The Northwestern Wildcats defeated the Bradley Braves in the battle of Illinois teams in Fort Myers, Florida on Monday night.
Northwestern looked nothing like the team that lost to Merrimack and Rider in blowing out Bradley 78-51 in the first round of the Rocket Mortgage Fort Myers Tipoff.
After Bradley scored the first six points of the game the Wildcats went on a 16-2 run and effectively put the game away. Bradley would close it to 23-17 but another big run by Northwestern would put them up by 18 at the half.
Bradley tried to make a run early in the second half but the Wildcats always had an answer. Good three-point shooting and great passes inside allowed Northwestern to get easy shots all night long.
The Wildcats spent most of the second half up by 20 or more as Bradley just couldn’t seem to stop the Wildcats offense and when they did they couldn’t score on the other end
Pat Spencer was a big reason why Northwestern was ahead big in the first half as he scored 12 points in the first half and finished with 23 for the game on 9-12 shooting and 3-3 from the outside. Miller Kopp also had a great first half scoring 11 on 4-4 shooting including 3-3 from deep.
While Bradley struggled as a team Elijah Childs and Darrell Brown did all they could to keep them in the game. They combined for 27 of the teams 51 points. The problem is they didn’t get much help from the rest of the team as the next leading scorer only had seven.
The win for the Wildcats is a far cry from their games against Merrimack and Rider and showed how coach Chris Collins has done a great job of keeping his team focused even with the tough start to the season.
Bradley, on the other hand, got their first dose of reality after coming into the game 4-1. It doesn’t get any easier for the Braves as they play Kansas State on Wednesday in the third-place game and then head to Memphis next Tuesday. It will probably get worse before it gets better for Bradley.
Northwestern will play Pitt for the Championship on Wednesday night at 8:30 from Suncoast Credit Union Arena in Fort Myers, Florida.