Bradley men’s basketball enters uncharted territory this season.
Coming off the program’s first regular season Missouri Valley Championship in 26 years, their first NIT appearance in 16 years and an impressive 16-4 conference record, the team takes on a new challenge in 2023-24: Doing it again.
“We’re trying to run it back, but we also know how difficult it is to sustain success,” head coach Brian Wardle said. “In the last four or five years we’ve had good success and won some championships, it’s just a matter of consistent discipline in the details.”
Despite the runner-up finish in the MVC Tournament and the loss to Wisconsin in the first round of the NIT, last season was considered by many to be a success. Now, with the transfer portal’s roster upheaval, the question is how can the Braves bounce back to reclaim the Arch Madness crown.
Three starters return to the fold, the biggest of which is reigning Defensive Player of the Year Malevy Leons. As the team’s lead returning scorer with 11 points a contest, Leons must step into an even bigger role as the focal point of the Braves’ offensive and defensive scouting reports. Yet, like a car without wheels, the Braves can’t function without the parts that surround it, even if their engine is running smoothly.
“Mal[evy] is a very good player, he does a lot of things for us,” associate head coach Mike Bargen said. “But in terms of overall value to the team, he is just as important as everybody else.”
The preseason first-team selection is joined by junior Connor Hickman and senior Duke Deen as returning starters. Hickman is coming off a year of improvement in his second season, where he had increased minutes that led to more points, rebounds and assists per game. His shooting splits did not improve, however, draining just under 40% of his shots and 34% of his threes, so his consistency will be important to the Braves’ success.
Meanwhile, Deen is coming off his first year on the Hilltop, one where he averaged 9.6 points and a team-high 2.8 assists per game. He also led the Braves in 3-pointers (70) and was selected to the preseason All-MVC third team.
The expectations that come with this returning core are clear, so it’s something the team doesn’t need to discuss.
“Honestly, I really don’t have a lot of expectations,” Deen said. “We all know that we want to try to get back to the championship. I really don’t think about it a lot, it’s already instilled in our mindset. So I just try to go out there and compete to the best of my ability every day.”
Bargen echoes this feeling, not wanting to put too much pressure on the squad.
“If you start looking at goals or looking at trophies or things like that, I think you miss the things that are missing within your group,” Bargen said. “We’ll just worry about the process and improving upon things that are hurting us either in practice or gameplay and I feel like that’ll be the path to success.”
Replacing roles
The Braves suffered a blow when MVC first-teamer Rienk Mast, their leading scorer and rebounder a season ago, transferred to Nebraska and took all of his 6-foot-9, 240-pound frame with him. Without a clear, experienced successor to match Mast’s production, Wardle says a big man committee might be in order, featuring the likes of senior Darius Hannah and sophomore Ahmet Jonovic.
In particular, Wardle likes what he’s been seeing out of Hannah. The Milwaukee native is coming off the best season of his college career and has seemingly added some wrinkles to his game in the paint, although he will still showcase the blocks and high-flying dunks that fans have become accustomed to.
“The role might be a little different,” Wardle said. “But Darius right now is by far our best one-on-one post player.”
Wardle also says that the offense will run a little differently in Mast’s absence, featuring more drive-and-kick and a faster pace to accommodate the smaller team. Basically everyone on the team has the green light to shoot, which was evident when they took 28 threes in their exhibition game win over St. Ambrose on Wednesday.
“When we got stagnant sometimes I used to just tell Rienk to post up,” Deen said. “We [are] just gonna try to push the pace a lot more and just run fast. Just add that aspect even more to our game now.”
Deen also says there are a couple of guys who will be important if the Braves hope to replace the 3-pointers lost by the departure of Zek Montgomery (42% from three) and Ville Tahvanainen (37%).
“Ville’s my guy, I love Ville, but we got two knockdown shooters in Almar [Atlason] and Christian Davis,” Deen said. “They’re gonna knock down a lot of threes for us, I promise.”
Davis is entering his second year on the Hilltop after playing in 23 games last year, his first at the Division I level. The freshman Atlason, on the other hand, hails from Iceland and attended nationally-ranked Sunrise Christian Academy before coming to the Hilltop.
Atlason turned heads during last year’s European Championship when he averaged 17.9 points, 10.7 rebounds and 3.1 assists per game to lead his home country to the semifinals. Slotting in at the four and five for the Braves, the excitement is palpable for the 6-foot-8 forward.
“Like I said he’s a knockdown shooter and honestly he’s a guard playing the forward position,” Deen said.
Wardle and his staff also brought in 6-foot-10 sophomore Kyle Thomas, an Eastern Illinois transfer who is the nephew of former Brave Derrick Thomas, who played during the 1978-79 season. Among the newcomers, Thomas has the most Division I experience, appearing in 29 games last season for the Panthers and averaging 5.4 points and 3.8 rebounds per game.
