Busting Brackets
Fansided

Missouri Valley Basketball Monday: Loyola stumbles opens up league race

By Harry Schroeder

Drake senior forward ShanQuan Hemphill dunks the ball in the second half against Northern Iowa on Wednesday, Feb. 10, 2021, at the Knapp Center in Des Moines20210210 Drakeuni
Drake senior forward ShanQuan Hemphill dunks the ball in the second half against Northern Iowa on Wednesday, Feb. 10, 2021, at the Knapp Center in Des Moines20210210 Drakeuni /
facebooktwitterreddit
Prev
3 of 4
Next
Bradley head coach Brian Wardle Mikey Howell
Bradley head coach Brian Wardle Mikey Howell /

Bradley Braves on a roll

Bradley head coach Brian Wardle typically has his team playing its best basketball from mid February through the beginning of March. Wardle-led teams were firing on all cylinders in 2019 and 2020 when they came to St. Louis and won back-to-back Arch Madness titles.

During the 2018-19 season, Bradley opened Valley play with five straight losses, but won nine of their final 13 games and and won the three games needed to secure an NCAA bid with a triumph in the conference tournament. After a solid 4-1 start to the 2019-20 conference season, a midseason 2-4 stretch seemed to doom their season. Wardle’s squad rallied to win seven of their final nine games including the three at Arch Madness.

The Braves lost team leader and best player Ja’Shon Henry due to concussion protocols and is out indefinitely. While the team was adjusting to his loss, they opened the Valley season losing four of their first six Valley games. Now they are on a four-game win streak that has them right in the middle of the title race and an excellent seed at the league championships.

Center Rienk Mast is the league’s most improved player and guard Terry Roberts is the conference’s top newcomer. Juco transfer and National JC Player of the Year Malevy Leons have revolutionized this team.

Mast has put together a string of games rivaling what former star Elijah Childs was doing two years ago and Leons is scoring nicely and has become an intimidating, shot-blocking presence. Roberts does a lot of everything and Bradley doesn’t seem to have a weakness.

After seven straight games failing to reach double digits in scoring, Mast has reached at least 13 points, eight straight times, including four with at least 20 points.