The Bradley Braves are playing their best basketball of the season and after a win against Missouri Valley Conferenceleader Loyola-Chicago on Wednesday, they followed it up with a 68-59 triumph over Drake at Carver Arena on Saturday.
Baskets didn’t always come easy for the Braves, who rivaled the Bulldogs’ intensity and physicality from the tipoff, but a 16-7 run in the second half propelled Bradley to its seventh win in eight games and fifth straight victory at home.
“We want to keep the gas pedal down and keep working on our habits,” Bradley head coach Brian Wardle said. “It’s going in the right direction, our confidence is going up.”
Drake used a 7-0 run to gain control of the game just past the midway point of the first half. Back-to-back turnaround jumpers from Roman Penn and Tucker DeVries combined with a 1-for-9 stretch of deep 2-pointers and 3-pointers for the Braves gave the visitors a 16-13 lead with 8:20 left in the half
“We knew coming in, they were always going to be physical. They like to reach and grab arms and not letting that phase us was a good part of our game tonight,” graduate guard Mikey Howell said.
The Braves fought back and tied the game on a stepback triple from Roberts as the shot clock hit zero, igniting a roar from the season-high crowd of 5,109 at Carver Arena. On the ensuing possession, the Braves found more energy and Drake turned the ball over on a shot clock violation, seemingly unaware of the shot clock situation.
Both teams alternated scoring possessions until halftime, where Bradley led 28-27 after a 3-pointer from freshman Zek Montgomery. Howell was the only Brave to have more than one field goal to his name at the intermission with eight first-half points.
After pouring in a season-best 12 points against Loyola on Wednesday, Howell surpassed that mark with 14 points to go with four rebounds and four assists.
“I mean, [it’s] just confidence,” Howell said. “I knew I could shoot; I know that I get open shots but just having that confidence in myself makes a difference for me.”
“Guys really believe in him,” Wardle said of the veteran guard. “The way he’s been playing right now, he’s going to keep getting these minutes and he can play right alongside Terry [Roberts]. I love having two point guards on the floor.”
After Roberts began the second half with an exclamation point of a block and fast break layup, Drake found answers for every punch that the Braves threw. While both teams were unable to manufacture any notable scoring runs, a 4-0 stretch from the Bulldogs put them ahead 36-35 at the first media timeout of the final stanza.
Neither team led by more than four points until Roberts streaked along the baseline for a layup to put Bradley ahead 44-38 with 11:13 to go in the contest. Then, following a 4-16 first half mark in 3-pointers, an avalanche of 3-pointers started falling for the Braves.
On the next possession, the junior flicked a behind-the-back pass to Mast, who drained the first of his back-to-back triples in the span of 21 seconds, as Braves fans in attendance roared to life. Howell and junior guard Ville Tahvanainen made an encore to the shooting performance with triples of their own on the next two Braves possessions, which burgeoned the lead to 60-47 with just over six minutes left to play.
“[Bradley] had a nice stretch in the second half,” Drake head coach Darian DeVries said. “I thought Mast had a nice stretch there with two pick-and-pops and got us a couple times on some double teams and that’s what separated the game in about 3-4 minutes there.”
Bradley’s bench players, namely Howell, Tahvanainen, senior center Ari Boya and Montgomery made contributions on both ends of the floor. Following a 37-point outing from their bench on Wednesday, the Braves got 30 from their non-starters on Saturday.
“Everyone that came off the bench today gave us a huge win,” Wardle said.
Mast led BU with 15 points and seven rebounds and Roberts also found double figures in the scoring column with 11.
After straying from inside shots for most of the first half, the Braves pounded the ball inside more often as their lead grew, reaching the free throw line 15 times and sinking 12 in the second half. Rolling out a guard-heavy lineup, Drake was outrebounded 43-28.
The Bulldogs didn’t go down easily, putting their head down and getting to the basket in an attempt to chip away at the lead but the visitors could only manage to cut the deficit to nine in the waning minutes. Freshman standout Tucker DeVries, the son of Drake’s head coach, led the visitors with a game-high 20 points.
“I liked our blocking out because [Tremell] Murphy got to the glass but we limited Sturtz, Hemphill and Brodie on the glass,” Wardle said. “We grade our blocking out every game so I think I’m gonna like that grade.”
“They’re a good team with a lot of pride and you knew they were going to make a push back so I was happy that we could sustain and hold a lead down the stretch,” Wardle said.
The win allowed Bradley to leapfrog Drake into fourth place in the MVC standings and capped off a season sweep of the Bulldogs, and a week where the Braves knocked off two of the best teams in the conference.
“I think we had a lot of good ball pressure in both games and tried to speed them up,” Mast said about the similarities between the wins over Loyola and Drake. “Our guards did a great job of fighting through screens and talking.”
“Coach says we want to be the hunter, and not the hunted,” Howell added.
While the team plans to rest up after a physical contest in preparation for a road game against Southern Illinois on Tuesday, each of their latest victories has allowed them to do what they’ve wanted to do since a 1-5 start to the season.
“Best outcome possible,” Mast said about the week. “We needed this game to get in the mix with the other top four teams. I think we’re in the mix now and everyone really respects us.”
