Wednesday, January 13, 2016 6:00 p.m.
Gentile Arena, Chicago

Everyone knew that the Bradley Braves were going to struggle after a housecleaning and exodus resulting in only three holdovers from Geno Ford’s regime. The Braves’ new coach Brian Wardle spent five years at Green Bay and turned in a 95-65 record (including a 5-1 record against Loyola), winning 24 games in each of the last two seasons. Bradley won their opening game of the season by a single point, and have lost all 15 games since against Division I foes. Yet 2-15 Bradley enters their game against Loyola with a better RPI (259) than the 7-9 Ramblers (267).

Only Mike Shaw, Ka’Darryl Bell and Donte Thomas survived Bradley’s 24-loss 2014-15 season, and Shaw and Bell have since ended their senior seasons with injuries. Sophomore Thomas leads 10 (?!??!) freshmen filling out the roster. With the arrival of conference play, the youngsters are wilting under the heated competition; Bradley is averaging only 45.2 points on offense in conference, and only 39.5 in the past two games. No Bradley starter has finished a game in double-figure points since conference play began.

The Braves almost always start two guards, a center, and two forwards. In the backcourt are 6’3” Brit Dwayne Lautier-Ogunleye and 6’1” Antoine Pittman (out of Rockford Auburn, Fred Van Vleet’s high school program). The two principal ball handlers have shown some promise (19 points for Lautier-Ogunleye against Seton Hall, and Pittman leads the team in free throw percentage), but only average 8.6 and 7.4 points per game respectively. Neither starting guard averages more than 37% shooting from the field, and they combine for 90 turnovers against only 54 assists.

The frontcourt situation is a little brighter. Six seven sophomore forward Donte Thomas leads the team in points (8.9), rebounds (5.6) and field goal percentage (46.0%). Luuk van Bree, a 6’9” Dutch forward adds 4.2 rebounds and 6.9 points per game; he leads the team in made threes (21) and three point percentage (31.8%).

At center is 6’9” Callum Barker out of Australia, who nearly attended Loyola before heading to Peoria. Barker is getting a ton of playing time and averaging 5.8 points and 4.2 rebounds. He leads the team with eight blocks, but the big center has taken 24 three point attempts (for comparison, Loyola guard Earl Peterson has taken 20 three point attempts on the season) and hit on only three of them. His two point shooting percentage is an excellent 58.2%, but his many ill-advised three point attempts sink his overall shooting percentage to 44.3%.

Skinny 6’5” guard Ronnie Suggs (6.9 ppg), 6’7” forward Scottie James (4.4 points, 3.0 rpg), and 5’11” Joel Okafor get most of the time off the bench.

Not surprisingly given their dearth of experience, Bradley leads the nation in many dubious categories. The Braves are dead last in all of college basketball in turnovers (309 committed, 18.2 per game), and second from last in three point percentage (25.2%) and points per game (54.3). They are #1 in the nation in personal fouls (401 committed, 14 times players fouling out), and have put their opponents on the free throw line 461 times-- third most in college hoops.

After Loyola met Notre Dame on December 13, the Ramblers entered a streak of eight very winnable games concluding with Wednesday’s game against Bradley. The idea was Loyola would go 6-2 or 7-1 in the stretch; instead they’re headed into the Bradley game at 2-5 in those eight winnable games, and not playing with enough confidence or energy to give fans any confidence of a win even against 2-15 Bradley. Yet one of these two teams will avoid an 0-5 conference record on Wednesday… it might as well be the Ramblers.

Loyola game notes: http://grfx.cstv.com/photos/schools/loy ... 112aaa.pdf

Bradley game notes: http://grfx.cstv.com/photos/schools/loy ... a_brad.pdf

TV/Streaming video: Comcast SportsNet

Vegas odds: Loyola by 13.5

As bad as Bradley has been on offense, we are giving them a run for their money. Of 351 D1 teams, here are where both teams rank in some selected stats from KenPom.com:

Adjusted offensive efficiency (points per 100 poss.):

351 - Bradley (81.9)
310 - Loyola (94.5)

Turnover rate:

351 - Bradley (26.5%)
283 - Loyola (20.3%)

Offensive rebound %:

289 - Bradley (25.7%)
311 - Loyola (24.4%)

A bright spot... Three Point Shooting:

351 - Bradley (24.5%)
95 - Loyola (36.6%)

... except... in conference games, Loyola is shooting just 28.6% on three pointers.

If you like offense, you might want to change the channel.

_________________
MBB Scholarship Chart

Thanks for those good numbers, ahunte1. I'll just add a few more key numbers for Loyola, good and bad.

Loyola is 36th in the nation in opponents turnovers, and 31st in points allowed per game. (For comparison, Wichita State is 34th and 20th in those two numbers).

On the bad side-- and I think you can zero in on this as to where we're suffering on offense-- Loyola shoots only 45.4% on two point field goal attempts, which ranks 304th. Last year, we shot 51.2% and ranked 64th nationally in that number.

Also, we are doing really good on making our free throws (73.1%, ranking 50th) but we hardly ever get to the line-- only 264 attempts, ranking 322nd. Drake is the only other team in the MVC with fewer than 300 free throw attempts (they've still got 33 more than we do), and some teams (Evansville and SIU) have over 400 free throw attempts and have MADE more free throws than we've ATTEMPTED. Those are points left on the floor from avoiding contact and not wisely using our advantages.

These stats cry out at the effect of losing Christian Thomas. He shot 58% on two point shots, and got to the line 107 times last year (tied for the team lead). Donte Ingram, the player who effectively replaced Thomas (not exactly, but mostly), is a superb free throw shooter (89.5%!!!) but is on pace to get to the line only 43 times if he plays the same number of games as CT did last year. Meanwhile, Earl Peterson, Ben Richardson, and Tyson Smith are all shooting better from three point territory than on two pointers. I think that's a product of no one taking up space in the lane to clear a drive to the basket.

We are some fourteen and one half point faves !! My prediction still stands --a win for us 57-53 in a magnificent display of OXEN-BALL ! As you know, this is what weak teams do--I really hope I am wrong really wrong and we blitz the Braves , but I doubt we will.

It would take some serious marbles to put real money on the Ramblers giving 14+ points!!!

Brot you have turned from an optimist to a pessimist right in front of my eyes........Im saying 58-53

Mr. Doom and Gloom is going to predict that Loyola covers the spread tonight. 78- 61
I think the pro Bradley crowd is going to fire up our guys.

Natey !! This team made me do it !!

86 ! I truly hope you are correct--But it is kinda sad tho, basing our resurgence on the opponent's crowd !!!

As some Pol once said--"Look at the record !!!! "

I like Jeff getting the start. It's been a rough streak but I hope this game turns it around.

This is Keke's hometown team in his senior year. Think about Bradley and Loyola's respective positions in the college basketball hierarchy when he committed to Loyola. It's got to feel good that we're not only in the same league now, we've beaten them three times in a row coming into this game.