The Bradley men’s basketball team suffered a pair of losses on the road this past week, dropping them to eighth place in the Missouri Valley Conference at 3-5.
The Braves traveled to Chicago Wednesday night to face the Loyola Ramblers, who already handed Bradley a home loss earlier in January.
In the first matchup, Loyola’s Milton Doyle scorched the Braves with a career-high 35 points. The second time around, they were able to hold Doyle to 14 but let forward Donte Ingram take over the game with 24 points, shooting 6-9 from behind the arc.
“We left Ingram a couple times, that’s mental breakdowns,” head coach Brian Wardle said. “We’re just struggling to carry over mental, smart play. Tonight, we got quiet in the second half when things didn’t go our personal way.”
The Braves were bit once again by the turnover bug, as they turned the ball over 21 times, compared to Loyola’s 12. When it comes down to it, the Ramblers just seemed to have more opportunities. Loyola took 53 shots, 15 more than Bradley’s meager 38.
“The first half was all about turnovers; [there were] 17 points off turnovers in the first half,” Wardle said. “We competed, we did some good things, but we just made careless turnovers. We did not have very good leadership.”
Thomas has become a key contributor on a night-in and night-out basis and has provided some consistency, tallying another double-double with 11 points to go with 11 rebounds.
Bradley’s solid defensive effort helped the team stay within four points of the Ramblers at the half, but the second half saw the offense go stagnant, scoring only 20 points in 20 minutes. The Braves didn’t have enough to keep up with Loyola and fell 70-50.
“Hopefully, sooner or later, we can have some confidence to play through a mistake or two,” Wardle said. “In these games, you’re out of it if you make three or four mistakes in a row. It goes from a four-point game to a 12-point game, and now we’re just battling uphill.”
The Braves came up short Saturday against a Missouri State team that was physically too much to handle.
Bradley got some season-high performances from junior forward Donte Thomas, who finished with 17 points and seven rebounds, and freshman point guard Jayden Hodgson, who poured in 16 points.
Bears forward Alize Johnson dominated the Braves on both the offensive and defensive glass with seven offensive and 13 total rebounds to go along with 13 points, and guard Dequon Miller lit up the Braves defense for 24 points.
Bradley came back from a double-digit halftime deficit to trim the lead to four with just over six minutes left in the game. However, Missouri State responded with a 10-0 run which was enough to cement their 76-62 win.
An uphill battle is exactly what the Braves face. After dropping its fourth game in a row, Bradley’s schedule doesn’t get any easier as Wichita State comes to Carver Arena at 3 p.m. Sunday.
When Bradley travelled to Wichita on New Year’s Day, there was nothing to celebrate. Bradley got run out of Koch arena and the Shockers hit the century mark beating the Braves 100-66, the first time a Missouri Valley Conference team scored that many points since 1988.
