Women’s Basketball Hosts Miami (Ohio) Saturday

Missouri Valley Conference

Women's Basketball 11/22/2019 11:00:00 AM

PEORIA, Ill. -- Bradley Women's Basketball returns home to kick off a busy Saturday at Renaissance Coliseum with the Braves opening a basketball-volleyball doubleheader with a 1 p.m. game against 2018-19 WNIT participant Miami (Ohio) in the first meeting with the Redhawks since fourth-year BU head coach Andrea Gorski's senior year.

Both teams enter Saturday's game with matching 3-1 records with Bradley coming off a convincing 84-49 victory at Western Illinois Wednesday. Miami, which has had back-to-back seasons with 21 or more wins, brings a three-game win streak into Saturday's outing which concludes a five-game season-opening road swing for the Redhawks.

Saturday's game will be available on ESPN+ and BradleyBraves.com will provide links to live stats along with the 1290 AM WIRL radio broadcast.

Bradley and Miami (Ohio) will be meeting for the fourth time with Saturday's matchup marking the first contest between the Braves and Redhawks since 1991-92. Bradley, which has a 2-1 edge in the all-time series, won the last meeting, a 65-60 decision in Oxford, Ohio, back on Dec. 2, 1992. The only Bradley home game in the series resulted in an 84-69 win for the Braves on Dec. 11, 1990. In her two career outings against Miami (Ohio), Gorski averaged 22.5 points on 14-of-22 (63.6 percent) shooting in addition to averaging 5.5 rebounds and 3.5 assists. She was the top scorer in both games, dropping 24 points in the road win in 1991-92 after a 21-point performance at home her junior year.

Bradley has outscored its last two opponents by an average of 48.5 points per game with the Braves following up last Saturday's 101-39 win over Eureka with an 84-49 victory at Western Illinois Wednesday. The two outings mark the 13th time in program history Bradley has won back-to-back games by 20 or more points, but was just the second time the Braves have won consecutive games by at least 35 points. The 1981-82 team, which led the nation in scoring at 87.9 points per game, chased a 55-point home victory over Chicago State with a 66-point win against St. Xavier.

While Bradley's offense has certainly been hot lately, scoring 74 or more points in three of four games and averaging 79.0 points per outing, the defense has also been impressive. Michigan, which was ranked as high as 24th in the country at the time of the game on Nov. 10, is the only opponent to score more than 58 points against BU this year. The Braves are surrendering a league-low 55.8 points per game and have held teams to 31 percent shooting. Bradley has held consecutive opponents to 50 points or fewer for the first time since Feb. 2017 and the Braves have given up less than 50 points in back-to-back non-conference outings for the first time dating back to a 68-43 neutral site win against Niagara and a 50-45 road win at Northern Illinois in November 2011.

Junior Gabi Haack got off to a bit of a cold start to the year, going 0-for-10 from three-point range to kick off the season. Since halftime of the Nov. 10 game at #24/25 Michigan, Haack has made 10-of-23 (43.5 percent) three-point attempts. In fact, after Wednesday's 5-of-11 performance from beyond the arc at Western Illinois, Haack has connected on eight of her last 15 triples. She enters the game with 147 career three-pointers to rank sixth in Bradley history and needs one triple to tie head coach Andrea Gorski for sixth all-time at BU. Haack is just two three-pointers from tying former teammate Anneke Schlueter for fifth in Bradley history and 12 away from breaking into the top three.

Bradley's first set of sisters on a roster since 1977-78, sophomore Lasha Petree and freshman Mahri Petree are one of 22 sets of sisters on NCAA Division I rosters in 2019-20. Mahri (10.3 ppg) has seen an increased role as of late, scoring in double figures in each of the last two games and has combined with her sister Lasha (13.3 ppg) to average 23.5 points per game. The duo is the third highest scoring sister combo in the country through games of Nov. 20. Only five sets of sisters are combining to average at least 20 points per game, with Mahri the lone freshman among that group.

Senior Chelsea Brackmann's rebounding average of 8.3 boards per game this year may be a little short of her league-leading 10.9 rebounds per contest from last year, but she has certainly been more efficient so far in 2019-20. Brackmann, who had a league-best 16 double-doubles last year, has yet to collect a double-double through the first four games. Averaging 18.5 minutes per game this year vs. her 27.5 minutes per game in 2018-19, Brackmann has collected 17.8 boards per 40 minutes this year compared to 15.8 boards per 40 minutes during her record-setting junior campaign.

Bradley hits the road again after Saturday's outing against Miami, heading to Conway, S.C., for the Coastal Carolina Thanksgiving Classic where the Braves face George Mason (Nov. 29) and Richmond (Dec. 1).

Print Friendly Version