Braves Look To Rebound At Missouri State Sunday

Duane Zehr

Women's Basketball 2/16/2019 11:24:00 AM

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. – After having a three-game Missouri Valley Conference win streak snapped with a 62-55 setback at Southern Illinois Friday, Bradley Women's Basketball will face another tough game Sunday when the Braves take on league co-leader Missouri State in a 2 p.m. game at JQH Arena to finish up a two-game road swing.

On a snowy night in Carbondale, Ill., Bradley (17-6 overall, 7-5 MVC) had its toughest offensive night of the season and finished with a season-low 55 points. The Braves recovered from a 1-for-17 shooting start Friday against Southern Illinois to make 14-of-39, including shooting 42 percent in the second half against the Salukis.

Bradley slipped into a tie for fourth with I-74 rival Illinois State in the MVC standings at 7-5. Missouri State (14-8 overall, 10-1 MVC) is also looking to rebound from a loss on Friday with the Bears tied with Drake atop the league standings at 10-1 after a 60-56 setback to the Redbirds snapped a 13-game MSU win streak.

Missouri State won the season's first matchup with Bradley 68-56 back in mid-January and the Bears have won four consecutive games in the series. Bradley is 4-6 in its last 10 trips to Springfield, Mo., which includes a 75-73 overtime win during the 2017-18 campaign.

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

Bradley is coming off a season-low 55 points Friday at Southern Illinois after shooting 28 percent against the Salukis. The previous season low for points for the Braves was the season's first meeting with Sunday's opponent, Missouri State (56). In fact, Bradley has just three games this season it hasn't reached the 60-point mark with two of those contests against Southern Illinois (55 & 58) and the January home contest against Missouri State (56).
Junior Chelsea Brackmann tallied yet another double-double Friday at Southern Illinois, finishing with 14 points, 10 rebounds, one assist, two blocks and two steals. She now has a league-high 12 double-doubles and 13 double-digit rebounding efforts on the year. Only Carrie Coffman (28 in 1994-95) and Leti Lerma (13 in 2016-17) have had more double-doubles in a season at Bradley than Brackmann's 12 this year. She now has a conference-best 249 rebounds, which ranks as the ninth-best season total in Bradley history. Brackmann is 13 rebounds short of moving her season total into seventh among Bradley marks in addition to sitting 25 rebounds short of pushing her career total (645) into the top 10 in school history.
Freshman Lasha Petree had another big second half Friday, scoring 15 of her team-high 18 points after the break. She now has scored 15 or more points in a half six times. In the second half of games, Petree has averaged 6.9 points per outing, while shooting 41 percent from the floor and taken 50 of her 76 free throw attempts vs. 6.0 points per game on 32 percent shooting in the first half of contests. In Valley play, she has scored 6.8 points per game in the second half on 43 percent shooting, which includes 13-of-26 from three-point range. Petree has scored 3.3 points per game on 23 percent shooting and 4-for-24 from three-point range in the first half of league contests and taken just seven of her 35 free throw attempts in the opening 20 minutes.
Bradley matched a season high with eight blocked shots Friday at Southern Illinois and the Braves have collected five or more rejections in four consecutive games. Averaging a league-best 4.5 blocks per outing, Bradley has turned back 4.8 shots per game in Valley play. The Braves held SIU to 35.1 percent shooting and the Salukis were 42-for-132 (31.8 percent) from the floor in the two games against Bradley.
Sophomore Gabi Haack has been held to eight points or fewer in each of the last two games after scoring in double figures in 19 consecutive games prior to a five-point outing in last Sunday's win against Evansville. Haack, who has taken 11 shots from the field in the last two games, has still managed to get to the free throw line going a combined 8-of-9 at the charity stripe. She has also averaged 3.0 assists 1.5 blocks and 1.0 steal in those games. Haack is 100-for-115 from the free throw line this season, making her just the fifth Bradley player in the last 20 years to have 100 made free throws. Haack is shooting 87 percent from the line this year and looks to join Catie O'Leary (2012-13) as the only players in program history to make 100 or more free throws while shooting at least 85 percent from the line.
With at least seven games remaining, Lasha Petree has already put herself in some elite company in Bradley history with the freshman already topping the 300-point mark for the year. Petree's 301 points makes her the seventh freshman in program history to score 300 points. While Petree joined sophomore Gabi Haack in the group, Katie Yohn (2009-10) is the only other Bradley freshman to top 300 points since 1995-96. Petree is on pace to finish the regular season with 390 points, which would rank second among Bradley frosh marks behind Judy Burns (489 points in 1981-82).
Gabi Haack is closing in on 700 career points, entering Sunday's game at Missouri State with 691 points in 54 career games. Only six players in school history have reached the 700-point mark in 55 games or fewer with Sara Bailey (50 games) the last to do so in 2000-01.