PEORIA, Ill. ? Theron Wilson and Sam Maniscalco shared game-high scoring honors with 17 points apiece, leading Bradley (15-12, 9-7 MVC) to its 500th all-time Missouri Valley Conference victory, a 71-60 triumph against visiting Missouri State (10-17, 3-13 MVC) Tuesday night at Carver Arena.

Now in its 57th year of Valley membership, Bradley becomes the second school with 500 MVC victories, following Drake, which now has 511 Valley wins in its 97th year of league membership.

Reserve guard Chris Roberts enjoyed a perfect shooting night en route to his 12 points:  3-for-3 from the field, including a pair of 3-pointers, and 4-for-4 from the free throw line.  Missouri State was led by Kyle Weems' 15 points and the Bears also got 11 points from guard Cardell McFarland, all in the game's first 7-minutes, 12-seconds.

Although Bradley made only one more field goal than the Bears, 23-22, and both teams made seven 3-pointers, the Braves had a deciding advantage at the free throw line.  Bradley made 18-of-24 (.750) free throw attempts, compared to 9-of-10 by Missouri State.  The additional attempts were primarily the result of Missouri State's 18 turnovers, 13 from Bradley steals.  Wilson was responsible for five of those steals and also made eight of the 10 free throw attempts.

While the first half saw six ties and three lead changes, Bradley finally grabbed the lead for good, 23-22, when center David Collins split a pair of free throws with 9:08 left in the half.  Wilson later started a 14-4 run with a jumper with 6:49 left in the half and freshman reserve Taylor Brown scored the last five points of the outburst to give the Braves a 39-28 lead with 2:04 left before the break.

After the Braves took a 39-33 lead into halftime, Bradley scored the first four points of the second half to again claim a double-digit lead.  Missouri State fought back, however, and pulled to within 47-45 on a Spencer Laurie 3-pointer with 12:12 remaining.  Maniscalco answered with a 3-pointer, but the Braves did not put the game away until Wilson converted an old-fashioned 3-point play with 7:08 left and Roberts buried a shot-clock-beating 3-pointer with 6:19 to go for a 58-49 bulge.  The Bears got no closer than seven points the rest of the way and Bradley eventually built the lead to as many as 13 points, 71-58, when Roberts hit his four free throws inside the game's final minute.

Having secured at least a .500 Valley record for the fourth consecutive season, the Braves will step out of league play with the rest of their league brethren for Saturday's 3:05 p.m. game at Loyola-Chicago.  The game against the Ramblers was created out of Bradley's continued participation in the ESPNU BracketBusters series.  Saturday's game will be televised in the Chicagoland area by Lakeshore Public Television and the broadcast will be shown in Central Illinois by Comcast (Channel 74).

Note:  With his five steals, Theron Wilson increased his season total to 53 to give the Braves a player with at least 50 steals for a seventh consecutive season.  Wilson came into the game third in The Valley with 1.8 steals per game and he is in position to join Bradley legend Mitchell Anderson (1979 and 1981) as the only front-court players to lead Bradley in steals for a season in the 31 years the school has tracked the statistic.