In BU's defense, its home losing streak is history
Heave a sigh of relief, Bradley fans. It beats heaving breakfast, lunch or dinner - any of which would have been understandable if the Braves had blown their basketball game Saturday night against Evansville.
That they managed to snatch a 77-76 victory primarily means the Braves avoided losing at home to the worst team in the Missouri Valley. From an historic standpoint, they broke a five-game home losing streak and avoided tying the longest single-season homecourt skid on program record.
But they still have big problems, especially on defense.
Evansville shot 51 percent, becoming the fourth Bradley opponent in the last five games to shoot at least that well. The Aces simply got way too many shots that were uncontested, or barely contested.
Asked about the defensive lapses, Bradley coach Jim Les focused his answer on the final 'three or four minutes,' during which he praised the Braves' tenacity. 'It was more our mentality than our technique,' Les said. 'Guys stepped up and made plays. They took it personal and had a purpose on that end of the floor.'
That may be. Desperation in the face of becoming the first Valley team to lose to the Aces this season is bound to make anyone with a pulse play harder.
But the execution still wasn't very good.
For example, Evansville committed a shot-clock violation with 4:07 to play, but the turnover was more the Aces' doing than Bradley's. Evansville coach Marty Simmons had called time out at 4:23, only to watch his entire team come out of the huddle and play as if it had a fresh shot clock, rather than 16 seconds. The buzzer went off without any real attempt to score.
Bradley took a pair of leads in the moments that followed, but quickly gave up both. Evansville guard Shy Ely scored on Bradley co-captain Jeremy Crouch in each sequence, quickly driving past the BU senior for a layup the first time, then dribbling to the lane and tossing in a hook shot over Crouch the second.
Evansville muffed a chance to build a two-possession lead with 20 seconds left. Coming out of a Bradley-called timeout, the Braves pressed the inbounds pass under their own basket, and Evansville's Peter van Tongeren slipped unnoticed to the other end of the court. He was 50 feet behind the closest Bradley defender, a dunk or layup and a hero's nap all his - if any of the Aces had bothered to look down the court and see him.
Even Evansville's final possession, which went in the books as Crouch's third steal, was the result of Aces point guard Jason Holsinger losing his dribble.
If this is the way Bradley is going to play defense, then it's going to have to score loads of points. And that's not going to happen with the Braves' 3-pointcentric offense. They simply don't have enough big-time shooters this season.
The first half provided Examples A, B, C, D ... and almost left them with an 'F' for the contest.
Twenty-two of Bradley's 33 shots in the first half were from behind the 3-point arc. The Braves made only seven, but they kept throwing the ball up there from long range whenever they had the chance, and even sometimes when they didn't.
'We talked about shot selection at halftime,' Les said. He was displeased the Braves were shooting 3s so early in their possessions and making little or no effort to penetrate Evansville's zone defense. The ball rarely went inside out, even though a bevy of BU post men were hopping from block to block to the free-throw line. The guards mostly whipped the ball around the perimeter. Oh, and for all you fans out there who hate the weave, you'd have loved this game, because there was no weaving. Of course, there was no penetration either.
By contrast, in the second half, the Braves began throwing the ball inside. That resulted in a number of open shots from free-throw range, plus some nice drop-down passes to bigs on the blocks. As a result, Bradley's shooting percentage rose from 33 percent in the first half to 52 percent in the second. Forcing Evansville to guard inside opened up better shots from the arc, and the Braves were 5-of-9 from 3-point land in the final 20 minutes.
But even that was barely enough to beat the lowly Aces.
Until Bradley's defense improves - and improves a lot - we'll see more losses than wins.
KIRK WESSLER is Journal Star executive sports editor/columnist. Contact him at (309) 686-3216 or kwessler@pjstar.com
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