Bradley gets revenge against Missouri State, wins by 18

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What a difference a week makes. Bradley excelled in all aspects of the game and completed a dominant performance against Missouri State.

The Braves (8-9, 3-4 MVC) had five players score in double figures as sophomore forward Taylor Brown led the way with 16 points and 12 rebounds. For as inconsistent as Brown had been playing recently, he really put together a fabulous performance on both ends of the floor.

Everything that the Braves seemed to do wrong a week ago were addressed in the rematch. Missouri State (13-5, 3-4 MVC) held a 41-27 rebounding advantage in Springfield, Mo. Bradley held nearly the exact same margin at home (43-28) today.

The overall defensive effort was the most consistent performance all season, limiting second chance opportunities and forcing the Bears into a lot of difficult looks. Kyle Weems, who scored 30 against Bradley last weekend, had a quiet 10 points and never was able to get into the flow of the Missouri State offense.

Other than some open 3-point looks for Adam Leonard, the Braves' defense really contested shots well. Bradley finished with six blocks, well above the season average of 2.3 per game.

Playing good defense isn't just something all coach's preach. In eight of Bradley's nine losses, the Braves have given up 68 points or more to their opponents. Though it may be more fun to watch, run-and-gun basketball is not the way that this team is successful.

The offense didn't disappoint either. The movement and passing were crisp and few possessions resulted in bad shot attempts. When so many of these opportunities were layups, Bradley was bound to be successful.

The high screen offense that the Braves often execute looked good, especially when sophomore forward Will Egolf slipped out of his screen and was led perfectly to the basket for some easy layups. Egolf had one of his best games at Bradley, scoring 14 points and adding four rebounds and two blocks.

And Egolf will be a key to the Braves' success/failure as the conference season goes on. He's getting much better at recognizing when he should make a post move and try to score as opposed to when he's got nothing going and needs to find an open player on the perimeter. Bradley has been so limited in the past offensively because they've lacked not just a post scorer, but also a guy who can pass well, too.

The superlatives can be tossed to the rest of the roster, as well. Senior guard Chris Roberts played very good defense with six total rebounds and two steals. On offense he contributed 10 points but more importantly, also had five assists. He was one of many players who aggressively drove to the basket and made the extra pass to get an easy layup for a teammate.

Both junior guards Andrew Warren and Sam Maniscalco had steady games. Warren did force a couple tough shots but still managed 11 points and rebounded more aggressively (five total). In Maniscalco's case, fans could easily take for granted his consistency. For a player who handles the point guard role as much he has, maintains a solid assist-to-turnover ratio (1.6 going into the game, tied for 6th in the MVC) and always can be relied upon for a big three or his great free-throw shooting. Maniscalco showed his versatility too, flipping in two more of his "Steve Nash-esque" finger-roll layups today.

Even though he didn't make as big of a splash as some other games, freshman guard Dyricus Simms-Edwards continues to show flashes of why he's going to be starter for Bradley for many seasons to come. His ability to drive to the basket is as good as anyone at his age since Daniel Ruffin.

Reality check

And with how overwhelmingly positive this game one, it was indeed just one game. Cliche or not, this team must build off of this victory when having to head out to Carbondale to face Southern Illinois on Wednesday. Not many teams win there and Bradley hasn't done so even once since Jim Les took over the program in 2002.

But, this year will be as good of a chance as any with Southern Illinois far from its dominant selves of the past. The Braves are playing much better and looking for revenge after SIU stole a game in Peoria on New Years Day.

Ignoring the actual in-game events, Bradley really isn't too far off of pace from where you might predict they'd be in conference play. Losses at conference leaders Wichita State and Northern Iowa could be expected. It's only the home defeat against SIU that has the Braves at 3-4 instead of 4-3.

This next stretch of seven games are all winnable and Bradley is looking poised to make a run up the standings.

Bradley's rugged defensive effort falls short in Cedar Falls

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If Bradley puts together the same defensive effort it did tonight, this team will still win a lot of conference games. Unfortunately for the Braves, Northern Iowa made enough plays to survive at home, 52-50.

Junior guard Sam Maniscalco led all scorers with 15 points (6-of-11 from floor, 3-of-5 from 3-point range) and added five rebounds, two assists, three steals and only one turnover. Ali Farokhmanesh made all four of the Panthers 3-pointers and finished with 14 points.

