Peoria, IL, Bradley defeats Merrimack 83-41 creating new career and season highs in the process and pushes its home court win streak to 11-games in a row.

1st Half Recap
The Bradley Braves wasted no time getting the bad taste of an 0-2 trip in Cancun out of the way. BU began on a 10-3 scoring run with Rienk Mast, Connor Hickman establishing themselves back as Bradley's big three.  Through the first 20 minutes of play, BU had every member of the starting 5 score and shot 63% from the field and from three. This comes off a performance where the Braves only scored 17 points in a half against Liberty in the Cancun Challenge on Wednesday and not returning to Peoria until early Thanksgiving morning. You can't look past the firsts half performance of Malevy Leons who scored 17 points, 3 assists, 2 rebounds, and solo block and steal. Bradley also got back to the basics defensively only allowing Merrimack to 20 points in the half with the big players of Ziggy Reid and Jordan Derkack only tallying 10 points on 12 shots. This led Bradley to burst out on a 16-5 run in the final few minutes before Merrimack found a few driving late lanes to the basket to make it 39-20 at the halftime break. 

2nd Half Recap
The second half was almost a carbon copy of the first half as the Braves continued to rachet up the defensive pressure, constricting the Warriors to just a 21% shooting clip from the field. That's the first time Bradley has held a team to less than 30% from the field for the season and the first time since Bradley did it against Evansville on February 5th of last season. Bradley was out on the front foot early with another major scoring at 13-4 spanning from the 20 minute mark to the under 16-minute media break. Braves would cruise down the stretch, extending their lead all the way to 43 points with just a few ticks north of 2 minutes remaining. The Braves finished the game shooting 56% from the field, 50% from 3-point land and and much improved 73% from the line as a team. Bradley also saw the much anticipated return of Rienk Mast. The All-MVC first team preseason selection got to work early scoring Bradley's first basket and recording it's first team rebound of the game. Other notable performances were, Connor Hickman 14pts-5rebs-3asts, Rienk Mast 12pts-6rebs-1ast, and Ville Tahvanainen 9pts-9rebs.

Looking ahead
Bradley has a date with the Northern Iowa Panther in Carver on November 30th in their MVC opener. Last season Bradley opened with UNI in Carver Arena and escaped with a buzzer beating win. Bradley trails the all-time series against UNI 34-36. The Panthers however, will be without Nate Heise who suffered a hand injury that is expected to keep him out 4-6 weeks. While the Braves did get Rienk Mast back and played on a minutes restriction they are still waiting on the recovery of Zek Montgomery who also suffered a wrist injury. You can stream Bradley vs UNI on ESPN+ or on the radio with 1470 WMBD.

Notables
- Leons recorded back to back double-doubles (15pts 10rebs vs Liberty and 32pts, 10rebs vs Merrimack).
- Leons recorded a career high in points and made field goals (previously at 7 made field goals and 21 points as a career high).
- Leons recorded the first 30pt game by a Brave since Darrel Brown had 32pts vs Indiana State on 1/5/19.
- Leons is the first Brave to record 5 made threes since 1/16/22 (Terry Roberts). 
- First time holding a team under 30% from the field since 2/5/22 vs Evansville (21%).
- First time Bradley recorded 50 team rebounds since 11/16/21 vs Missouri S&T (50).
- First time Bradley had a +20 rebounding margin since 2/5/22 vs Evansville (+27).
- First time Bradley recorded 20 team assists since 1/26/22 vs Valparaiso (21).
- Bradley's home court win streak now sits at 11-games.