If the Bradley Braves are serious about contending for the Missouri Valley Conference championship, they'll have to keep their composure better than they did for the first 13:15 of the second half Saturday night.
If the Braves are serious about contending, they'll have to keep their wits and overcome adversity, even when much of the problem is of their own making, the way they did the last 6:45 of their 63-57 victory here over Missouri State.
This triumph, which gave BU its first 3-0 Valley start since 1996, said a lot about the Braves' character. Good and bad.
Start with the bad, so we can get it out of the way.
Missouri State, which has not been a good rebounding team, grabbed 12 offensive rebounds in the first half-dozen minutes of the game and finished with 25. This was not so much a function of inadequate effort on Bradley's part as it was matter of wild and crazy bounces and, a couple of times, too many Braves crashing into each other in pursuit of the ball. But it sure was frustrating.
When the second half started the same way as the first, that frustration began to overtake the BU players. Then came foul calls. They weren't bad calls, but some were tougher to take than others, especially when several key Braves — Theron Wilson, Sam Singh, David Collins and Sam Maniscalco — were tagged with their third fouls relatively early in the second half. So BU softened up defensively, and suddenly, this Missouri State team that can barely shoot straight started scoring at will.
Just like that, a Bradley lead that had been 14 points and probably should have been 20 by halftime ... vanished. The BU offense, aggressive and purposeful the past three games, became passive and erratic, filled with bad passes and ill-advised shots.
Bradley coach Jim Les earned a technical foul for yipping about perceived inconsistencies in the whistles under the BU basket. Freshman guard Eddren McCain escaped a tech only because he was walking away from the ref, who couldn't see or hear what he was uttering.
Wilson, whose emotions are as visible as his tattoos, was twisting and bouncing and fuming with nearly every call.
And then came the whistle at 6:45, on Singh, for slapping Missouri State's Will Creekmore on an attempted steal in the post. Foul No. 4 on Singh, who grabbed the ball with both hands and bounced it hard off the floor. That got the refs' attention. Then Singh uttered the Lord's name in vain.
That got Singh a technical. Foul No. 5.
Singh, who grew up in Ozark, not far from Springfield, and had family in the crowd of 7,464, was crushed. It only got worse when Creekmont and Spencer Laurie made all four of the resulting free throws to put Missouri State up, 52-51.
'I apologize that my emotions got the best of me,' Singh said. 'I'm a fifth-year senior, and I can't do that.'
But here's where the good character of this Bradley team reappeared.
Wilson, called together his teammates on the sideline and delivered a strong message. He was driven in part, he said, by a debt to Singh, who last Wednesday night scored the last-second basket to lift the Braves to victory at Wichita State, not far from Wilson's hometown of Topeka, Kan.
'I pointed to the scoreboard and said, ‘OK, everybody's frustrated, but that's one thing we don't need if we're gonna win this game,' ' Wilson said. 'I said, ‘I need ya'll. This man (Singh) is back in his hometown ... and we need to do this for him and for our fans who travel with us.' And they looked at me in my eyes and said, ‘Let's go.' '
And go, the Braves did.
Wilson, tangled up in his own frustration much of the second half, walked out of that huddle with a glare on his face. Forty seconds later, Wilson was put to the test when he was called for his fourth foul. His lips curled into a bomb-maker, but he caught himself in time to avoid following Singh to the bench.
Then Wilson put the Braves on his back and carried them home. First, he reached into a crush of bodies to poke an offensive rebound to the perimeter, where Chris Roberts rained a 3-pointer to tie the score at 54. Then, Wilson began driving the ball relentlessly, and no Bear was able to stop him without fouling. He went to the line and made five of six free throws as Bradley outscored the hosts 9-3 down the stretch.
And as McCain drained a free throw for the Braves' final point, Wilson's face broke into a big grin and the joy came pouring out:
'Whooooooo!'
'He kept us together, and the guys picked me up' Singh said. 'Theron did what a senior is supposed to do. That's what a team is about.'
KIRK WESSLER is Journal Star executive sports editor/columnist. He can be reached at kwessler@pjstar.com, or 686-3216.
