Welcome Back Bradley, You Get Izzo!

Braves Back in the Dance

(St. Louis, MO) – Bradley had never won a St. Louis version of the Missouri Valley Conference Tournament and had been absent from the NCAA Tournament since 2006. With their Arch Madness championship, Brian Wardle’s team snapped those negative streaks and Braves are back in the dance.

Bradley (20-14) finished the Valley season winning nine of 13 games and then swept through three games in St. Louis. Elijah Childs was the tournament’s ‘Most Outstanding Player’ by tacking on three double digit scoring performances and a double-double in the semifinals.

Dwayne Lautier-Ogunleye was the star of Bradley’s come-back win in the championship game win over Northern Iowa. The London-born senior scored nine points in the game’s final 3:44, including six-for-six from the free-throw line in the contest’s final 1:58.

Wardle says ‘DLO’ leads by effort, energy and passion. His ability to come through in the clutch is as much about hard work as it is about grit.

 

 

The long-suffering, basketball-loving Bradley fans are a lot happier than after the Braves’ first five Valley games.

 

 

Confidence is the Key

So what changed the Bradley season around? Wardle says everyone wants to know the big secret that changed everything. The fourth year head coach says his team was playing well all along, they just weren’t making shots. There was no inspirational speech or schematic changes. Wardle says they started making shots, won a game and the players regained their confidence.

 

 

Wardle has built this team from a five-win squad four years ago to back-to-back 20-win seasons and now they are back in the dance. He preaches that every player and every role is critical and that players can be ‘star role players’. I asked him about Luuk van Bree’s contributions at Arch Madness.

 

 

Star Players

Darrell Brown (second team all conference) and Childs (third team) are clearly the Bradley star players. If the Braves are to go far in the NCAA Tournament those two will have to contribute in big ways. Brown leads the team in scoring (14.7 points per game), assists (3.1) and threes (2.2 per game), while Childs is second in scoring (12.2 ppg) and leads in rebounds (7.8) and blocked shots (47).

Wardle says those two players are a great inside-out combination.

 

 

Wardle says there are plenty of pieces around those two stars.

 

 

Wardle on Wardle

I asked the Chicago native to describe himself. He says he is an opitimistic, competitive guy that sometimes rubs people the wrong way.

 

 

Tournament Opponent

Bradley is back in the tournament and they come into March Madness as a 15 seed. They’ll play Thursday against No. 2 Michigan State. The Spartans (28-6) won the Big Ten Tournament championship Sunday, but lost Kyle Ahrens to an ankle injury.

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