To have a first exhibition game a month before the season actually starts is both fun but also should come with a lot of question marks.
The backstory on this one should be well-known to most Bradley fans as Head Coach Brian Wardle was head coach at Green Bay for five years (2010-15) and another five as an assistant (2005-10). This was an opportunity to also retire a number of one of Wardle’s best players at Green Bay (Keifer Sykes) and have Wardle in attendance for it.
Logo credit: Sportslogos.net
There’s a lot to unpack in a first game, especially with a team that has many new faces this season. Let’s get into it.
Starting Five
21 AJ Smith (F)
14 Ahmet Jonovic (C) (Nickname “Meta” - will refer to him this way)
3 Alex Huibregtse (G)
22 Jaquan Johnson (G)
0 Demarion Burch (G)
» Two regulars from last year (Johnson, Burch) come as no surprise in the lineup.
» Jonovic will likely split starting time with Corey Thomas, so I could have seen either in there.
» Huibregtse and Smith are newcomers and have the most experience so neither of these were a shock.
My game breakdowns will be a little different than what you’d normally read in a game recap. I’m not always going to focus on what you can already read in a box score. I’d rather focus my time on carving out interesting individual moments and giving you an opportunity to see a little more detail than what you’re reading in that recap.
Let me be super clear: I’m not using AI to write anything in these articles. It’s just not the spirit of what I’m trying to do.
Tipoff
Breakdown (Clock Time / Stream Time from ESPN+; Streaming Link)
1st Half 19:54 (7:09) - Quick possession, likely a first play out of the gate designed by the coaching staff. They’re often really effective at these and it worked easily on the first possession. There’s a quick weave from Johnson to Huibregtse at the top of the key. The play is made by Huibregtse as he dribbles towards the right sideline and hands off to Burch. Watch how he subtly steps toward (but not illegally) Burch’s defender, essentially pulling two defenders out of position. Burch takes the handoff down the lane and scores easily at the rim.
19:39 (7:25) - Meta gets lost on a backdoor screen but recovers quickly and uses his length to cause Ramel Bethea (GB #0) to dribble the ball off of his foot. While you look at it on the surface and you would hope he wouldn’t lose a man getting screened by a small guard, he did show good quickness and positioning to cause a turnover.
18:11 (9:35) - Simple possession but watch Meta’s footwork. He works hard for position on the block, takes two dribbles but does two great things: 1. He pump fakes while keeping his feet set and 2. He keeps the ball away from the defender while not bringing it all the way down to be stripped which he’s struggled with in the past. Simple move, simple basket.
JJ misses another 3
Marcus Hall (GB #13) hits two threes over Smith, one he’s up defending and it’s a lucky bank in, the second he’s too slow on D to recover.
15:24 (15:56) - Wheeler, Van Der Knapp & Thomas come in the for the first time. Another play out of the huddle it appears, with Wheeler getting a screen from Thomas, then tossing it to him. The aspect that catches Green Bay off guard is how quickly Thomas whips it back to Wheeler and he’s got 4 feet of space on his defender. A quick step to his left and he’s gone to the hoop for a basket - positive first impression of the backup point guard. (Wheeler will leverage a screen and defenders dropping off of him from his last drive on the next possession and steps back and knocks down a three. He’ll end up hitting one more three two possessions later and has a quick eight points.)
Van Der Knapp (12:35) gets fouled on aggressive play to the hoop and gets the FTs
12:27 (20:48) - Johnson’s been having a tough half to start with some missed open looks but makes his first positive play getting his hands in for a steal in the paint, running it back the other way and feeding Smith for the first “Kaboom” of the (pre-)season. This forces GB into their first timeout and the Braves are on a run.
11:09 (24:53) - Meta again. He won’t be able to overpower everyone like that but he gets isolation in the post again, takes his time and uses his footwork for another layup. (This makes up for the previous possession where he misses two bunnies in the lane on rebounds.)
9:20 (28:05) - Huibregtse gets his first open 3 and nails it after Bully pulls his defender off of him. Nice clean look and the form is solid - you can see this sort of play developing a lot across the season.
Defense has strung together some stops on the other end and forcing GB into mistakes. The lead balloons to 27-16 at the under 8 timeout and goes to 30-16 after another Huibregtse contested three.
6:50 (35:12) - Zobrist is seeing his first action and watch how while he’s more open than Van Der Knapp for 3, he doesn’t just stop and see if it goes in. He gets good positioning in the lane and tears down a rebound with two Green Bay defenders nearby who honestly seemed to not even notice he had crashed the glass so hard. This leads to a third three from Huibregtse off a screen.