A four minute scoring drought allowed Northern Iowa (15-1, 6-0 MVC) to take a 45-35 lead with 10:49 to play in the game. Bradley (7-9, 2-4 MVC) ratcheted up its defense from that point, only letting the Panthers score seven more points the rest of the game.

One of the biggest reasons for the defensive success was that head coach Jim Les continued to change between man-to-man and 2-3 zone sets. He observed that this rattled the Panthers and it showed as they didn't score for almost five minutes.

Maybe the most significant play in the game was when Bradley had possession with two minutes to play, trailing 49-48. Junior guard Andrew Warren missed a 3-point attempt and freshman guard Dyricus Simms-Edwards crashed hard to the boards. Simms-Edwards made an athletic tip on the rebound and the ball went into the basket, but he was whistled for an offensive foul.

Watching some of the replays, it probably was the correct call as Simms-Edwards did lead with his arm a bit. But if the call goes differently, maybe the outcome is also changed in the end.

Even with that difficult call, Bradley still had a chance to tie or win with 20 seconds to play. The Panthers had three fouls to give and used them smartly, including a third with just 0.6 seconds on the clock. The Braves were a bit disjointed on the last possession and were out of timeouts.

But then Les came through and made another smart coaching decision. He quickly motioned to the officials to check the clock and see if any time should be added after the third foul. The point here was that it effectively bought him an extra timeout and he was able to draw up a quick play with so little time left.

The Braves ran a back screen and tried to run a lob to the glass but Northern Iowa defensed it perfectly and batted the pass away for the victory. With so little time on the clock, Bradley wasn't likely to get much better of a chance than a wild 3-pointer, anyway.

Invisible stars

For as good as Maniscalco was, the rest of Bradley's starters all had subpar games. Senior guard Chris Roberts probably had the best performance, hitting 4-of-5 three-point attempts and finishing with 14 points. But he also had no rebounds and committed four turnovers.

For as great as Warren has been in conference play, this was one of his worst of the year. He shot just 2-of-10 from the floor and committed five turnovers. The students got on Warren after he had an air ball early in the second half and this seemed to rattle him a bit.

Credit him for knowing that good players need to keep trying to score, though. The majority of his attempts for the rest of the game were open looks but just weren't falling. He'll almost surely be back to his dynamic self against Missouri State on Saturday.

Sophomores Taylor Brown and Will Egolf dealt with foul trouble the entire game and never really got into the flow of the action. Each had just four points but did combine for 11 rebounds.

Considering how ineffective most of the starters were on offense, it's remarkable the Braves kept the game so close. But good defense does that - allows for the opportunity to steal a victory when your best players don't contribute as much as usual.

Looking across the court

The point that needs to be emphasized is how good this Northern Iowa team can be. The Panthers were coming off of two road victories against Southern Illinois and Illinois State where they controlled both contests.

The argument can be made that Northern Iowa did have an off night, especially from guards Kwadzo Ahelegbe (eight turnovers) and Johnny Moran (zero points). But the problems resulted more from the fact that Bradley defended well and wouldn't allow for too many open perimeter looks.

One of the most pleasant surprises was the game that senior center Sam Singh had. The Brave has been used sparsely this season but really helped to slow down the Panthers' talented big man, Jordan Eglseder. Singh chipped in three points to go along with his five rebounds.

Shortening the bench

Les has tightened up the rotation and only played eight guys tonight, electing to keep freshman forward Milos Knezevic and sophomore guard Eddren McCain on the bench. Both of these players' minutes have been slipping as the season has gone on, mostly it seems because of defense.

Maybe there are other things behind the scenes that Les is noticing in practice as well. At least he's not just sticking with rotations just for the sake of doing them.

Simms-Edwards saw significant spike in time, especially with how well he played against Ahelegbe. Since he's come off of the redshirt, guard Jake Eastman has also seemed to pass up McCain on the depth chart. Hopefully this will be a wake-up call for the speedy guard as McCain can still be a contributor for this team now and going forward.

