In retrospect, I wonder if beating Illinois three weeks ago wasn’t the worst thing that could have happened to the Bradley Braves.
Seems like ever since knocking off the Illini in Vegas, the Braves think the rest of the season is comped. They got by with a bad half at Northern Illinois because the Huskies are bad. They yawned through stretch runs at home against Western Carolina and Loyola and lost to both.
Coach Jim Les got mad after the Loyola loss and started talking accountability. But when he showed up Sunday at Hilton Coliseum, Les decided to give his regulars another chance.
Bad choice. The Braves would have been more interesting to watch had they stayed in their hotel rooms, playing video games and Tweeting. They certainly couldn’t have been beaten any worse. The final score was 87-68, but only because the Cyclones lost interest in playing with 11 minutes still left on the clock and their lead at 32 points.
“Embarrassing,” Les said.
I’m concerned. He was being too nice.
Try humiliating.
The Braves’ effort was a joke. Fans were putting their coats on and leaving with 10 minutes to play; scraping ice and snow off windshields being more fun than watching one team beat up on a corpse. In the final minutes, Bradley’s Eddren McCain made a free throw, and the Iowa State students struck up a chant: “It still doesn’t matter!”
Bingo. That’s exactly how Bradley played. Like it didn’t matter.
“Mind-boggling,” Les said.
Specifically, he was talking about his team’s lack of defensive effort against the Cyclones’ Craig Brackins.
Now, Brackins is 6-feet-10, strong on the boards, able to score all the way out past the 3-point line. He’s a load. But if you have an ounce of pride in yourself as a player, he’s the kind of guy you live to play.
Brackins will make his living in the NBA next year. What better way to make a statement about your worth as a player than to give him the fight of his life all over the court?
No pride in Peoria’s boys, though. Brackins scored 16 points, took 12 rebounds and had 7 assists.
Bradley sophomore Taylor Brown started out on Brackins. He didn’t finish. In fact, Brown played only 21 minutes and just seven in the second half, even though he has been the Braves’ leading scorer (15.3 points per game) and rebounder (6.1) this season.
Brown should be the Braves’ best player. Bradley needs Brown to play more than 21 minutes.
“That’s now up for debate,” Les said. “Taylor had success early on because he really worked at it. He had an energy about him. He went to the boards. He was less concerned about points produced and more concerned about playing hard and competing.”
And that’s why, with less than three minutes gone in the second half and Bradley on its first offensive spurt of the game, Les called time out immediately after a 3-pointer by Chris Roberts pared a 25-point halftime deficit to 19. Les yanked Brown and redshirt junior guard Andrew Warren from the game and inserted freshmen Jake Eastman and Milos Knezevic.
“Two veteran guys were on their own page again,” Les said.
They were getting burned on defense. They were standing on offense. They weren’t crashing boards. And they weren’t alone in Les’s poop pile.
The coach singled out senior Chris Roberts: “Our most athletic player ... had one rebound.” Roberts also committed five turnovers. Junior tri-captain Sam Maniscalco, usually a steady hand, committed three and didn’t hand out a single assist while missing every shot he took from the field.
At least Eastman and Knezevic fought hard. And sophomore post Will Egolf did, too — albeit in the second half, long after the outcome was decided. Eastman, at 6-4, led the Braves with 5 rebounds, while Knezevic and Egolf had 4 each.
Maybe they’ll get a lot of minutes after Les gets done killing everyone else.
The coach’s words and demeanor were quite similar to the night in January 2006, when he threw open his lineup to the hardest workers after an ugly home meltdown against Wichita State. Those Braves rallied to reach the NCAA Sweet 16.
These guys won’t get that far. They’re not talented enough.
But they’re way better than they’ve been showing us this month.
“We’ve tried to massage them and talk to them and walk them through making adjustments,” Les said.
But with the Missouri Valley opener now just eight days away, he added, “I need the guys who are going to step up and bring me that competitive hard work and and that concentration, night in and night out.”
He had better find them right soon, or you can kiss this season good-bye.
KIRK WESSLER is Journal Star executive sports editor/columnist. He can be reached at kwessler@pjstar.com, or 686-3216.
