The Storyline
Bradley will try to snap its season-long, 7-game losing streak, as well as a 3-year, 14-game January slide, Tuesday when the Braves visit Drake ... The Bulldogs had won 11 consecutive home games before suffering an 83-68 loss to in-state rival Northern Iowa Saturday at the Drake Knapp Center and will be trying to avoid consecutive home losses for the first time since falling to Indiana State (62-57) Jan. 9, 2011 and Wichita State (68-54) Jan. 15, 2011 ... Due in part to the early schedule for the State Farm Missouri Valley Conference Tournament March 1-4 in St. Louis, everyone in the league will play three games this week: Tuesday, Friday and Sunday ... Bradley is the only Valley team that will play the first two games this week away from home, and the Braves will remain on the road for Friday's game at Wichita State, before returning home to host UNI Sunday afternoon.
Series Notes
Bradley leads 79-53 | At Drake: Drake leads 34-28
Drake (527) and Bradley (514) boast the top two league victory totals in Valley history ... Tuesday's game will be the 133rd meeting in the all-time series, which dates back to a 31-30 Drake win Dec. 19. 1942 at Peoria Woodruff High School ... Bradley has won nine of the last 12 meetings, including three of the last five matchups at the Drake Knapp Center ... Tuesday's game will be Bradley head coach Geno Ford's first against Drake and Bulldogs head coach Mark Phelps, who is 2-5 in seven previous meetings against Bradley.
Hot Valley Shooter
Senior forward Taylor Brown has started The Valley season with a hot shooting hand ... Averaging 18.8 ppg in the first four Valley games, Brown leads the league by shooting 66.7 percent (8-12) from 3-point range in MVC play ... Brown is shooting 54.3 percent (25-46) from the field and 81.0 percent (17-21) from the free throw line through four conference games ... The rest of the Braves, however, have combined to shoot 35.4 percent from the field, 31.4 percent from 3-point range and 69.6 percent from the free throw line in four league games.
Distance Warm-Up
Bradley entered Saturday's game against Creighton ranked among the nation's worst 3-point shooting teams by percentage (.291) and makes per game (3.8) ... Bradley drained 13-of-24 (.542) 3-point tries against the Bluejays, however ... Through four league games, Bradley if fifth in The Valley in 3-point field goal percentage (.381) and tied for fourth in 3-point makes per game (6.0).
Paint Thinner
Through the season's first 11 games, Bradley had outscored the opposition in the paint eight times and held a 352-324 interior scoring advantage ... In the last five games, however, the opposition has held the paint scoring advantage in each game by a total 210-132 margin -- an average difference of 15.6 points per game ... The opposition has scored at least 42 points in the paint in each of the last four games ... In the first four league games, Bradley has matched the opposition with 24 3-point field goals and 63 free throws, but the Braves have been outscored by 68 points from inside the arc.
Trendy Numbers
Bradley is 2-1 (.667) when scoring at least 70 points and 0-7 when allowing at least 70 ... Bradley is 5-3 (.625) when it shoots a better field goal percentage than the opposition, but 0-8 when shooting a lower percentage ... Bradley is 3-1 when leading at halftime, but 0-6 when trailing at the half ... In an unusual trend, Bradley is 0-5 when it commits fewer turnovers than the opposition.
For a complete preview of Tuesday's game, click the above link for the PDF version of Bradley's complete game notes package.
