Category: basketball

Basketball and hills

Workout notes: I walked/jogged 8 miles this morning outdoors; I walked to Bradley Park and ran up each of the first 5 hills; that HURT. I walked the second hilly stretch so total was 8 miles. But I was surprised at how out of breath I got; I need to do more workouts like this one.

Friday and Saturday saw two Bradley Basketball wins: On Friday night, Bradley built up a 16 point lead and then held off a Radford rally to win 70-61; note that Bradley was only a 3 point favorite and Radford owned a win over Big Ten member Northwestern. Bradley shot 49 percent (compared to 42 for Radford) and had a 13 rebound edge; free throws were even.

Saturday: the Braves beat Miami of Ohio 79-68 in a game that wasn’t as close as the final score might indicate. With 2:19 to go, Bradley lead 74-54 and the coach cleared the bench.

It was a good weekend for Bradley Basketball.

Redbirds beat Bears in turnover fest; Bradley beats UIC in basketball

Ok, I got my own workouts in:
Saturday: slow 1:19 Cornstalk 10K run. Sunday: dead lifts in the basement: 5 x 135, 5 X 185, miss 225 (rounded back), 5 x 205, 5 x 185, 5 x 135 sumo, then a 10K plus hilly walk in Bradley park.

Saturday: I made the Illinois State vs. Missouri State game. It was a close one: 17-12 ISU, though Mo. State made it interesting.
The offenses mostly sputtered though two interceptions set up the first Redbird touchdown. The Bears responded with a lovely 74 yard touchdown run up the middle. A weird miss on the 2 point conversion left it 7-6.
A long drive made it 14-6, but Mo. St. got a field goal to cut it to 14-9 at the half.

In the 3’rd: a long Bear drive was thwarted with a botched shotgun formation snap; that lead to a field goal and a 17-9 lead. Mo. State cut it to 17-12 midway through the 4’th.
A turn over set up Mo. State at the 50 but they could not advance and with 2:30 to go in the game, ISU appeared to be in position to run out the clock with a first down. But the 4’th Redbird turnover (fumble with a return) set Mo. State. up late in the game where they got down to the Redbird 8 with first and goal to goal. On the next play, they made it to the 3 where they had 3 tries, but the Redbird defense came through.

Though the game had 42 F and somewhat sunny weather (not that bad..I was actually slightly overdressed), few were there to see it. Official attendance: 5701 though there were lots of no-shows.

That evening: my Hostage and I caught a Bradley Basketball game vs. Illinois-Chicago. UIC came in depleted and BU was favored by 11.5. But woeful first half shooting had the Braves in a 33-25 hole. Great defense held UIC to 10 points in the next 14 minutes or so and Bradley regained the lead (took about 7:20 to tie it at 33) The lead got up to 13 and ended 65-56.

Attendance: 5411 was the official count, though the arena, for a change, looked as if it actually had that many.

photos:

There was drama at the end; the 1-8 Bears showed up and played hard. Both teams made enough mistakes to keep the other team in it.

Great ball game!

The evening basketball game:

Bradley basketball teams win exhibitions ..

Earlier this week, the Men beat D3 Millikin 91-52. It was hard to tell much, though Bradley deliberately tried to play fast.
Today, the women beat D2 Illinois Springfield 74-62; the game was 54-26 in the 3’rd before Bradley appeared to go into coast mode; giving up 40 points in 1.5 quarters is concerning to me..at least a bit.

But teams often need a preseason game to get the kinks out.