Women’s Basketball Hosts UNI Sunday

Julie Kestas

Women's Basketball 1/5/2019 12:22:00 PM

PEORIA, Ill. – Bradley Women's Basketball will look to start a new home win streak and will be shooting for its first Missouri Valley Conference victory of the year Sunday when the Braves host Northern Iowa in a 2 p.m. contest at Renaissance Coliseum in the final game of a three-game home stand.

After opening the MVC schedule with a setback to preseason league favorite Drake, which extended its win streak to 41 consecutive regular-season conference games, Friday, Bradley (10-2 overall, 0-1 MVC) looks to rebound against a Northern Iowa (7-6 overall, 0-1 MVC) team that suffered a two-point loss at Illinois State to open Valley play.

Bradley will host a free post-game shootaround with children eighth grade and under invited onto the court to shoot with the Braves following the 2 p.m. matchup with UNI. Braves Club members are invited to a pre-game "Chalk Talk" 20 minutes prior to tip-off of each home game in the Braves Club Room.

Sunday's game will be available on ESPN3 and BradleyBraves.com will provide links to live stats along with the WIRL 1290 AM audio stream.

Despite a setback to Drake to open Missouri Valley Conference play, the Braves are still off to their best start to a season in a decade with a league-best 10-2 record. The last time Bradley started a season with a 10-2 mark was 2008-09 when the Braves closed the year with a school record 21 victories and finished fourth in the final MVC regular-season standings. In fact Bradley has just three previous seasons in which it started 10-2 or better – 2008-09 (13-2), 2001-02 (11-2) and 1980-81 (10-2).
Sophomore Gabi Haack turned in her fourth 20-point game of the season and the eighth of her career with a 23-point effort against Drake Friday. Haack has scored in double figures in 10 consecutive games for the longest stretch of games with 10+ points by a Brave since Anneke Schlueter had a streak of 10 consecutive games early in the 2016-17 season. The last Bradley player to have a streak of 11 straight games with at least 10 points was Monica Rogers in the final 11 contests of the 2008-09 campaign.
Sunday's game will likely mark the 100^th career game for senior Vanessa Markert. Bradley's only four-year letterwinner on the roster this season, Markert has come off the bench in all 12 games this season to average 6.1 points and 3.7 rebounds in 11.5 minutes per contest. She is currently 36^th in career scoring at Bradley with 771 points. In seven home games this season, Markert has averaged 7.1 points per game on 58.3 percent shooting and pulled down 4.3 boards per tilt.
Gabi Haack hit 3-of-5 three-pointers in Friday's outing against Drake and is poised to break into Bradley's career top 10 for three-point makes. Haack, who is shooting 39.9 percent from three-point range in her career to rank third in Bradley history, has 103 career made three-pointers and enters Sunday's game against Northern Iowa three triples behind Devyn Flanagan (2004-08) for 10^th in Bradley history (106). Dawn Cartwright (1992-96) is ninth on Bradley's all-time list at 110.
Bradley continues to get to the free throw line with the Braves making 21-of-27 free throws Friday against Drake. In fact, Bradley has attempted 24 or more free throws in all seven home games to date, averaging 27.4 attempts per contest at Renaissance Coliseum. Sophomore Gabi Haack was 8-for-9 from the charity stripe Friday and her 51 made free throws is tied for second most in the MVC this season. As a team the Braves are scoring 21.6 percent of their points at the free throw line (4^th in the MVC). Haack paces the league in three-point field goals per game (2.9), but also gets 25.5 percent of the points at the free throw line to rank fifth in the MVC. Haack and Illinois State's Simone Goods (30%) are the only players in the MVC scoring at least 15 points per game and scoring 25 percent of their points at the free throw line.
Gabi Haack's 23-point effort against Drake raised her season scoring average to a team-best 16.7 points per outing. Haack's 16.7 ppg average is the highest through the first 12 games of a season at Bradley since Michelle Young averaged 18.2 points through the first 12 contests of 2013-14. Young finished that season averaging 14.3 points per game for the highest scoring average by a Brave since Sara Bailey was second in the MVC in scoring at 18.0 ppg in 2001-02.