On Sunday, Mar. 2, the UNI men’s basketball team traveled to Peoria, Illinois to finish up the regular season against Bradley. The Panthers came into the game with a record of 20-10 and 14-5 in conference play. Bradley also shared a 14-5 conference record, so the winner of this game would finish second in the Missouri Valley Conference (MVC). These stakes made it a big regular season finale for both teams, and it was the Bradley Braves that ultimately came out victorious.
The game started out with a lot of back and forth action. Neither team went on a sizable run throughout most of the half, and with just five minutes left in the half the teams were knotted up at 30. In the last few minutes of the half the game shifted in Bradley’s favor. A layup by Demarion Burch, and back to back threes by Corey Thomas got the Braves their biggest lead of the game to that point at 38-32. By the half they added onto this lead just a little bit, and were up 45-36 going into the break.
To start off the second half, Bradley did a good job of keeping the Panthers from a distance, and about halfway through really started to pull away. The score was 53-45, when Bradley went on the biggest run of the game. It started with a four point play by Duke Deen, and it ended up as a 13-0 run. Bradley had a convincing 68-51 lead with seven minutes left in the game. Not much happened the rest of the way, and the Panthers fell 73-56
Leading the way in scoring for the Panthers was Max Weisbrod and Ben Schwieger with 11 points each, and Tytan Anderson with 9. Trey Campbell and Anderson both had four assists leading the Panthers. For the Braves, Zek Montgomery led all scorers with 13 points, and Bradley had five players reach double figures. Jaquon Johnson led the passing with 6 assists, and Ahmet Jonovic grabbed 8 rebounds.
The loss put the Panthers at 20-11 overall and 14-6 in conference play. Up next for the Panthers will be the conference tournament in St. Louis, Missouri. Since they finished in the top four in the conference, they will get a bye in the first game, before playing the winner of UIC and Valparaiso on Friday, Mar. 7 at 8:30 p.m.
