Bradley basketball rallies late, but falls to Drake in final game of the regular season

It was just a matter of time before the Bradley Braves made a run at Drake to get a 17-point second-half deficit down to four with 2:17 left Sunday.

But the Braves came up short in a 74-66 loss to Drake at Knapp Center in Des Moines, Iowa, in the Missouri Valley Conference regular-season finale for both teams.

They were unable to make up for lost time — not in the second half, but the first half.

"We lost the game in the last five minutes of the first half," Bradley coach Brian Wardle said. "Defensively very poor, not enough ball pressure, turnovers hurt us all game. Our turnovers were live-ball turnovers. I thought that really hurt us and gave them runs.

"It felt like every time we were on a run we either took a bad shot or we turned the ball over offensively. Defensively, much better in the second half …"

The Braves will be the No. 3 seed, and Drake No. 2 when the Missouri Valley Conference Tournament begins next weekend in St. Louis. Bradley will play at 8:30 p.m. Friday against the winner of No. 6 seed Southern Illinois vs. No. 11 seed Illinois-Chicago, which square off Thursday night.

BU's loss Sunday was nearly by an identical score to Drake's decision at Peoria — 74-67 — back on Feb. 10. In the rematch Sunday, the Braves found themselves wishing for about 5 minutes back in the first half.

BOX SCORE: Drake 74, Bradley 66

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The Braves led 27-26 on a jumper by Malevy Leons with 4:57 left in the first half. Then they missed three shots and had three turnovers on the run to halftime, during which Drake cashed in for a 17-3 blitz for a 43-29 lead at the break. Turnovers by Darius Hannah and Duke Deen in the final 99 seconds were turned into a 3 by DeVries and a layup by Kyron Gibson.

"We were right there, I think it was (27-26) something like that and then we just let the half end poorly," Wardle said. "You can't have a bad 5 minutes, 6 minutes against good teams. Drake is a really good team. Indiana State is a really good team. We're all top 60 teams, very good.

"We've struggled with them because we'll have a lapse and good teams punish you in that five minutes, 6 minutes and they did it again tonight."

The Tucker DeVries Show

Drake star and candidate for MVC Player of the Year Tucker DeVries poured in 23 points in the first half. Bradley held him to six points in the second half, but the damage was done.

"He's an NBA player," Wardle said. "He's going to make shots, he had a tremendous first half. I think we did a little better on him in the second half, maybe wore him down a little bit. But we got to do a much better job competing against him in the first half, and challenging him a little bit more."

Leons did all he could, with a team-high 18 points, six rebounds and four more blocks.

"I let him (DeVriese) go in the beginning, let him hit some shots, and that's when it's really hard to stop him," Leons said. "I got to be better on that. My teammates helped me out in the second half, guarding him, we started to switch more."

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DeVries finished with 29 points on 9-of-20 shooting (2-of-9 from 3-point range), 9-of-9 from the free throw line and four steals in 34 minutes.

Star power

Leons delivered an all-Valley caliber game, but the Braves saw starting guards Connor Hickman and Duke Deen combined for 2-of-11 shooting in the first half. They warmed to the task in the second half and teamed up for 21 points by game's end, including 13 from Deen, who hit a pair of 3s.

Darius Hannah had 10 points and three rebounds, and no other Braves player reached double-figure scoring.

"Malevy performed like an all-Valley guy," Wardle said. "Their stars were stars. We need more guys to perform consistently and perform at a high level down the stretch.

"We got some good looks at key moments … big shots at key moments we missed. Ultimately, we just need consistent play from everyone. Doesn't mean you have to play great or good, just average. That's enough for us, we have that talent. But we can't have multiple guys playing poor, and multiple guys not bringing it both ends of the floor."

In the fine print

Bradley cut its deficit to eight on a dunk from Leons with 13:53 left in the game. But Drake rattled off six free throws and a jumper from DeVries to push right back out to 60-34 with 11:37 left.

Bradley again cut it to 10 on a jumper by Hannah for 60-50 while Drake went over five minutes without a field goal to the 7:11 mark. The Braves then raced to within 65-60 on a 10-2 blitz in a span of 1:44.

Deen put away a jumper at 6:32, then Hickman hit a 3 and followed that with a jumper, and Deen hit a 3 and suddenly it was a five-point game with 3:47 left.

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Leons knocked down a jumper in the paint with 2:17 left to bring Bradley within 68-64, but Drake rattled off six straight free throws to close it out with 13 seconds left.

"I thought we got a lot out of (Connor) Linke … he was in for defense and he did a good job defensively for us," Wardle said. "We need more guys to lock in and produce in their minutes. We had guys playing over 20 minutes not producing, and we got to put up some numbers and produce.

"And that's what it's going to take to beat teams in March, and I told them that."

2024 Arch Madness is next

The Braves head into the 2024 Arch Madness tournament at Enterprise Center in St. Louis as the No. 3 seed.Indiana State is No. 1 and Drake is No. 2.

The No. 4 seed — the final first-round bye — went into a tiebreaker Sunday night with Northern Iowa and Belmont both 12-8. That will be settled Monday morning when the NET rankings come out. Best NET gets the No. 4 seed.

