Bradley runs out of steam, falls to Panthers in semis

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Yesterday looked like Bradley could beat anyone in the conference. But Northern Iowa asserted itself as the conference champion today, dispatching the Braves from the MVC tournament in dominant fashion.

After his 31-point game against Creighton, junior guard Sam Maniscalco was cloaked all day by the Panthers defense. Though he did manage to score 10 points, Maniscalco had little opportunity to have much of an impact on the game.

The Braves (16-15) fell behind big early and never hit enough shots to recover. After a fifth turnover in the half, Bradley went into the under 12-minute timeout down 19-6.

The game never got better as the Panthers (27-4) tenacious defense forced Bradley to settle for a lot of outside jumpers. Even when the Braves got open looks, the shots simply weren't falling and there weren't any second chance opportunities.

Northern Iowa had a 36-19 lead at halftime by holding Bradley to 6-of-21 shooting and 0-of-5 from 3-point range. Even though the game wasn't completely out of reach, it had the feel like one more burst from the Panthers would seal the result.

Yet when the teams came out after the break, the surge didn't happen for either team. Bradley really came out playing inspired defense and held Northern Iowa scoreless for the first five minutes. But the Braves simply couldn't capitalize, only scoring four points during that stretch.

If Bradley had maybe narrowed the gap to 8-10 points, the second half might have been a lot more interesting. Instead, the Panthers went on a 14-3 run during the next five minutes to cement the win.

Note that there was no need to mention any of the Northern Iowa players when describing the flow of the game. That's just how much of a "team" that the entire squad really is. Nobody scored more than 10 points but nine different Panthers did have points in the game.

Their style of play isn't pretty but it simply accumulates victories. Though the team shoots way more threes than teams of the past, Northern Iowa looks a lot like the rugged Southern Illinois teams from a few years ago. Opponents just don't get much of an opportunity to win.

Assist to turnover ratios (15-7 for, 7-14 against) were solid for the Panthers and they also limited Bradley to just six offensive rebounds.

When a team only scores 40 points, it's tough for anyone to really put up much of a stat line. Senior center Sam Singh grabbed eight rebounds (no other Brave had more than three) and junior guard Andrew Warren had 12 points to lead all scorers (eight of those were from the free throw line, though).

Bradley's depth wasn't as big of a factor today since the Panthers play a much less bruising style than Creighton does. But the cumulative effect of the past two games, especially having to turn around in 24 hours and play again seemed to be a major factor in why Bradley couldn't get anything going offensively.

Finishing one game over .500 might be enough for Bradley to be invited into one of the lower level postseason tournaments. But really, a major factor in these events often has to do with money and since the Braves draw well, that might put them ahead of some other teams.

But if this is indeed the final game for the 2009-10 Bradley Braves, the season ended in a similar manner to how the other 30 games were. A few great moments left fans wondering all year whether the team could truly turn the corner. Discouraging defeats continually brought down that optimism.

Because that's really what this season was: average. The final (?) record (16-15), the conference record (9-9), the performances of nearly every key member of the team (some great games for every guy to go along with some non-existent/bad ones) - these all fit the term.

Now the question is where can these guys go from here? Will they continue to develop, like Taylor Brown did, and come back with a similar but better team in 2010-11? Few can question the talent level - fans saw it against the better teams on the schedule. Now everyone will see if the Braves can pull it all together for an improvement next season.