ST. LOUIS -- For the first time this season the Missouri Valley Conference has awarded co-Players of the Week as Bradley senior forward Marcellus Sommerville (Peoria, Ill./Central H.S.) and Evansville junior center Bradley Strickland share the final honor of the season.
Sommerville led the Braves to a pair of victories last week by averaging 20.5 points, 7.5 rebounds and 1.5 steals per game, while shooting 69.6 percent (16-23) from the field. Sommerville scored 11 points, grabbed a game-high eight rebounds and recorded a game-high three steals in Wednesday's 71-49 triumph at #25 Northern Iowa. The win was Bradley's first against a nationally-ranked team since the 1986 NCAA Tournament and represented the most-lopsided conference home loss the Panthers had experienced since joining the Valley for the 1991-92 season.
Making sure the Braves did not experience a similar Senior Night result as UNI, Sommerville scored the game's first 10 points en route to a career-high 30 points in Saturday's 86-66 victory against Drake at Carver Arena. Sommerville drained his first eight field goal attempts and finished the game 11-for-13 from the field and 5-for-5 from the free throw line versus the Bulldogs. He also shared game-high honors with seven rebounds Saturday night.
Sommerville, who won his first-ever MVC Player-of-the-Week award Jan. 30, enters the State Farm Missouri Valley Conference Tournament as the league's third-leading scorer at 15.8 points per game. He also ranks seventh in the Valley by averaging 6.5 rebounds per contest. His play down the stretch has sparked the Braves, who have won five straight and nine of their last 11 games. The current five-game winning streak is Bradley's longest heading into the MVC Tournament since a seven-game streak to end the 1996-97 regular season.
As the tournament's No. 5 seed, Bradley (18-9, 11-7) will face No. 4 seed Creighton (19-8, 12-6) in Friday's 2:30 p.m. quarterfinal at the Savvis Center. The teams split their regular-season series: Bradley winning 86-69 Jan. 2 at Carver Arena and Creighton earning an 80-76 decision Jan. 18 in Omaha.
Strickland helped Evansville to a pair of wins last week by averaging 19.5 points and 10.5 rebounds. He turned in a season-high 19 points and added eight rebounds, three assists and three blocked shots in Tuesday's 64-59 upset of Southern Illinois, then topped that production with 20 points, a career-best 13 rebounds and three more rejections in Saturday's 77-75 win at Indiana State.
