'It's heartbreaking': Bradley Braves come up short in MVC tournament
· Yahoo Sports
ST. LOUIS — The Bradley Braves battled through the physical war that was their Missouri Valley Conference Tournament semifinal Saturday against Northern Iowa.
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But no war wounds sustained were worse than the one hurt that no one could see after the No. 2 seeds ran out of time, and ran out of season, in a 73-69 loss to No. 6 UNI at Enterprise Center.
"It's heartbreaking," Bradley head coach Brian Wardle said, joined by some of his players for a post-game session with eyes rimmed red. "For me, and these four seniors, because they came here to get an opportunity to go to the NCAA tournament and we fell short. It's just a tough, tough loss."
The road to the automatic NCAA tournament bid looked wide open for Bradley after No. 1 Belmont, No. 3 Illinois State and No. 4 Murray State were all upset. But No. 6 Northern Iowa and its NCAA No. 1-ranked scoring defense blocked that path, and now those Panthers will play No. 5 seed University of Illinois-Chicago in the title game Sunday.
UNI shot 71% in the first half and drove big Bradley center Ahmet Jonovic to the bench after he picked up two fouls in the game's first five minutes. The Braves fell into an 18-point deficit. They cut it down to 13 at the half.
"Emotions are high, a lot of tears in that locker room," Wardle said. "I apologize to my seniors for not getting them to the NCAA tournament. That's never easy to say as a coach. But I'm proud of them. I really enjoyed coaching this team, even though I got frustrated at times, they made me better.
"We challenged each other at halftime. And I thought we had good momentum throughout the second half, we just couldn't make the big shots in the big moments. It's heartbreaking for me and our four seniors, because they came here to get an opportunity to go to the NCAA tournament and we fell short.
"It's just a tough, tough loss."
The intensity was elevated by two fan bases standing through most of the second half, adding to the frenzy of an 18-point margin whittled down to three by Bradley in the final moments.
"They are all hard when you end up in Arch Madness and you don't win it," Wardle said. "This is a hard one on all of us."
A runaway train
UNI shot up the place in the first half, getting a 13-point effort on 6 of 7 shooting from Leon Bond III.
They rattled off seven points in 90 seconds for a 27-17 lead, forcing Bradley to take a timeout with 8:31 left in the half.
Ben Schwieger hit a jumper. Then BU big man Corey Thomas missed at the rim as the shot clock expired, and RJ Taylor came down and hit a stepback 3.
The Braves tried to answer with a 3 by freshman Montana Wheeler, but it didn't go. UNI cleaned up the rebound, fed Taylor, and he knocked in a jumper for 27-17.
Northern Iowa went up 32-19 with 6:18 left in the half when Leon Bond III launched in a 3-pointer from the left wing, then retreated down the floor with his tongue sticking out.
Everything went in. Wheeler fired up an air ball, UNI gathered it in and headed the other way, and Trey Campbell stuck it for a 3-pointer and a 37-19 lead with 4:09 left in the half.
"It's a lot of sadness and frustration with myself," BU senior forward A.J. Smith said. "I was in a defensive matchup and, well, he had a game, a great game. I had some mental mistakes and as a senior, and you just can't have those in these types of games.
"Right now I don't even know how to feel."
Dave Eminian is the Journal Star sports columnist, and covers Bradley men's basketball, the Rivermen and Chiefs. He writes the Cleve In The Eve sports column for pjstar.com. He can be reached at 686-3206 or [email protected]. Follow him on X.com @icetimecleve.
This article originally appeared on Journal Star: Arch Madness: Bradley Braves eliminated in semifinals by Northern Iowa