Final Road Game Sunday at Drake

Bradley Women's Basketball will play its final road game of the 2021-22 season Sunday afternoon

Josh Schwam

Women's Basketball 2/26/2022 10:12:00 AM

Game 26 \| Bradley Braves (4-21, 1-15 MVC) at Drake Bulldogs (14-12, 6-9 MVC)
Date	Sunday, Feb. 27, 2022
Time	2:00 p.m. CT
Location	Des Moines, IA
Venue (Capacity)	Knapp Center (7,152)
Social Media	Twitter: @B radleyWBB \| Instagram: @bradley_wbb

Bradley Women's Basketball will play its final road game of the season Sunday afternoon by visiting Drake in the season's second matchup of the 2021 Hoops in the Heartland Missouri Valley Conference Women's Basketball Championship final.

BRADLEY LAST-GAME STARTERS
Feb. 25 at UNI | L, 77-56
G – 11 Caroline Waite • Fr. • 5'4" • Ames, IA | 13.0 ppg • 1.9 rpg • 1.5 apg
G – 13 Tatum Koenig • Sr. • 5'7" • West Branch, IA | 11.9 ppg • 3.2 rpg • 3.6 apg
G/F – 22 Abbie Draper • Fr. • 6'2" • Waverly, IA | 5.5 ppg • 3.8 rpg • 1.0 apg
F – 1 Tete Danso • So. • 5'11" • Inver Grove Heights, MN | 1.3 ppg • 4.2 rpg • 0.8 bpg
F – 2 Sierra Morrow • Jr. • 6'1" • Minneapolis, MN | 6.6 ppg • 5.5 rpg • 1.7 bpg
Head Coach: Andrea Gorski (11th season overall, 194-145 | 6th season at Bradley, 88-87)

RECAPPING FRIDAY'S ACTION
• Freshman guard Caroline Waite made six 3-pointers for the third time in a game this season on the way to a game-high 21 points, but the Braves could not overcome an overall cold-shooting effort in a 77-56 loss Friday night at UNI.
• Bradley shot just 31.3 percent from the field, including a 13-for-43 (.302) effort from inside the 3-point line.
• Kam Finley led four UNI players in double-figures with 15 points, as the Panthers finished 28-for-56 (.500) from the field and sank all of their 12 free throw attempts.
• With Bradley making just 3-of-16 (.188) field goal attempts in the opening period, UNI built a 20-7 lead after 10 minutes and led by double-digits the rest of the way.

SERIES NOTES
82nd Meeting • Drake leads 63-18 overall • Drake leads 33-6 at Drake
• The series between the Braves and Bulldogs has been played entirely as conference rivals - Gateway Conference from 1984-92 and Missouri Valley Conference from 1994-2022.
• Although Drake owns a 33-6 home record against Bradley, the Braves earned an 80-75 win in their last visit to the Knapp Center Jan. 2, 2021 for their first win on Drake's home court since 2010.
• Senior guard Tatum Koenig (9 points) and sophomore forward Isis Fitch (1) are the only two current Braves to score in last year's win at Drake.
• The teams have split their last six meetings, 3-3, since the start of the 2019-20 season.
• Andrea Gorski is 3-9 against the Bulldogs in her sixth year as Bradley head coach and she was 4-4 versus Drake as a Bradley Hall of Fame player from 1988-92.

THE HAWKEYE FIVE
• Bradley's final road trip of the season is serving as somewhat of a homecoming for the team's five student-athletes from the state of Iowa.
• Entering Sunday's game at Drake, four of the team's top five scorers are from The Hawkeye State:
Student-Athlete (Yr. • Pos.) Iowa Hometown PPG Team Rk
Caroline Waite (Fr. • G) Ames 13.0 1
Tatum Koenig (Sr. • G) West Branch 11.9 2
Abbie Draper (Fr. • G/F) Waverly 5.5 4
Chloe Rice (Sr. • G) Marion 4.8 5
Sasha Koenig (Fr. • G) West Branch 0.7 14
• The quintet combined for 36 points Friday night at UNI.

EXPERIENCE FACTOR
• Fifth-year senior Gabi Haack, the all-time leading scorer and 3-point shooter in program history, saw her season come to an end Jan. 1 at Illinois State when she suffered a torn ACL in her left knee with 6:00 remaining.
• With Haack no longer available, senior guard Tatum Koenig stands as Bradley's most-experienced player and the team's active leader in most every career category.
• With three more Braves – junior guard Diamon Cannon, freshman guard Nika Dorsey and sophomore forward Daija Powell – also out for the remainder of the season due to injury, Bradley's 12-player active roster includes nine first-year (6) and second-year (3) Braves.
• While Koenig has been the starting point guard in 96 of her 113 career games, the other 11 student-athletes on the active roster have combined for 82 starts in 353 individual games played (32.1 games per player) at BU.
• Koenig has logged 3,438 career minutes for the Braves, but the other 11 active players have totaled just 4,269 minutes between them.
• Sunday opponent Drake has 13 student-athletes who have combined for 780 career games and nearly 14,000 minutes at Drake.
NCAA Division I Experience
Team Roster Games Starts Minutes
BRADLEY 12 519 179 7,704
Drake 13 801 317 14,044

FIFTH WITH 350
• Senior guard Tatum Koenig has become the fifth student-athlete in program history to dish out 350 career assists.
• Koenig also ranks ninth in program history with 136 career 3-point field goals.
• Bradley head coach Andrea Gorski, who was a Hall-of-Fame guard for the Braves from 1988-92, is immediately ahead of Koenig on both lists – fourth with 360 assists and eighth with 149 treys.

