Bradley's rugged defensive effort falls short in Cedar Falls

50	52

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?