Perhaps the most underrated loss of Bradley’s offseason was Sixth Man of the Year Ja’Shon Henry. The do-it-all forward was a career Brave, so his experience being on two Arch Madness winning teams will surely be missed as will his presence in the post, with both him and Mast providing matchup nightmares for opposing bigs.
This is where Wardle and company hope Jonovic can slide in. Joining the team in the middle of last season, the 7-foot-1 Serbian worked hard in the offseason to get prepared to play college ball and the coaches are excited to see what he can do with a full season in Division I.
“He’s really a physical presence for us,” Bargen said. “But he also still is a work in progress. A young big, but he loves the work and I think that his future is very bright.”
Guards galore
Something Bradley prioritized in the offseason was bringing in help at guard, and they added a trio of ball handlers to fit alongside Deen and Hickman after losing Montgomery and James “Pop” Weathers to the transfer portal.
Sophomores Emarion Ellis and Trey Pettigrew and freshman Demarion Burch all provide depth for the Braves, and Wardle says each of them has the necessary skills to help them flourish.
“They all have really good days,” Wardle said. “They all can get to the paint, they’re all very good one-on-one players. That’s what we wanted. We wanted big, strong guards that can make plays one on one and can create and they can all do that.”
Pettigrew and Ellis, transfers from Nevada and Marquette, respectively, barely played at their previous stops, with the latter suffering a knee injury that sidelined him for the entirety of last season and caused him to redshirt. Both of them bring different things to the table, but Ellis in particular has impressed his teammates during practice.
“Nobody can guard [Ellis] one-on-one,” Deen said. “Nobody stayed in front of him throughout the whole summer and fall so he’s gonna be a big piece for us.”
Burch comes to the Hilltop as a top-10 recruit out of Wisconsin. He’s quick with the ball in his hands and aggressive on defense, something that can be done to a fault. In the exhibition, he was second on the team in points with 11 and picked up three steals, but he also threw away a team-high four turnovers and committed four fouls.
“He’s extremely talented,” Bargen said. “He’s still trying to figure out what to do every day or how college basketball is different than high school, and so I think you see some of those peaks and valleys for him.”
Overall, Wardle thinks it’s an exciting group that will battle it out for the time on the court.
“It’s been fun to watch them develop,” Wardle said. “They all do something a little bit different, but it’s gonna be interesting to see how it all plays out as the year goes on because it’s very competitive.”
The team also looks different on the sidelines after Wardle brought in former Bradley standout Darrell Brown Jr. as director of player development. A three-time All-Valley guard on the Hilltop, Brown helped the Braves capture back-to-back MVC Tournament Championships in 2019 and 2020 and now mentors this year’s flurry of guards.
“He had a great work ethic and he’s a very disciplined, smart player,” Wardle said. “I said [to him] just carry over the things that made you successful as a player and that will help you be successful as a coach.”
Scheduling strength
If you want any hope of being considered among the nation’s best as a mid-major, you have to compete against the nation’s best. Bradley took that mantra and ran with it, as their non-conference games do not offer any room for error.
“We have a championship-level program with standards and expectations, so we have to play teams that we think are going to contend for championships and that’s what we schedule,” Wardle said.
To start, the Braves play in perhaps the country’s most intriguing opening-day game, as they travel to Birmingham, Alabama to take on UAB. The Blazers won almost 30 games last year, made the NIT championship game and just made the jump to the American Athletic Conference before this season started.
Then, it’s a rematch against Utah State, a team that thrashed Bradley last season 84-62 on their way to the NCAA Tournament. The Braves will take on the SoCal Challenge next before facing the reigning America East champions Vermont and a trio of Ohio teams in Akron, Cleveland State and Duquesne. All three finished in the top half of their respective conferences last year and Akron was picked to win the MAC in the conference’s preseason poll.
“We try to play teams that we think will be in the top three in their league and be very competitive because that’s the only way you get better and get ready for The Valley,” Wardle said.
The Braves were picked to finish third in the MVC’s preseason poll despite winning the league last year, and much of that has to do with the departure of Mast and the inexperience among the additions. Like most coaches, Wardle is unfazed by this.
“Preseason predictions don’t mean much to me,” Wardle said. “We [have] to just get better one day at a time and see where the season takes us because every season is a rollercoaster ride.”
All the discussions, debates and discourse aside, Deen thinks the path to winning another championship can be dumbed down to one simple thing.
“It’s about getting buckets at the end of the day,” Deen said. “I know coach Wardle ain’t gonna like that but it’s about getting buckets.”
