The Storyline
Bradley will try to bounce back from Wednesday's loss at Evansville with its second straight home win when the Braves host Missouri State Saturday night at Carver Arena in the featured event of Bradley University's Alumni Weekend ... The defending Missouri Valley Conference regular-season champion, Missouri State will be out to stop a 3-game losing streak, outcomes decided by a total of seven points (one in overtime) ... As part of the Alumni Weekend theme, the Bradley B-Club Alumni Letterwinners will present the Billy Stone Service Award during halftime to Ray Picl, Dave Nixon and Paul and Diane Moore ... Bradley players Walt Lemon, Jr., Donivine Stewart and Anthony Thompson will be available for postgame autographs behind Section 5 on the concourse level.
Series Notes
Missouri State leads 28-17 | At Bradley: Bradley leads 12-9
Saturday's game will be the 46th meeting in the all-time series between Bradley and Missouri State, which dates back to MSU's entry into The Valley for the 1990-91 season ... Missouri State owns a 28-17 lead in the all-time series, though Bradley is 12-9 at Carver Arena against the Bears ... Since Bradley enjoyed its series-long 3-game winning streak against MSU, the Bears have won three of the last four meetings, including a season sweep in 2010-11.
Turning The Tide
Last Sunday's win against UNI snapped a season-long, 9-game losing streak ... Since the start of the 2003-04 season, Bradley has endured six losing streaks of at least four games ... The Braves have responded relatively well to those skids, putting together a winning record for the remainder of the season after four of those five losing streaks.
Top Heavy Scoring
Bradley is the only team in The Valley boasting three players who each average better than 12.0 points per game ... The Bradley trio of Taylor Brown (16.5 ppg), Dyricus Simms-Edwards (12.2) and Walt Lemon, Jr. (12.1) combine to average 40.7 points per game ... The trio's 814 combined points represent 62.6 percent of Bradley's 1301 total points ... The percentage of offensive production by Bradley's top three scorers easily is the greatest for any team in The Valley.
Top Heavy Minutes
Only 14 players in The Valley average as many as 30 minutes per game and three of them play for Bradley ... Bradley's three leading scorers -- Taylor Brown (32.0 mpg), Dyricus Simms-Edwards (32.9) and Walt Lemon Jr. (30.7) -- all rank among the league's top 11 by averaging better than 30 minutes per game ... No other team in the league has more than two players averaging better than 30 minutes per game ... Two MVC teams -- Illinois State and Wichita State -- do not have a single player averaging at least 30 minutes per game.
Cold Januaries
Bradley enters Saturday's game with a 1-5 record this January and the Braves are 1-15 in January games the last two seasons ... In the 2000's, Bradley is just 45-63 (.417) during the month of January and the Braves have not been more than one game over .500 during the calendar year's first month since 2000-01 (7-2).
Strength of Schedule
Perhaps aided by its top-heavy start to the league season, Bradley's strength of schedule currently ranks 35th nationally ... Bradley's strength of schedule is third-best in The Valley, trailing only UNI (10) and Missouri State (27) ... As a whole, The Valley ranks eighth overall in the league RPI's, boasting five teams in the top 100, including three in the top 40.
For a complete preview of Saturday's game, click the above links for the PDF version of Bradley's and Missouri State's complete game notes packages.