6:07 (35:55) - One more really good possession to note here as Meta gets the ball too far from the basket and I think he knows it, near the baseline about 10 feet from the basket. Watch Zobrist on the play. He flashes down toward the paint and I thought originally he was looking for a pass. But, he’s actually motioning Meta to throw it over him to Van Der Knapp at the 3-point line. Meta sees it, makes a great skip and Zobrist throws a big screen at Josh Hines (GB #1) in the paint who proceeds to throw him out of bounds. Job was done though - TVK nails the three and another timeout comes from GB with 5:55 left in the half and BU up 36-19.
The best part, watch the huddle after the timeout. Half the team including Coach Wardle are pumping up Zobrist for the play, so they all saw how astute it was for him to see it.
Lead has grown, but will it continue?
I’m drawing a line here because this felt like an inflection point where it felt Bradley was going to blow the game open and win by 30. To this point, Johnson was having a rough half, missing multiple open shots including two layups. Burch also was a bit off, so being up that much felt like lopsided win was coming.
The next possession Meta gets beat badly on defense for an easy basket (36-21).
Then a rushed three by Wheeler.
5:20 (38:06) Meta then doesn’t move his feet on defense and I’m sure Wardle is going to pull him but he doesn’t have the quick hook this time. Out of the inbounds, Meta leaves the paint open for another layup (36-23).
4:46 (39:02) Yet, we’re all in the for whole Meta experience because then back on offense the team gets stagnant for a possession and he’s forced to catch the ball outside the 3-point line and somehow dribbles, spins and makes a running one hander before the end of the shot clock.
(In this stretch we get our first view of Dietrich Richardson who looks a little tentative and picks up a foul.)
3:44 (40:27) Zobrist has already scored on the last offensive possession on a simple but effective cut and pass from Thomas (40-23). But, we’re not done with Zobrist. Watch Richardson on the screen at the top of the key. He’s indecisive and makes a step like he’s going to try and stop on the on ball player but then slides back to his man and doesn’t really give Wheeler a chance to recover. Looks like an easy layup is incoming … nope, Zobrist slides into the paint and has a beautiful block and the Braves are off and running.
The teams basically trade a few baskets and free throws to end the half and Bradley’s flying high up 47-31. Back to that earlier sentiment (win by 30), there wasn’t anything in those last 5 minutes that indicated the second half would be so different than the first.
One key note from the halftime stats: BU is 90% from the line (9-10) and Green Bay is 83.3% (5-6). That’s sixteen total free throws between the two teams. Be paying attention …
Second Twenty Minutes Begins
2nd Half 18:51 (1:11:36) Johnson gets called for an early offensive charge call - unlucky game continues after he drove well to the hoop and finally hit a shot. It’s probably the right call, but you have to feel for the guy who had such a rough first half and then finally makes a play and it’s called back.
17:46 (1:13:44) - Richardson and Van Der Knapp got the start in the second half along with Burch, Meta and Johnson. Richardson looks to be getting more comfortable after nearly getting a steal on defense, he takes an inbounds pass and instinctively finds contact to create a shooting foul. I liked the decision making because he could have easily just flailed towards the basket and probably not got a foul but instead pulled up and forced the defender to jump into him.
We saw it at the end of the first half as well but if he can get to the line, he’s got a really smooth stroke shooting FTs.
16:33 (1:18:00) we get our first look at Kai Yu. He uses his huge length to influence a shot and not commit a foul.
15:27 (1:22:40) Green Bay is starting to build some confidence after BU misses a few shots. You can see it specifically defensively on this possession. Their gaps are tighter and just shut down a Zobrist layup attempt. They go back on offense and get a rebound off a miss and a three pointer and that quickly the BU lead is down to 52-44. Wardle burns a timeout.
It’s worth noting that for the first 5 minutes of the half, Wardle’s been heavily rotating, with at least 3 subs on the floor with two starters.
14:36 (1:26:13) We’re always watching what the Braves do out of timeouts as it’s successful at such a high rate. It doesn’t look pretty to start as Wheeler drives and throws up and off balance shot. Luckily, Thomas clears up the rebound and puts it back and the nerves seem settled for now (54-44).
Thomas comes back and scores on the next two possessions as well after a relatively quiet first half. Bradley had a big size advantage inside and went away from it for awhile. But Thomas’ little mini run reasserted that dominance, at least on offense. BU’s lead is back to 11 (58-47) but this is the largest lead for the rest of the game.
More soft defense led to three easy baskets in the paint for Green Bay. They just continued to find open space and Bradley did not close down gaps. Just like that it was 58-53 and there was still 11:45 to go.
Tweets (and not from X/Twitter)
Another inflection point here and you’ll see why:
11:31 (1:33:19) Wheeler gets isolation off a screen by Yu, dribbles hard to the hoop and gets fouled. This play in itself isn’t anything all that special but it’s worthy of being called out because:
You can really see Wheeler’s speed in action. He’s really got a similar game to Johnson slashing to the hoop.