Turning this into a positive

This has to be the most upbeat the team has been all season after a loss. And this is critical considering the schedule coming up. For starters, Bradley needed to realize it still can compete at a high level in the league after the drubbing it took at Missouri State on Saturday. Now just seven days later, the Braves have another crack at the Bears and have them at Carver Arena this time.

And then the schedule gradually gets easier for about a month. This team could be poised to go on a run if it can remember how it played tonight and not the previous three games. Maybe the Braves won't necessarily live up to all expectations, but the opportunity is coming to still salvage a lot from a tough first half of the season.

This point is really a crossroads to see what this team can truly be capable of doing - will it continue to be stuck in "neutral", hovering around .500? Or will the talent and cohesion start to show, possibly making a run at the upper half of the conference?

Wainwright's departure draws some comparisons

Jerry Wainwright is out as DePaul's men's basketball coach.

Official release from DePaul

This is disappointing news, though most fans expected this sooner rather than later. Wainwright had to have felt very uncomfortable since his staff was let go after a dismal 0-18 Big East season in 2008-09.

But though some in the blog/message board world are surely rejoicing today, this isn't the happiest day for me. DePaul was my team growing up and I've been following them since I was a little kid, which included the days of David Booth (now a current assistant).

I want DePaul to be successful and will always have a part of me that will care about the program. When a coach leaves/gets fired, that shows failures on many levels.

You might ask: What does this have to do with Bradley?

Though the recent success of the two programs can't really be compared, there are similar aspects to the Wainwright situation as to what is going on in Peoria.

Wainwright has many of the same great qualities that Bradley's Jim Les has - he has very likable personality, a good interview (especially in Wainwright's case, who is very funny and doesn't mind being self-deprecating), cares deeply about the school/area where he's coaching. Just like Les, Wainwright has always seemed like the kind of guy who would have stayed at DePaul for 20 years if possible.

But in a similar light, he also hasn't lived up to expectations as a coach. Just like most Bradley fans hoped that Les' teams would be competing for conference championships on a yearly basis, DePaul fans have hoped that in a ridiculously difficult conference like the Big East, the Blue Demons could at least stay competitive.

And if you want to play the "what-if" game, Wainwright has had to deal with a lot of similar things. He's had injuries to key players and has lost important players to the program (in DePaul's case, to the NBA).

Having an opportunity to watch a lot of both Bradley and DePaul games, the two head coaches have stuck with a system that hasn't always meshed with the team's personnel. Wainwright allowed way too much 1-on-1, NBA-style basketball and with the exception of a couple players, DePaul simply didn't have the talent to play that way. The team was showing signs of at least playing better defense this season, but that wasn't enough.

I'm not sure how this is radically different to how some of the recently Bradley teams have been. Fundamentals of winning basketball - defense and rebounding - are often stressed in interviews with the media, but then the carryover doesn't generally happen in games.

At least in Wainwright's case, he's had a proven track record of success. He'll get another job because of his three conference championships and two NCAA appearances at UNC-Wilmington. Unfortunately for Wainwright, he almost seemed destined to fail considering the current state of DePaul's program.

Even though Chicago is a hotbed for talented basketball players, it's difficult to get recruits to stay nearby and play at DePaul. The Allstate Arena is a nice place to catch a sporting event, but it's 15 miles from the main campus.

That is simply too far for the majority of students to travel for a game. Bradley has often had trouble getting enough students to its games and though the Braves also have an off-campus arena, it's only two miles away and a bus ride in just takes a matter of minutes.

The only way DePaul will get good student support again is if the program starts doing well. Unfortunately, lots of kids in college are fickle and don't necessarily care as much about the game as being part of a social experience. If the team starts playing well again, it will be the "place to be" and those fans will come back.

The other problem with DePaul is that because of the way administration handled the past few coaching moves. This has alienated many long-time supporters of the program.

Whether it was the lousy coaching of Pat Kennedy, the fickleness of Dave Leitao, or the problematic athletic director Bill Bradshaw (see an article from the Sporting News from way back in 1996: Here), things haven't been going consistently right for more than a decade.

The combination of bad basketball, dwindling fan support and minimal media coverage have really doomed the Blue Demons for years.

Credit DePaul for making a change when sticking with a likable local man would have been the easy route. If Bradley continues to stick in the doldrums of the Missouri Valley Conference, hopefully it will have the same courage if that determination has to be made at a future date.