Fresh and fun: Bradley basketball extends win streak with blowout win over Evansville

PEORIA — Bradley was in the midst of a run against Evansville and beginning to put the Purple Aces out of reach on Wednesday night. Connor Hickman decided to drive in the final nail with a little spice.

The junior guard took a pass, crossed up Evansville defender Chuck Bailey III, stepped back, buried a jumper and waved "goodbye." That sequence was a microcosm of a night full of fun as the Braves won their fifth consecutive basketball game, 86-50, at Carver Arena.

Highlights came in bunches for Bradley, who sank 14 3-pointers, powered home multiple dunks and forced 22 turnovers to move to 11-5 overall and 3-2 in Missouri Valley Conference play.

BOX SCORE: Bradley 86, Evansville 50

“It’s fun when your team is together, enjoying it, playing with joy, playing unselfishly and playing hard and competing,” Bradley coach Brian Wardle said. “That's what you want as a coach, when you see that no matter what the score is, or honestly the result, if your team is doing that.”

Freshman Demarion Burch led the way with a career-high 15 points while senior Malevy Leons, junior guard Christian Davis, senior guard Duke Deen and freshman forward Almar Atlason all scored 11.

“We have a team that doesn't care about who's the leading scorer and that's obvious,” Wardle said. “I think that's kind of what our program stands by.”

The Braves put up yet again another gaudy point total because of their defense, with which BU limited Evansville to 38 percent shooting and 24 percent from 3-point range. Helping the cause were active hands on the defensive end that led to myriad transition opportunities, and high-percentage looks in the second half.

“Our defense for the whole second half was just tremendous,” Burch said. “We had high energy and we just kept it going, and we were just hitting shots to and finding the open man all the time so that's that helped us get the lead.”

Bradley is one game shy of matching its season-opening win streak of six games. They are 3-2 in the MVC, one game behind a group of five teams crowded together for a share of the top spot.

Big night from a freshman

Burch went 6-for-6 from the field and was the spark to the Braves’ flame. His night started with his only 3-pointer of the game, which stopped a small Evansville run in response to an 11-2 opening run from Bradley. The Milwaukee, Wisconsin, native then sank a stepback jumper for a personal 5-0 stretch that made it 18-8 Braves early.

“Everybody's super happy for him because we've seen the work that he's put in from the summer to now and the role that he's had, he's really embraced it and he's embraced everything about the program,” Davis said.

Those early shots brought the freshman confidence, a large factor in his emergence as the season goes along.

“It’s about confidence for me, because at first I didn’t think I had the confidence,” Burch said. “But my team just helped me gain confidence over time.”

Wardle spoke highly of Burch, as well as his freshman counterpart Atlason, whose 11 points were fueled by three triples and two assists.

“[Burch] is real confident in his role right now,” Wardle said. “I think bringing [Hickman] back helps him; he knows when he's going in, he knows where he's going and our rotations are consistent, which usually helps players find rhythm and confidence.”

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Bradley’s best stretches in the win usually featured Burch, who slammed home a breakaway dunk off of a no-look pass from Hickman in the first half that was part of a 13-2 Braves run to put them up 34-21 shortly before the half. In the second, Burch heaved a long and accurate pass to Davis for another fast break slam, which was part of a 7-0 stretch to go up 50-31 early in the second half.

All the while, Burch’s intense defense stifled Evansville guards Antonio Thomas (a former Bradley player), Kenny Strawbridge and Cameron Haffner to just 11 points combined.

“I feel like I got a big defensive role in the team and that's what keeps me on the floor, just playing hard defense [and] competing against the older guys in practice,” Burch said. “That just molded me.”

With guard Emarion Ellis recently leaving the team, Burch’s role off the bench has become all the more important. Early morning practice sessions with coaches Darrell Brown and Mike Black have paid off for the freshman and efforts like his on Wednesday are encouraging for Bradley’s coaching staff to see.

“He's defending much better," Wardle said "Hopefully, the game starts to slow down a little more for him, but we needed some baskets from him tonight and he made some big baskets at big times, and I think if he just cuts back on a turnover here or there, he's just going to keep getting better and better.”

Big night on defense

Evansville, which has made significant strides in the second year under coach David Ragland, was only in the game for a moment. The closest the visitors got was 21-19 after a layup from Bailey III with 7:12 left in the first.

From there, the Braves used a 17-4 run that was jump-started by forcing turnovers and 3-point misses, which the Purple Aces struggled with all night.

“Our zone helped us during that stretch, we got a couple of steals and turnovers than got out in transition for some easy baskets and that kind of opened the game up,” Wardle said. “[It] gave us some momentum.”

Carrying a 41-26 lead into halftime, Wardle wanted to break the game wide open via defensive stops.

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Following a cold 0-for-6 start from the field in the second half, Bradley forced eight of Evansville’s 12 second-half turnovers in a stretch between the 14:14 and 9:02 marks, leading to many more good looks. Twenty-three of the Braves’ points came off 22 turnovers.

Two treys from Deen plus another from Davis, along with a fast break dunk from Hannah highlighted a 23-3 Braves run in between the 14:14 and 9:02 marks of the second half to put them ahead 66-34.

“The defense was pretty consistent, I like how we guarded for 30-35 minutes of the game,” Wardle said. “Overall, our defense stayed strong even when we weren't making some shots, and that ignited our offense. When you string together kill streaks, you know three stops in a row, good things can happen, especially if you're out in transition, and it did for us tonight.”

This article originally appeared on Journal Star: Bradley Braves basketball vs. Evansville in Missouri Valley game