Bracketbuster Announced - Another Chicago Game

The matchups were announced today for the annual BracketBuster weekend, giving an additional game to help boost the mid- and low-major school profiles for the NCAA tournament. But in a season where Bradley's 13-9 record simply isn't good enough to get an at-large bid, the event doesn't carry as much excitement as usual.

Though the top teams often go all over the country in order to play the featured matchups, many of the games take location more into account than actual record or RPI. If the Braves hadn't already faced them in December, they probably would have gotten Milwaukee (111 RPI - realtimerpi.com). But instead, the Braves drew the next team down in the Horizon League - Loyola (12-11, 150 RPI).

Overall, this doesn't really look like a great draw. Loyola has a 4-7 record in the Horizon League, good for 6th out of 10 teams. For the most part, the Ramblers have beaten the bad teams on their schedule and lost to the rest. They did beat Wisconsin-Green Bay at home, who knocked off nationally-ranked Butler tonight.

But, from a selfish point of view, this is a great development. Now I will get a chance to likely see another Bradley game in person and only have to travel a short distance to get there. Local yokels may complain down in Peoria, but with the amount of alumni that live in the area, this is always a great fit. I'd expect the Bradley fans to be even louder than the Loyola fans, just like last season.

Thinking ahead, this game will also provide a good schedule filler for next season in Peoria. With all of the tough non-conference games planned (at Brigham Young, at Butler, possibly at Iowa State, the Las Vegas tournament with two games against Utah, Oklahoma State or Illinois), a game like this will help round out the schedule to not make it impossible. Sure, Bradley should be better next year with Andrew Warren and Will Egolf returning from injury, but they still will need some easier opponents, too.

So, all you Chicago alumni get excited as the Braves are returning to Chicago. Hopefully they can take care of Loyola, who Bradley should be able to beat.

Other MVC games:

Northern Iowa at Siena

Illinois State at Niagara

George Mason at Creighton

Miami (OH) at Evansville

Austin Peay at Drake

Southern Illinois at Illinois Chicago

Cleveland State at Wichita State

Toledo at Indiana State

Missouri State at Tennessee-Martin

Game Ten Recap: Bradley @ Milwaukee

74	86

Giving up 50 points in a half isn't a recipe for success in basketball, especially at the college level. Unfortunately for the Bradley (5-5), that's exactly what the team did en route to a 86-74 defeat Saturday in Milwaukee, Wis.

With a combination of slow defensive of rotations and white hot shooting by Milwaukee (6-5), the Braves dug a 50-32 deficit at halftime. Guard Avery Smith had 19 of his 21 points going into the break including five 3-pointers.

To the Braves credit, they did start the second half with greater intensity and narrowed the Panthers' lead to six points in the second half. But Bradley clearly tired as the half went on and just ran out of energy trying to come back.

As tiredness sets in, jump shots start getting shorter. This fatigue showed in the form of 3-of-16 shooting from 3-point range (18.8 percent) during the second half. Even after getting thoroughly dominated in the first 20 minutes, the Braves could have caught Milwaukee by just hitting a few outside shots.

Guards Darian Norris and Chris Roberts both went 0-for-6 from the 3-point line. Bradley simply has too many streaky shooters and not one consistent performer from beyond the arc. Maybe guard Eddren McCain will become that player, but the sample size still is too small to tell for sure.

Even though Milwaukee appeared to rebound better Bradley, the road team actually missed 22 more shots than the Panthers. So clearly, the advantage in total rebounds should have favored Milwaukee (52-46).

But, the overall commitment to rebounding was better for the Braves. The problem was that when Bradley really needed a defensive stop, those were the times that the team gave up second and third opportunities to the Panthers.

Get used to being frustrated if you're a Bradley fan this season. Six of the nine players last night in red are new to the system. Couple that with the loss of three regular contributors to injury and the frustrations seem a bit more understandable (though certainly not any less annoying).

This team continues to search for an identity and with less than a week until Southern Illinois comes to Peoria, the learning curve might be too acute for the current roster of healthy players.

Other observations:

* - Downtown Milwaukee made me feel like I was back in Peoria again with many of the main streets and sidewalks poorly cleared of snow. The showing of Bradley fans at the game was admirable, especially considering how poor the weather got to be two hours before game time.

* - U.S. Cellular Arena had a pretty good feel once fans got inside. The atmosphere certainly trumped that of Illinois-Chicago or Loyola in basketball appeal.

* - Speaking of turnout, the overall attendance (3,020) wasn't bad and most of the Milwaukee fans were into the game.

* - Hopefully all Bradley fans returned home safely today as blowing snow made driving conditions nasty for most of the ride through Wisconsin (and likely in central Illinois, too).

* - I've pulled together another slideshow of photos from the game. Enjoy!

Click the photo above to view a slideshow.