Why the Bradley basketball team looked so different as official practices began

PEORIA — The Bradley Braves put behind them a summer of workouts and swimming pool challenges and medicine ball volleyball competitions, weight-moving mental challenges, yoga, running parking lots, Wiffle ball games and community service.

The defending regular-season Missouri Valley Conference champions hit the court hard in their first two days of official practices for the 2023-24 season.

"We did all the things we love to do in the offseason, some of them for team building, some of them to break up routine," Bradley coach Brian Wardle said Monday after his team wrapped up practice on the hilltop. "We practiced hard today. It's about teaching and habits and moving the team forward.

"Our team looks better than it did a month ago. And a month ago it looked better than it did two months ago. That's progress we want."

More: An inside look at Bradley's conference schedule — and its path to contention in the MVC

Everything is carefully calculated and scripted. Every moment comes with a goal attached. Even the Oct. 1 start date was with a purpose.

"I was a college player, too," Wardle said. "I never start official practices in September. I think you risk burning out your players with those 3-4 hour practices that early. Oct. 1 is a purposeful start."

A blast from the past

Bradley's great guard, Darrell Brown Jr., was hired in late June as director of player development. One of the greatest players in Braves history, he was on the court Monday with the ball, playing with and against the current Braves in some drills.

"I wanted our team to be exposed to a guy we know can play," Wardle said of the BU star from 2016-20.

Magnificent Malevy

Malevy Leons says he put on 10 pounds and feels stronger than he did last season — when he became the first player in MVC history to block 50 shots and record 50 steals in a single season. The reigning MVC Defensive Player of the Year knows part of his challenge in 2023-24 will be a standard set by his own big numbers of a year ago.

"I feel like it's a blessing, honestly," Leons said. "Having those high expectations on me, I just will go after it every day."

Leons was asked what stood out to him in these first two practices:

• "We drive to the net really well."

• "We can run. We're literally fast."

• "It's going to be a different kind of team at first. Our newcomers are filling their roles well already. All the new guys are showing flashes of how they are going to help the team."

More: These four players are projected to start for the Bradley Braves in 2023-24

Leons will end up as a starter at the 3 or 4 spots in Bradley's lineups, depending on how the team wants to set up for a given opponent and who wins battles for a starting role.

"A 3 is fine, a 4 is fine, anywhere is fine," Leons said. "I just want to be on the floor. That's the position I want."

From Iceland to Peoria

Newly arrived and highly-touted forward Almar Atlason joked about the distance from his home in his native Iceland to Peoria.

"Iceland is so tiny, it's barely on the map," he laughed. "But it's actually only about a six-hour flight to Chicago."

The 6-foot-8 forward, who played some high school ball in the U.S. and has dominated internationally, was asked for his first impressions of BU and the college game:

• "Being together. This team values closeness and I'm learning to be part of all this."

• "Talk. Being vocal on the floor

• "The speed of the game is a lot different from back home."

The coach's corner

Wardle was asked for two things he liked about his team's opening practices, and what the biggest difference will be in this year's team from the one that won the program's first regular-season Valley championship in 27 years last year.

• "I love the effort I'm seeing running the floor and going to the offensive glass," Wardle said.

• "We don't have the post scorers we had last year (in Mast and Henry). We're going to have to play with more pace. The team will need to drive and kick better. And we have more 3-point shooting."

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Speaking of pace, Wardle set up one drill where the team had two minutes — running full court five-on-five — to score 100 points. They reached 97 points in their first attempt. He whistled off the challenge in their second attempt because they reached 51 points so fast he said "You guys are crushing that."

Let's get physical

The Braves produced some stunning numbers in their fitness testing, as every member of the team passed for the first time in Wardle's reign here.

Here are some of the high points:

• Point guard Duke Deen logged a vertical leap of 43 inches.

• Shooting guard Connor Hickman — who now looks like he's cut from stone — recorded five test results that matched or surpassed now-graduated forward Ja'Shon Henry, who was perhaps the strongest player in the Valley. Hickman benched 185 pounds at 28 reps. He did 40 chin-ups, set records for fastest lane agility drills and fastest 3/4 court sprint, and turned in a 41-inch vertical.

• The team has 10 players whose wingspan is +4 over their height.

• Malevy Leons increased his vertical leap by 5 inches.

• 7-foot-1, 260-pound center Ahmet Jonovic lowered his body fat by 4% and increased his vertical leap.

• Both forwards Christian Davis and Darius Hannah are playing 10 pounds heavier, lowered their body fat percentages, increased their vertical and increased their bench reps at 185 pounds. Big center Ahmet Jonovic looks also significantly stronger, and he's now sporting a much fuller beard.

"Our strengths got stronger and didn't stay stagnant," said longtime Bradley director of sports performance Eddie Papis on the team's increases in key performance indicators. "And our weaknesses are becoming strengths and producing visible benefits on the court."

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 Twitter @icetimecleve.

This article originally appeared on Journal Star: Bradley basketball looked bigger, stronger, faster as official practices begin