It came down to one play.
In a game where Bradley was up by 20 at one point and down by 11 at another, it came down to a Darius Hannah floater in overtime that gave the Braves a 73-71 season-opening win at UAB on Monday.
“In practice yesterday we did a drill: 65-65 with two minutes to play,” head coach Brian Wardle said. “We worked on execution and how to win a close game and a little bit of that carried over today.”
Bradley ran the play a few minutes earlier and it was wide open, so Wardle decided to draw it up again. The senior Hannah faked a ball-screen and slipped out to the basket, receiving a feed from junior Connor Hickman and laying it home while suspended in the air.
“If anybody was to come up with me I’d throw it back out to our shooters [in the] corner or wing,” Hannah said. “But they didn’t do that so I just took the shot.”
Hannah had 14 points, six rebounds and a team-high five assists while graduate senior Malevy Leons added a double-double, securing 24 points and 14 rebounds to help take down last season’s NIT runner-up. As a team, the Braves knocked down 10 threes, which made a big difference.
“I have no problem with this team shooting anywhere between 25, 30 threes a game,” Wardle said. “There’s certain threes in the court that were very good to us last year and if we get those clean looks and we’re in rhythm we’re letting it go.”
It wasn’t all pretty though, as the Braves squandered a 16-point halftime lead and got out-rebounded 49 to 41, including a 22-8 deficit on the offensive glass. They also committed 17 turnovers, falling victim to two of UAB’s biggest strengths from last season.
With Hannah’s bucket, none of that mattered.
“Normally I’d dunk it but I feel like I took off pretty far so I just had to rely on my touch with the basketball,” Hannah said.
https://twitter.com/BradleyUMBB/status/1721729612994998732
Bradley took an early lead to start, scoring off the back of a couple threes and a couple of Hannah buckets. The Braves had four turnovers in the first eight minutes, but UAB only managed two points off of those turnovers.
Missed opportunities seemed to be the theme of the Blazers’ first half, as halfway through the period they got three chances to score off a missed layup but couldn’t score. Following the mess of offensive rebounds, freshman Almar Atlason drained a three on the other end, then did it again the next possession, making it 18-11 in favor of Bradley.
Those threes sparked a 14-1 run for the Braves, one that included a couple drives and dunks from Leons that accentuated the lead. Back-to-back scores from UAB ended the run, but Leons made his first shot beyond the arc following a timeout to complete a solo run of seven straight points.
“Malevy was a warrior,” Wardle said. “We leaned on him all night to try and get him some post touches to get to the foul line and that worked.”
Bradley reached their biggest lead of the game with four minutes left in the half, as sophomore guard Emarion Ellis came up with a loose ball and hit it ahead to Hannah, who slammed it home on the fast break to make it 36-16. Things were looking great for the Braves heading into the locker room.
And then, not so great.
An 8-0 run from the Blazers to start the second half brought Bradley’s lead down to eight. It ballooned back out to 13, but another run from UAB dropped the lead to four. Five Bradley turnovers in the first six minutes brought the Blazers back in it, as the self-inflicted wounds were piling up for the visitors.
“We knew it was coming, we talked about it at halftime,” Wardle said. “They’re not going to lay down in the opening night at home just because they’re down [16] at half.”
UAB took their first lead on a pair of free throws with 9:27 to go and didn’t stop there. Another Bradley turnover and another UAB offensive rebound led to an easy layup, which was followed by a fast break alley-oop and a fast break layup off an Eric Gaines steal. Suddenly, the Braves were down by seven.
The Blazers went on an 18-0 run that gave them an 11-point lead with 6:42 to play. The Braves were scoreless for over seven minutes and were without a field goal for over ten, as UAB’s trap defense was giving them fits throughout the second half.
“UAB is an aggressive team,” Wardle said. “Give them a lot of credit. They really turned the tempo and muddied the game up in the second half and we didn’t respond very well to it.”
To get back in it, Bradley relied on their veterans.
Following three successful free throws, senior guard Duke Deen stole the ball on the ensuing Blazers possession and found Hickman, who drained a three to bring the deficit to five. A minute and a half later, Leons made a three of his own to bring the lead back down to two. Then, Leons picked the pocket of Gaines and found Deen in transition, who knocked down an off-balance three to give Bradley the lead with two minutes left.
“Duke [Deen] can make big shots,” Wardle said. “Duke was talking and really guarding as tough as he could tonight and he knows he has that green light to let that three go at any time.”
Once overtime hit, Leons shined once again, scoring six of Bradley’s nine points in the period. However, nursing a three-point lead, Leons committed his fifth foul on a UAB and-one, sending the Blazers to the line and himself to the bench.
UAB’s free throw was successful and Deen took the ball up the court before tripping on Gaines’ foot and falling down, causing both players to dive for the ball. In the ensuing scuffle, Wardle called a timeout and drew up the game-winning play, which gave the Blazers two seconds to make a shot. Gaines’ heave clanked high off the backboard, moving the Braves to 1-0.
“Our team could have folded in that environment and we did not,” Wardle said. “They threw a lot of punches, knocked us down a couple times but we got back up and punched back and ended up with the win.”
The Braves will try to take the momentum into their home opener against Utah State on Saturday, a team that beat them 84-62 last season.