AND THEN THERE WERE TWO
• Now 25 games into the season, senior guard Tatum Koenig and sophomore forward Tete Danso are the only two Braves to appear in every game.
• Bradley has not had as few as two student-athletes appear in every game of a season since 2014-15, when Anneke Schlueter was the only student-athlete to appear in all 30 games.
• Bradley and Evansville are the only two Valley teams to have as few as two student-athletes appear in every game of this 2021-22 season.

WHO HOLDS THE TITLE?
• Bradley has three options to choose from for 2021-22 team scoring leader.
• Fifth-year guard Gabi Haack averaged 17.1 points per game in her 10 games before suffering her season-ending injury.
• Senior guard Tatum Koenig leads the Braves with 297 total points (11.9 ppg).
• Freshman guard Caroline Waite has missed three games due to illness, but has averaged 13.0 ppg with 285 total points in her 22 games to date.

FROM THE LINE
• While Bradley is ninth in The Valley by shooting .705 from the free throw line in league play, the team's top four at getting getting to the line are shooting at an efficient clip.
• In league play, the quartet of Caroline Waite (.857), Tatum Koenig (.836), Abbie Draper (.750) and Chloe Rice (.705) are Bradley's four most-frequent visitors to the line, where they are a combined 140-of-177 (.791).
• In her seven non-conference games, Waite was just 5-of-9 (.556) from the charity stripe, but since league play began, she has made 24-of-28 attempts.
• Through the first 97 games of her career, senior guard Tatum Koenig was a career 69.8 percent free throw shooter who had averaged 1.8 free throw attempts per game.
• In Bradley's 16 Valley games this season, Koenig is 61-of-73 (.836) from the stripe and her 4.6 free throw attempts per game are the most among the league's most-accurate free throw shooters in league play.
• Freshman forward Abbie Draper (1-3) and senior guard Chloe Rice (3-5) were a combined 4-for-8 from the free throw line in Bradley's nine non-conference games, but together are 55-of-76 (.724) in the 16 Valley games.
2021-22. Non-Con Pct. FTA/g MVC Pct. FTA/g
Tatum Koenig 13-20 .650 2.2 61-73 .836 4.6
Caroline Waite 5-8 .556 1.3 24-28 .857 1.9
Abbie Draper 1-3 .333 0.3 24-32 .750 2.3
Chloe Rice 3-5 .600 0.6 31-44. .705 2.9

FRESHMAN SCORING
• With fifth-year senior Gabi Haack no longer available due to her season-ending knee injury, freshman guard Caroline Waite leads the team at 13.0 ppg.
• Waite's norm through her 22 games is the fourth-best scoring average ever by a Bradley freshman.
• The top scoring underclassman (Fr/So) in The Valley, Waite is the league's 10th-leading scorer overall, while no other underclassman in the league ranks among the top 22.
• Sophomore Maya Chandler of Loyola Chicago ranks 23rd in The Valley at 10.7 ppg and Drake's Katie Dinnebier is the second-leading freshman scorer, ranking 29th overall at 8.7 ppg.
• Ironically, Haack (10.5 ppg in 2017-18) was the last of four Bradley freshmen to lead the Braves in season scoring average.
Bradley Freshman Scoring Averages
1. 18.3 Connie Griffith, 1977-79
2. 18.1 Judy Burns, 1981-82
3. 13.2 Lasha Petree, 2018-19
4. 13.0 Caroline Waite, 2021-22
5. 12.8 Kathy Stokes, 1977-78
6. 12.6 Heather Best, 1995-96
7. 12.3 Karen Anderson, 1979-80
8. 12.0 Karin Nichols, 1986-87

Bradley Freshman Team Scoring Leaders
2021-22 Caroline Waite 13.0
2017-18 Gabi Haack 10.5
2009-10 Katie Yohn 10.2
1977-78 Connie Griffith 18.3
1975-76 Lynn Held 12.4

FRESHMAN SHOOTER
• Bradley's Caroline Waite leads The Valley and ranks 18th nationally by averaging 2.82 3-point field goals per game.
• Waite ranks second among all freshmen nationally in 3-point field goals per game (Duquesne's Tess Myers is first at 3.15 3FGM/gm).
• Waite is on pace for 70 treys through Bradley's first game in the MVC Tournament, which would place sixth on Bradley's single-season top 10.
• Michelle Nason set Bradley's single-season record with 87 treys during the 1994-95 campaign.
• Waite's 62 treys rank as the third-most ever by a Bradley freshman and she needs seven more to jump Gabi Haack into second place.
70 3-Point Field Goals in a Bradley Season
87 Michelle Nason, Sr., 1994-95
78 Erika Nelson, Sr., 2006-07
77 Gabi Haack, Sr., 2020-21
75 Michelle Lund, Fr., 2008-09
71 Michelle Nason, Jr., 1993-94
62 Caroline Waite, Fr., 2021-22 - 70 pace

3FGM By Bradley Freshmen
75 Michelle Lund, 2008-09
68 Gabi Haack, 2017-18
62 Caroline Waite, 2021-22
57 Katie Yohn, 2009-10
56 Lasha Petree, 2018-19

LOOKING AHEAD
• Following Sunday's visit to Drake, Bradley will close out the regular season Saturday by hosting I-74 rival Illinois State.
• Prior to Saturday's 2 p.m. game against the Redbirds, Bradley will honor its quartet of seniors – Gabi Haack, Aannah Interante, Tatum Koenig and Chloe Rice.
• The Braves will open the Hoops in the Heartland MVC Women's Basketball Championship at TaxSlayer Center with a first-round game on Thursday, March 10.

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