PEORIA, Ill. -- A minimum of six Bradley men's basketball games will be televised nationally, a regular-season best in program history, according to information released with the complete Missouri Valley Conference schedule by the league office today.
Bradley's regular-season home finale Feb. 26 against Southern Illinois will appear on ESPN2, while the Dec. 4 home game against Michigan State and the Jan. 8 contest at Southern Illinois will appear on ESPNU. Due to the television coverage, the Dec. 4 game versus the Spartans has been changed to an 8:05 p.m. (CT) tip at Carver Arena. In addition, Bradley will make at least three appearances on the Missouri Valley Conference Television Network: Jan. 26 at Wichita State, Feb. 16 at home versus Creighton and Feb. 19 at Drake, games that will air on Fox Sports Net Midwest, Comcast SportsNet Chicago and Fox College Sports.
Bradley could make two more national television appearances during the last two weeks of the regular-season. The Braves are participating in the sixth annual O'Reilly ESPNU BracketBusters event Feb. 23, a series that will involve 14 games to be televised by the ESPN family of networks, and all five of the regular-season league finales March 1, including Bradley at Creighton, are available for two MVC-TV broadcasts. The decisions to televise those two games will be made in early February. All six games in the quarterfinal and semifinal rounds of the 2008 State Farm MVC Tournament in St. Louis also will be aired as MVC-TV broadcasts, while the March 9 championship game will be broadcast nationally by CBS for the third consecutive year.
For the third consecutive year, Bradley will open its 18-game Valley slate in December against Northern Iowa. Bradley opened the 2005-06 Valley slate with a 68-60 overtime home victory against the Panthers, but suffered a 76-65 loss in last year's league-opener at UNI. The Braves will host UNI Dec. 29, then will play three of their next four Valley games on the road. Bradley also will finish the regular season by playing four of its last six league games on the road. In between, the Braves will play five of seven games at Carver Arena.
Bradley will host Interstate-74 rival Illinois State Jan. 23 and will visit the Redbirds Feb. 9. In addition, Bradley's final three Valley home games will be played against the league's other 2007 postseason participants: Feb. 6 versus Missouri State (NIT), Feb. 16 against Creighton (NCAA) and Feb. 26 against Southern Illinois (NCAA).
Today's release of the Missouri Valley Conference schedule completes Bradley's 31-game regular-season slate. Bradley will play at least 11 games against teams that participated in the 2007 postseason. Seven of those games will be played during an 11-game stretch beginning Nov. 24 when the Braves will challenge either Vanderbilt (NCAA) or Utah State (NIT) in the final round of the South Padre Island Invitational. Following games Nov. 28 at Loyola-Chicago and Dec. 1 at home versus Southeast Missouri State, Bradley will play four straight games against NCAA Tournament participants: Dec. 4 versus Michigan State, Dec. 11 at Wright State, Dec. 19 at Butler and Dec. 22 at home against VCU. After the Valley opener versus UNI, Bradley will visit NIT participant Missouri State Jan. 2, host Wichita State Jan. 5 then visit Southern Illinois (NCAA) Jan. 8.
Ticket Information: For 2007-08 Bradley men's basketball ticket information contact the Bradley Athletics ticket office at 309-677-2625. Season tickets for the 17-game home slate, which includes the Nov. 4 exhibition game versus Quincy, range from $100 to $340, based on location. Single-game tickets will become available in the fall and prices will range from $8 to $18 for most games.
