DLO's Thoughts

This is going to be a short post as I just came from celebrating a championship!!! And I am not in the best of conditions!! Long story short. We beat SMU an American Conference team which allowed us to advance to the final and then today we beat Penn State which is a Big 10 team and a big challenge and we won winning the Cancun Challenge Classic. This is the first non conference championship Bradley has won in 37 years and a great start to the season beating to big time teams, marking the arrival.

In our first week of the 2018-19 College Basketball season, the Bradley Braves have played 3 games and have got 3 wins. Our 3-0 start is our first since the 2013-14 seasons. The results were wins over UW-Parkside, South-East Missouri and lastly tonight vs Jacksonville State. Koch Bar lead the charge tonight with a Career high 20 points to go along with 7 rebounds in a 74-65 win. We move onto our next opponent on Saturday evening vs the University of Illinois-Chicago before departing Cancun, Mexico on the Sunday for the Cancun Challenge Showcase. The season is getting into the heat of things and we plan to keep to win streak going as these non-conference wins will help  build a resume for us as we look forward to post-season play in March.

I wanted to wait till tonight before I wrote this weeks blog! Earlier tonight we played our season opener at Carver Arena vs UW-Parkside rangers. In a game that was scrappy, hard nosed and the first of the 2018-19 season. It thankfully went our way with a 74-58 victory. Junior Koch Bar lead the way with a career high 19 points, to go along with 7 rebounds. He was also followed by his fellow front court team mate, sophomore Elijah Childs who had 17 points, 8 rebounds and a career high 4 steals. The game wasn't pretty and we have to play at a higher level in future games against better competition if we want to achieve the goals we aspire to! Our defence had lapses for points in the game and we allowed the rangers to bait us into taking some bad/tough shots. However the positive is we were able to get a win out of it. At this level a win is a win and the positive is that tomorrow is a new day, in which we can watch film, learn, and improve before a quick turnaround in playing...

Tomorrow November 1st commences the 118th season of Bradley basketball. The start of the 2018-2019 see's us beginning the season in an exhibition game vs Carroll University who is fresh off an exhibition game vs Marquette last night. They are well coached, tough, up and down team which will definitely be the right match up for us to begin the season. It is the first time playing in Carver once again and it will be really exciting to see how everyone plays under the bright lights. This will also allow us to once again try different line ups, plays and actions against a new opponent so as a team we have a better under standing on what we will be doing before the start of our non-conference part of the season which begins next Saturday in a home 1pm matchup vs South-East Missouri State (SEMO). It's crazy to say tomorrow is my last first game in a Bradley Uniform. But it's the start of my Senior Season and I couldn't be happier! It's been 243 days since my last game...

Last Friday we travelled all the way to Indianapolis to play in a closed scrimmage vs last years Horizon league champions - Northern Kentucky. Even though we are not allowed to talk much about the details of what took place. It was actually cool to finally play against guys which aren't my team mates! It was play first time being in, let alone playing in an NBA arena in the Indiana Pacers' - Bakersfield house arena. The closed scrimmage that took place was definitely beneficial for us as a team, as we were able to try out new sets and see how they work against opposition, really challenge ourselves against new people and just try different line ups this year. As with two injuries in our front line in 7ft freshman Ari Boya and 6ft9 senior Luuk Van Bree, it looks like we will be playing a lot of "small ball" to start the year. We learnt and grew from the experience and we are actually 1 week and a day away from the first preseason game of the year. It takes place Nove...

Fall break ended today and although it meant a few days off class. (Which was most definitely needed) It didn't mean anytime off for the Bradley Basketball team.  (Well kinda). We got the weekend off, which was the first time and frankly the last time we will have two days offs in a row until Christmas. And man was it needed. It was the first time since practice's started in which, right when my body started to no longer feel sore I didn't have to go right to practice. But it also a chance for those on the team that lived in state or not too far to go home, spend time with family and recharge their batteries because now as the season approaches the opportunities for that are slim to none. The break was sweet but didn't last long, we resumed business as we have a lot of preparation as a team that needs to take place. We have our red and white scrimmage this Saturday @2pm in Renaissance Colosseum. We have a "not so secret" closed scrimmage vs Northern Kentucky...