Mississippi Valley State @ Bradley

by **ptownbraves** » December 19th, 2012, 8:51 pm

Bradley with a commanding 63-35 lead with 6:05 to play. Pickett with 18 pts, 9 rebs, 3 assists, 2 steals.

**Sponsor**

by **ptownbraves** » December 19th, 2012, 9:14 pm

Final score: Bradley 77 - Miss. Valley St. 42

Bradley now has more wins this season than they did all of last season and have yet to play a single conference game.

by **shoxrox** » December 19th, 2012, 9:20 pm

Braves definitely have improved. It'll be interesting to see how many wins they'll get against teams with records better than .500. So far, they have none.

by **ptownbraves** » December 19th, 2012, 9:46 pm

shoxrox wrote:Braves definitely have improved. It'll be interesting to see how many wins they'll get against teams with records better than .500. So far, they have none.

Not so fast, Central Michigan is 5-4

by **shoxrox** » December 19th, 2012, 9:50 pm

ptownbraves wrote:
shoxrox wrote:Braves definitely have improved. It'll be interesting to see how many wins they'll get against teams with records better than .500. So far, they have none.

Not so fast, Central Michigan is 5-4

Sorry. Looked at the records at realtime rpi. I should correct myself and say records better than .500 against Division I teams.

by **ptownbraves** » December 19th, 2012, 9:54 pm

shoxrox wrote:
ptownbraves wrote:
shoxrox wrote:Braves definitely have improved. It'll be interesting to see how many wins they'll get against teams with records better than .500. So far, they have none.

Not so fast, Central Michigan is 5-4

Sorry. Looked at the records at realtime rpi. I should correct myself and say records better than .500 against Division I teams.

Ouch, the MAC just got burned.

by **Majik45** » December 20th, 2012, 9:54 am

I know Bradley hasn't played anybody yet, and they lost 2 games they were supposed to lose, but this is not the same Bradley that everyone saw last year. Last year's team would have let this terrible team hang around well into the second half, and may have just squeaked out a win. This year's team blows them out by 35 points and got some great minutes for some of our younger players (and some needed rest for the starters) considering they will be playing again in Vegas on both Saturday and Sunday.

Sometimes a team that only wins 7 games in a year needs to learn how to win against some easy opponents before they can move on to beating tougher teams. I know Bradley is not a top 3 team this year. If they finish above 6th place in conference I would be shocked, but I don't see anyone walking into Carver Arena this year and blowing us out which happened regularly last year.

Hopefully we can get two more good wins for the conference on Saturday Sunday against Virginia Tech and Colorado State. That would definitely help the conference RPI.

by **bradley_brave1989** » December 20th, 2012, 10:47 am

Majik45 wrote:If they finish above 6th place in conference I would be shocked

Wichita St, Creighton, Illinois St, and Northern Iowa. Those are the only four teams that are for sure better than Bradley right now, the rest is up for debate. I would not be shocked at all the way the are playing. The game against MIchigan was very competitive as well. I say fifth place right now

by **DoubleJayAlum** » December 21st, 2012, 8:09 am

Majik45 wrote:Sometimes a team that only wins 7 games in a year needs to learn how to win against some easy opponents before they can move on to beating tougher teams.

I agree with this - confidence is a strange thing. A team has to believe it can win in order to actually do it.

In a lot of ways, Bradley and UNI are showing opposite ends of the confidence coin right now.

by **MoBraves** » December 21st, 2012, 11:57 am

shoxrox wrote:Braves definitely have improved. It'll be interesting to see how many wins they'll get against teams with records better than .500. So far, they have none.

Yes, they have beaten Central Michigan, who is 5-4 vs. D-I teams.
The win at CMU was their most impressive win.
The 2nd half of the MVS game was quite impressive, and I was very pleased with the effort and hustle of every player even with a 20 point lead, and then more.

I don't think any realistic Braves fan could be much happier with the effort and success at this point.
Kudos to Geno for what he's done with what he's got.

A very poor perimeter shooting team, but hopefully that will change next season with 2 solid perimeter shooters being added. There is a definite toughness and leadership about this team that had been lacking since the 2007 NIT team.

But let's keep talkin' bout THIS season!!!