This begins the foul fest. I have no idea why the referees decided to start calling fouls constantly for nearly the entire rest of the game, but it completely changed the entire flow. It felt like “one of those MVC games” that we all dread.
I could recap the free throw parade, but it really isn’t useful aside from the fact that from this point until about 5 minutes to go, there were few possessions that didn’t have fouls called. The end result? Not much - BU’s lead grows just by a single point in this whole stretch.
Subsection: Kai Yu
He’s going to be fascinating to watch as he develops throughout the season. Throughout this whole foul ridden stretch, he was constantly involved, both in good and not so great ways.
He gets badly beat for a layup.
Draws contact and gets to the line (hits 1-of-2).
Fouls on an offensive rebound and sends them to the line and the Phoenix hit two.
Grabs a nice offensive rebound off a AJ Smith miss and gets fouled and hits 2-of-2 from the line this time.
Then he picks up a foul of his own the next possession by not moving his feet enough and reaching a bit.
He misses a bunny from a foot out where he could have easily dunked it more aggressively.
Makes a really ill advised pass for a turnover late in the game with four minutes to go.
I want to say I’m mostly encouraged because you can see that he has some valuable traits out there. He looks like someone inexperienced but you see the flashes of what he could be, similar to when Meta first arrived. He definitely looked pretty good at the line if he can get there a few times a game.
How much playing time will he actually get in a non-exhibition? That will be the telling factor. He’s clearly third on the depth chart behind Meta and Thomas, but it does give us more size if either of these guys get in foul trouble.
Bully Ball
8:44 (143:58) This was a great stretch for Johnson. After getting fouled hard on the previous offensive possession (but only called a block), he gets an easy defensive rebound (8:38) and keeps his head up running the floor. Meta runs a sealing screen and Johnson blows by him in the paint for an easy basket.
Next time down the floor, just watch him defensively. He’s in lurker mode like he’s so good at doing. He finds an opportunity, gets a steal and another transition layup to push the Bradley lead back up to seven (68=61).
Bradley was great in transition overall, scoring 22 points off 14 Green Bay turnovers.
Final Five
5:23 (1:53:15) Finally, there’s some spacing and Burch can do his thing and he makes a nice spinning drive to score. (74-67)
4:15 (1:56:08) After an earlier back turnover 2 possessions back, Yu makes a huge block. He was a little lost with his man on the initial drive but on the bobble he got in the right spot and not only blocked it but punched out to start a break that was easily finished by Burch. That felt like a huge swing to go back up 8 (77-69).
1:56 (2:07:42) Wheeler had gotten called for a really ticky-tack foul with just less than two minutes to go. It’s worth watching this entire possession as it’s critical for the closure of the game.
First chance: Zobrist misses a wide open 3 but BU gets ball back after a Green Bay player falls out of bounds. (1:39)
Second chance: Richardson gets a good look at the FT line for a jumper but misses it. Should have gone to the Phoenix but Zobrist gives BU a third chance by knocking the rebound away. (1:33)
Third chance: Van Der Knapp misses an open three and Zobrist gets another weakside rebound. (1:14)
Fourth chance: …
Wait, before going any further, go watch Green Bay coach Doug Gottlieb for this entire possession. He’s practically on the BU side of the court. What is he doing? He doesn’t even move from center court the whole possession. Okay, back to it …
Fourth chance: Wheeler draws a cheap foul but Yu would have had a layup so it doesn’t matter really if they called it or not. (1:00)
Fifth chance: Wheeler hits the first, misses the second, but BU gets ANOTHER chance where Van Der Knapp guesses right and goes under his man on the rebound.
BU timeout after a stagnant 15 sec - 45.9 to go
All things considered, BU churned more than a minute off the clock and the ball never left their end of the floor. While it doesn’t end up in a basket, it was demoralizing for Green Bay to not get the ball back for so long.
Anticlimactic End
45.9 (2:12:04) BU runs a nice out of bounds play for Zobrist on a give-and-go with Yu. He gets fouled on the drive but no call, then good defense and he misses the shot.
Green Bay has a terrible possession and Hall (GB #13) dribbles the ball off his own foot. BU picks it up, Wheeler fouled and he ices it with 13.8 left with 2-2 FT (81-75)
Great pressure D by Bradley and a steal to get it to 83-75. Green Bay hits a meaningless 3 at the buzzer: 83-78 Final
Looking Ahead
Bradley’s second and final exhibition is not until October 23rd in Peoria against Saint Louis. The team will have a ton of practice time to go through this one and start working on a rotation for the season. I’ll discuss this more later this week.