Missouri Valley Conference Basketball News

CIT Semifinals: Bradley's defense is terrific in win over Pacific

After surviving the basketball equivalent of a near-death experience, the Bradley Braves defended with an accordingly high sense of urgency.
 
Any team that uses a 75-foot buzzer-beater to escape defeat should be mentally liberated in its next tournament game, and that's exactly what coach Jim Les saw in his energetic ballclub on Wednesday night in Peoria. An active Bradley defense stifled the University of Pacific at the defensive end of the floor, carrying the Braves to a 59-49 victory in the CIT semifinals. Bradley now awaits tomorrow's James Madison-Old Dominion winner in next week's championship game.
 
Last year, Bradley reached the championship series of the inaugural CBI Tournament, so the Braves--when given the chance--decided to double their fun and go the distance in the first installment of another new postseason tournament.  In future seasons, this Missouri Valley school will want to make NIT finals or NCAA first-round games, but for now, it's still an impressive feat to make the final round of two straight late-March tournaments. Next week, only a dozen teams will be playing Division I-A basketball, and Bradley will be one of them. Such a fact offers proof that in the postseason, coach Les has done more with his BU roster.
 

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Bradley will indeed play for the CIT title because the Braves hounded coach Bob Thomason's Tigers at the defensive end of the court. Bradley made the U of P a jump shot-based team, so much so that the visitors from Stockton, Calif., earned only 7 free throw attempts, compared to 13 for the Braves. Pacific enjoyed modest success behind the 3-point arc, hitting 7-of-22 long-distance shots, but the Tigers could never find any consistency, and that's why they suffered through many fruitless possessions. U of P guard Chad Troyer, the team's second leading scorer for the season (11 points per game), was held to a nightmarish 1-of-11 performance that included a 1-of-8 shooting display behind the arc. The ability of Bradley's guards to contest perimeter shots and yet not get beaten on dribble penetration represented the whole key to this conquest in Carver Arena.
 
Another particularly telling stat in this game, other than the free throw disparity, came from the assists column. Any basketball-savvy observer knows that a team's offensive efficiency can be measured largely by the percentage of made field goals that come from assists. Both teams hit 19 shots in this contest, but Pacific tallied only 10 assists compared to 15 for Bradley, with Braves guard Sam Maniscalco dropping 5 dimes to his teammates. The differential in assists accurately explained what transpired on the court: Pacific generated very little rhythm in its halfcourt sets, and had to rely a lot on individual plays to score. Bradley, though hampered by 17 turnovers, was still able to break down the Tigers' defense with more motion and passing. Teams that score from passes usually beat teams that play one-on-one ball, and that's exactly what happened in this semifinal matchup.

The better defensive team won this game, and Jim Les has to be satisfied that his team, not Pacific, earned such a distinction. Bradley responded to the "Prayer in Peoria"--otherwise known as the Chris Roberts miracle on Monday against Oakland--with a level of defensive intensity one should expect from an ultimate survivor.
 
Now, with one more hungry and highly competitive performance, Bradley's never-say-die team could follow up its 2008 CBI title with a 2009 CIT trophy.

By: Matt Zemek
DFN Sports Staff Writer