DLO's Thoughts

Currently at 7-2 we are in a transitioning phase as the Bradley Braves. With the non-conference schedule coming close to the end and Valley play approaching soon it has been with some ups and downs in the year. We have won all our home & neutral site games so far this year. However our two true road games this year we have lost. I understand home teams have the advantage, especially in college basketball as 82% of the time the home team wins. However in order to become the team we aspire to be and reach the goals we plan to reach, we need to be able to handle those games. With 5 games remaining before the start of the conference schedule, (3 home, 2 away). We need to buckle down, reflect and play through adversity, in order to reach the heights we know we can.

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...