PEORIA, Ill. -- Bradley Women's Basketball follows up a season-long, four-game road swing with the lone home contest in a seven-game span as the Braves play host in-state foe Illinois-Chicago Saturday in a 2 p.m. matchup at Renaissance Coliseum.
With the holiday season in full swing, Saturday's home game against Illinois-Chicago will mark Kaboom!'s Holiday Party at Renaissance Coliseum. Kaboom! will be available for holiday pictures and a special station to make holiday cards will be on the concourse during the game. In addition, a children's gift exchange will be held with participants asked to bring a wrapped gift. The Children's Home of Peoria in conjunction with Bradley University's American Marketing Association chapter will be sponsoring a toy drive, accepting new unwrapped gifts Saturday afternoon.
Saturday's game will be available on ESPN3 as part of the MVC media rights agreement with ESPN. The Valley On ESPN3 can be viewed through WatchESPN.com and the WatchESPN app. In addition, Ed Hammond will handle the radio broadcast on WIRL 1290 AM with links to the audio stream available at BradleyBraves.com
Bradley (3-3 overall) will put a three-game home win streak on the line Saturday afternoon against Illinois-Chicago (3-2 overall). The Braves are 2-0 at home to start a season for the first time since 2008-09 (7-0 start) and have won seven of the last eight home contests.
BU's longest win streak in the eight-year history of Renaissance Coliseum is four games and Saturday's outing will mark the 100th Bradley Women's Basketball game at Renaissance Coliseum. Bradley enters this weekend's contest with a 16-6 mark at Renaissance Coliseum on Saturday's, which includes a 6-1 record in the last seven Saturday home games
The Flames have alternated wins and losses through the first five games of the year with UIC coming off a 55-46 home victory over Missouri Valley Conference rival Indiana State Thursday. Illinois-Chicago has played four of five games at home.
Bradley owns a 15-7 advantage in the all-time series with UIC after pulling out a 65-56 victory last year in Chicago. The teams will play for the fourth consecutive season and 12th time in the last 13 years. The Braves are 9-1 at home in the series, but the Flames won the last meeting in Peoria on Dec. 5, 2015. The teams have split the last 10 contests in the series. .
Senior Anneke Schlueter has scored in double figures in each of the last two matchups with Illinois-Chicago after a 10-point effort last season. She is 7-for-16 (43.8 percent) from three-point range in her career against the Flames and has averaged 13.0 points, 2.7 rebounds and 3.0 assists in three career appearances against UIC.
Freshman Emily Marsh nearly doubled her season scoring output to date in Wednesday's game at Northern Illinois, scoring 16 points on 7-for-14 shooting off the bench. Marsh was the third freshman to score 10 or more points in a game this season and a frosh has reached double digits in scoring in four of the last five games.
Over the last eight seasons, Bradley has had only one other freshman class have three individuals score 10 or more points in a game during the non-conference portion of the schedule with this year's senior class accomplishing the feat as rookies in 2014-15. Excluding the season opener, Bradley's freshman have combined to average 23.0 points, 15.2 rebounds, 6.0 assists, 2.0 blocks and 1.3 steals per game while boasting a 1.00 assist-to-turnover ratio. The group is shooting 43 percent from the field collectively, including 12-of-31 (38.7 percent) from three-point range.
Bradley will play its last game before semester finals, Tuesday at Eastern Illinois with a 6 p.m. tip time in Charleston, Ill.