"The tournament is one game at a time and Friday night is the hardest one always, the first one is always hard, you can always lose that," Wardle said. "The arena, and fans, and guys got to get adjusted, and we got to play a lot better than we did tonight in order to win Friday night.

"We got to get better this week, figure some things out, and hopefully we can play better."

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Bradley will play in the quarterfinals at 8:30 p.m. on Friday against the winner of No. 6 Southern Illinois vs. No. 11 UIC. That SIU-UIC game tips on Thursday night at 8:30 p.m.

"We just came off a tough loss where a lot of guys didn't play well," Wardle said. "Hopefully that gives us a chip on our shoulder and keeps us extra motivated.

"We got the No. 3 seed in a very good league, we got to take advantage of that and be ready to go Friday night. But it's going to be a war whoever we play. Anyone can beat anyone, especially in that first game."

They said it

• Bradley head coach Brian Wardle: "If you're an all-Valley guy or think you should be, then you got to perform like it and come out here and really compete and play well and we just didn't have enough guys play well tonight. Pretty much only Malevy did."

• Braves forward Malevy Leons: "We got to understand there is no next game from now on, we gotta play for one more game every time we step on the court. I just enjoy playing basketball, want to keep it going as long as possible. Just lay it all out there every game I play."

• Bradley guard Duke Deen: "We just gotta do what we do. I feel like both times we played (Drake), obviously we could have won but it didn't turn out like that. When we get to St. Louis we got to have a different mindset, a different gear."

• More from Deen: "I think we just try to focus on staying in the game, getting a lead and not giving it up. Once we take a lead on a team of five or more points it's hard to come back on us. We know we can come back if we're down."

Bravely Speaking

Bradley slipped to 21-10 overall and 13-7 in Valley play. … Drake improved to 25-6 (16-4). … NCAA NET rankings before Sunday's game had Indiana State at No. 29, Drake at No. 48 and Bradley at No. 59. ... Drake extended its home-court win streak to 21 games, tied for longest active streak in the nation.

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 deminian@pjstar.com. Follow him on X.com @icetimecleve.

Below are live updates from the game:

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FINAL: Drake 74, Bradley 66

Here come the Braves

4:13 p.m.: The Braves raced to within 65-60 on a 10-2 blitz in a span of 1:44.

Deen put away a jumper at 6:32, then Hickman hit a 3 and followed that with a jumper, and Deen hit a 3 and suddenly it was a five-point game with 3:47 left.

Drake 60, Bradley 50

4:04 p.m.: Bradley cut its deficit to eight on a dunk from Malevy Leons with 13:53 left.

But Drake rattled off six free throws and a jumper from Tucker DeVries to push right back out to 60-34 with 11:37 left.

Bradley again cut it to 10 on a jumper by Darius Hannah for 60-50 while Drake went over five minutes without a field goal to the 7:11 mark.

Leons leads rally

3:48 p.m.: Malevy Leons with six points in early part of second half. His dunk with 13:53 left pulls Bradley within 52-44 and forces Drake timeout.

Duke heating up

3:44 p.m.: BU guard Duke Deen with a pair of layups, the latter and-1, and now has 8 points at the under-16 break. Braves trail by 12.

By the numbers

3:22 p.m.: Bradley got 10 points and 3 rebounds from Malevy Leons. The Braves s2hot 35.7% in the first half.

BU guards Duke Deen and Connor Hickman have a combined 6 points on 2 of 11 shooting.

Drake got 23 points from Tucker DeVries on 7 of 12 shooting from the field plus 7 of 7 from the free throw line. Darnell Brodie added 7 points and 5 rebounds.

HALFTIME: Drake 43, Bradley 29

Work to do

3:18 p.m.: Drake with a big finish in final moments of first half as Tucker DeVries hits a 3 from well-beyond the line, Bradley turns the ball over, and Drake big man Darnell Brodie finishes at the rim for 43-29.

Tucker DeVries has 23 points at the half. Twenty. Three. Points.

Braves slip behind

2:55 p.m.: Christian Davis hit a 3 from the left wing to pull the Braves into an 18-18 tie. Drake eased ahead, 20-18, as the break arrived at 10:16 left.

Braves early lead

2:44 p.m.: Bradley jumped to a 7-2 lead as Drake missed its first three shots. The Bulldogs -- with a 20-game home win streak, tied for longest active in the nation, came back to cut BU's lead to 9-7 at the first media break.

Technical issues

2:32 p.m.: The game broadcast on ESPN2 and ESPN+ was in technical difficulties, and the broadcast team from the site was not on the air at tipoff. Zubin Mehenti and Tom Crean were part of a backup team that handled the broadcast in the interim from ESPN studios.

They could be heard on ESPN2, but the ESPN+ feed had no play-by-play or commentary with it, just crowd noise. Kind of cool, actually.

The issues were fixed -- turned out a power outage 20 minutes before the game at Knapp Center blew out an audio board for ESPN -- and the crew was on the air at the midway point of the first half.

Starting lineups

2:28 p.m.: Bradley's regular-season finale lineup includes guards Connor Hickman and Duke Deen, with forwards Almar Atlason, Malevy Leons and Darius Hannah.

Drake counters with DeVries, Brodie, Enright, Wright and Overton.

This article originally appeared on Journal Star: Bradley basketball loses to Drake final game of regular season