Coming off two home losses, the Bradley Braves had an opportunity Sunday against Iowa State to get themselves back on track heading into next week’s launch of the Missouri Valley Conference season.
Instead, the train derailed, crashed and burned.
The talented Cyclones totally overwhelmed the Braves 87-68 before 12,293 at Hilton Coliseum.
Iowa State forged an incredulous 28-point lead late in the first half, sending the Braves to their third consecutive defeat and most lopsided loss to a non-ranked team since the 101-72 thumping at Mississippi State in the NIT three years ago.
“My plan was to come in here, compete and play hard,” said BU coach Jim Les. “I apologize to (ISU coach) Greg (McDermott), to our fans and our university for that effort. It was embarrassing to me. That was very disappointing. And I’m not sure I’m not the most disappointed in that locker room.”
Les vowed the next eight days before the league opener at Drake would be spartan ones for the Braves.
“This university treats these young men in a tremendous light and first-class nature,” he said. “They don’t ask for much in return other than me asking for effort and a competitive mindset. A lot of those luxuries are going to be removed. We’ll go back to bare bones. I don’t know if we can create toughness, but we’re certainly going to try.”
Bradley was never in the game, falling behind 7-0 in the first three minutes. A brief flurry, capped by a Will Egolf tip-in brought the visitors to within 18-12 at 9:00.
But then came an indoor cyclone as the hosts went on a 24-3 spree over the next 7:35, creating a 42-15 spread.
“The first half was as good as we’ve played all year,” said McDermott. “Defensively, our rotation was good. We were able to make their looks from 3-point line at least challenged. We were able to plug some gaps in their dribble penetration, force some turnovers and turn them into offense.
“We made a few changes in what we did defensively because of the respect I had for Bradley’s ability to get the ball in the paint.”
That respect was misplaced Sunday. Bradley scored four points in the lane in the first half.
“We just need to play harder, it’s that simple,” said BU guard Andrew Warren, who led the Braves with 16 points. “We didn’t come ready to play as a team. It’s a matter of a lot of things. But you’ve got to compete. If you compete, the toughness and everything will take care of itself.”
There were some signs of that in the second half. Bradley scored seven of the period’s first eight points to trim the margin to 19.
But Les still didn’t like what he saw. He called a timeout after Chris Roberts’ 3-pointer at 17:12 and benched Taylor Brown and Warren for freshmen Jake Eastman and Milos Knezevic. For Eastman, this was his first college game after having his redshirt pulled because of the foot injury to Dyricus Simms-Edwards.
“Our greatest toughness came from our two freshmen,” Les said. “Jake led us in rebounding (with five) and Milos has been productive every time he’s on the floor. Our next two toughest guys are the guys sitting at the end of the bench who can’t play because of injuries.”
The timeout didn’t help much. The Cyclones regrouped and embarked on a 16-3 burst for their biggest lead of the day, 61-29 with 11 minutes left.
Bradley did make some headway after that, outscoring the hosts 39-26 the rest of the way. The Braves were boosted by four 3-pointers in a row, two by Warren, the first of the season from Eddren McCain and one by Roberts.
But it was way too little, way too late as BU couldn’t draw any closer than 16 points.
“We played 30 minutes of really good basketball and 10 minutes I wasn’t sure what was going on out there exactly,” McDermott said. “The game really got out of control in a lot of ways and we didn’t respond to it in a very mature way.”
One such incident was a double technical foul called on McCain and Iowa State’s Chris Colvin. No explanation was forthcoming, but the pair, along with Knezevic, were engaged in some verbal sparring.
Bradley shot a paltry 27 percent from the field in the first half and 38 percent for the game. But the Cyclones connected on 60 percent of their shots. Preseason all-American Craig Brackins had 16 points, 12 rebounds and seven assists. Marquis Gilstrap topped ISU with 25 points.
“We’ve been a team where as our offense goes, so do we,” McDermott said. “It was good for a change to allow our defense to create some things for our offense.”
Changes seem in store for Bradley as well.
“They’ve gotten soft,” Les said of his team. “We want to do it pretty and if those perimeter shots don’t fall in, we hang our heads vs. making the toughness plays, getting to the basket, rebounding the basketball, showing a little resistance defensively.
“We’ll find out who we are over the next six days. We will put the five toughest guys on the floor come the 29th.”
Dave Reynolds can be reached at 686-3210 or at dreynolds@pjstar.com.
