Women’s Basketball Returns To Renaissance Coliseum

Duane Zehr

Women's Basketball 1/22/2020 1:54:00 PM

PEORIA, Ill. -- Off to the best start to Missouri Valley Conference play in program history at 5-0, Bradley Women's Basketball will try to strengthen its hold on first place in the league standings with the Braves returning to Renaissance Coliseum this weekend for games against Northern Iowa (Friday) and Drake (Sunday).

Bradley (14-2 overall, 5-0 MVC), which is ranked 23rd in the latest CollegeInsider.com Mid-Major Top 25, brings a six-game win streak into Friday's 7 p.m. game against Northern Iowa (11-5 overall, 3-2 MVC). The Braves 14-2 overall record is the best record in program history through 16 games. Friday's game is part of the Spring Welcome Week activities, with fans encouraged to help the Braves "Cram the Coliseum" Friday. There will be a Teddy Bear Toss at halftime and fans are asked to bring in new stuffed animals to be tossed onto the court. The stuffed animals will be collected for the Cuddles for Kids organization to be used for therapy for children who are in need.

The home stand wraps up Sunday with a 2 p.m. contest against defending MVC regular-season champion Drake (12-5 overall, 4-1 MVC), which plays at Illinois State Friday. Bradley will host a free post-game shootaround following the matchup with the Bulldogs with kids in 8th grade or younger in attendance able to join the Bradley players on the Renaissance Coliseum court following the game. Drake is tied with Missouri State for second in the MVC standings at 4-1 entering the weekend.

Friday's game against Northern Iowa will be available on ESPN+, while Sunday's tilt with Drake can be viewed on ESPN3. BradleyBraves.com will provide links to live stats along with the WIRL 1290 AM radio broadcast of both games.

Both the 14-2 overall record and 5-0 Valley record are Bradley's best starts in program history, surpassing a 13-2 overall start and 4-0 mark to open MVC play by the 2008-09 team which went on to win a school record 21 games. Of the nine teams that have won at least a share of the MVC regular-season title over the last seven seasons just two did not start out league play at least 5-0 (2015-16 - UNI & 2012-13 - Creighton). Bradley's current five-game MVC win streak is the team's longest since 2009-10 (6) and one short of tying for the longest conference win streak in program history of six, which has been done twice.

The Braves own a school record 13-game home win streak, which is tied for the eighth longest active streak in the nation through games of Jan. 21, heading into the weekend home stand. Bradley's last loss at Renaissance Coliseum was over a year ago (Jan. 18, 2019 vs. Missouri State) and BU has won a school-record nine consecutive home conference games. The Braves had never won more than six consecutive home league games prior to the current streak with the 1986-87 squad doing so during a 7-2 home campaign.

Junior Gabi Haack, who was named the MVC Player of the Week Monday, scored her 1,000th career point to help highlight Sunday's win at Valparaiso, reaching the mark on her fourth three-pointer of the game near the six-minute mark of the fourth quarter. The 19th player in program history to reach the 1,000-point mark, Haack is just the ninth Bradley junior to do so (first since Katie Yohn in 2011-12) and is the seventh fastest Brave to reach 1,000 (77 games).

The six BU players to reach 1,000 points faster than Haack all rank among the top nine in program history in scoring and the last one to reach 1,000 career points in fewer than 80 games was two-time First-Team All-MVC pick Sara Bailey (64 games), who concluded her career in 2002-03. Haack has 180 career three-pointers entering the weekend, needing three makes from beyond the arc to pass Genny Mueller for second in Bradley history in three-point makes.

There is a new all-time leading rebounder at Bradley with senior Chelsea Brackmann pulling down her 845th career board Friday at Loyola to top the previous school record of 844 career rebounds held by former teammate Leti Lerma. Currently third in the MVC in rebounding at 8.3 per outing, Brackmann is 21st in league history with 848 career rebounds. In addition to the Bradley rebounding record, Brackmann needs four free throw attempts to become just the fifth Brave with 400 career trips to the charity stripe and is just 48 points from becoming the 20th player in Bradley history to score 1,000 career points.

Junior Nyjah White ranks among Bradley's top three in scoring (10.3 ppg), rebounding (4.6 rpg), assists (2.6 apg), blocks (0.8 bpg) and steals (1.3 spg). Scoring in double figures in each of the last four games, she has averaged 15.8 points per game on 64 percent shooting (29-of-45) over that stretch. Bradley is 8-1 this season when White scores in double figures and 15-3 over the last two years when she has at least 10 points. She is one of four players to rank in the top 20 in the MVC scoring and top 15 in assists, joining Illinois State's Tete Maggett, UNI's Karli Rucker and Brice Calip of Missouri State.

Bradley follows up the home stand by opening a season-long, three-game road swing Friday, Jan. 31 at Missouri State (7 p.m.).

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