“We were feeding the hot hand, he was popping on their drop coverage so he read that right away and he started hitting the threes,” Wardle said. “We caught them on some dives and we got him in a post [sometimes]; he showed his versatility today.”
“Mast had a terrific game. In the first half, he’s making threes, making 17-footers, and scoring around the basket,” Jacobson added. “He just had a big first half and that was an important part of the game.”
Boosting Bradley with 20 first-half points, Mast also made baskets that tied the game, took the lead and sealed the game. His 30 points was simply an awe-inspiring performance and it didn’t come without reason.
“Rienk’s got a chip on his shoulder right here,” Wardle said. “I thought he was tremendous and carried us in the first half.”
That chip on Mast’s shoulder comes from a feeling of not being respected enough to win the Larry Bird Player of the Year trophy which was awarded Wednesday, as he sat in the postgame press conference with the eyes of a lion staring down its prey. He’s on a revenge tour this weekend.
“Before [MVC Player of the Year awards] were announced, I looked it up and it was like the first season in well over a decade that the best player on the winning team from the regular season didn’t win it. So yeah, that’s my chip right now.”
The win in St. Louis is the first for Mast as a player, as he was sidelined for a redshirt year when Bradley won the MVC Championship in 2020. Since then, he’s suffered the heartbreak that comes with a season-ending loss in back-to-back years. However, he’s hoping that he’s destined for more good times in St. Louis and it could come in Saturday’s semifinal against the winner of Belmont and Indiana State.
Friday’s gargantuan effort propels him near the 1,000-point club and Mast now stands at 979 career points.
“I want him to get it,” Wardle jokingly interrupted when Mast was asked if the feat was on his mind.
“Obviously, I knew before the game how far away I’m from it so it would definitely be cool to get,” Mast said.
Next man up
The first half in Friday’s heated battle wasn’t as intense, from both lead-change and environment perspectives. Mast sank a 3-ball, holding up a 3-pointer sign afterwards, that put Bradley up 32-24 with 3:52 to go in the first, but it was the only field goal in a 1-for-9 stretch from the Braves to finish the opening frame.
The door was open for the Panthers, who fought back with three straight scores by freshman forward Michael Duax, but a similarly cold shooting finish to the first half limited the Panthers from taking the lead.
After only scoring seven in the first half, Born’s hallmark shooting stroke made the Braves’ defense erode. His deep threes and drives to the hoop ignited the UNI fans, making the big-time arena feel even scarier for the Braves.
“We let him get going and start the second half and then he was lights out the rest of the way, so it was a great battle,” Wardle said.
“I don’t necessarily think of the things I can’t do, but when I see that matchup, I think of the things I can do like using my speed and being low,” Born said about scoring on the MVC’s best defense statistically.
A free throw and a jumper from the Panthers’ sophomore both got his team to within one, but they weren’t able to tie until a 3-pointer from Landon Wolf to tie it at 46 with 13:08 to go. With Mast getting rest on the bench and Leons and Henry in foul trouble, Bradley was walking on thin ice.
The Braves’ bench play has been a large reason for their success this year, but junior forward Darius Hannah and Tahvanainen had to play high-leverage minutes in the second half. Nerves were high until junior guard Duke Deen got a steal, then tossed up a pass on the fastbreak for a monstrous alley-oop by Hannah to put Bradley up 50-48.
“We just trusted our rotations that we’ve had throughout the year that won us a lot of games and trusted Darius Hannah to play a lot of minutes and Ville [Tahvanainen] I thought did a pretty good job on Born for a while,” Wardle said. “But we had to trust our players in that situation.”
Born then would twice give UNI brief leads that were immediately taken back by Bradley. He sank a jumper with 3:27 left to cut Bradley’s lead to 62-60 before Deen hit a massive deep ball from the wing with a hand in his face to cushion the Braves’ advantage.
Getting their feet under them
A nail-biting six-point win may not have been what the Braves wanted, but it’s an outcome they were expecting in the high stakes of the postseason. The effort was enough to give them their first win in St. Louis since beating Valparaiso for the conference title in 2020.
Now, the focus turns to slowing down the electric offense of Indiana State, who beat Belmont 94-91 on Friday afternoon. Bradley took down the Sycamores in their only matchup this season, but feel more confident now that they have a game, and more importantly, a win under their belts.
“I mean, this is a very big arena; it’s bright lights,” Mast said. “So you gotta get adjusted to it a little bit. UNI had that yesterday. We had that today so we know how it is right now so we can go all out tomorrow.”
“The first game is always the hardest in this tournament, always,” Wardle said. “And now you kind of just roll the dice and a lot of the pressure is off and you go hoop and that’s what you’ve got to do in the semifinals.”
Bradley tips off against Indiana State for the right to play for an MVC Championship on Saturday at 2:30 PM.
