Trailing by 14 in the second half, Bradley outscored the University of Evansville men’s basketball team by a 40-17 margin in the final 14 minutes to defeat the Purple Aces by a final of 84-72 on Saturday at Carver Arena.
Jaylon Brown paced the Aces (14-15, 5-11 MVC) with 22 points as he connected on 11 out of 12 free throws. Ryan Taylor completed the game with 16. Darrell Brown drained four triples to lead the Braves (10-19, 5-11 MVC) with 22 points. Donte Thomas was next with 13 points and 13 rebounds.
“Bradley picked their game up, they changed their pulse and we did not. We struggled with being tough and competing in the second half,†UE head coach Marty Simmons said.
A pair of early 3-pointers saw the Braves open up a 7-2 lead in the opening 90 seconds of play before a Ryan Taylor bucket gave UE the lead at 10-9 at the 15:47 mark. After a Dru Smith trey put the Aces up 13-11, Bradley continued to dial it up from long range as another Darrell Brown tripe capped off a 9-0 stretch that saw BU go up 20-13 with 9:11 remaining in the half.
Still up by seven points at 26-19 on Brown’s fourth 3-pointer, the Braves offense went cold as they failed to hit a field goal for a span of nearly six minutes. Evansville’s offense found its groove as Smith’s second long ball gave UE its largest lead at 33-29 with 2:40 on the clock. The Aces also did a masterful job of working the clock in the final minute as buckets courtesy of Christian Benzon and Duane Gibson gave the Aces a 38-34 lead at halftime.
David Howard connected on his third shot of the day on the first possession of the second half to extend UE’s lead to 40-34. Evansville added to the lead over the next three minutes as a technical foul and personal foul sent UE to the line where it connected on 3 out of 4 free throw attempts to extend the lead to 49-37. It capped off an 11-3 run to open up the second stanza.
Evansville pushed its lead to 14 points at 55-41 before the long ball started falling again for BU as a 14-3 stretch cut the gap to just three points at 58-55 with 11 minutes remaining. The Braves connected on four triples in a row including a pair by Jayden Hodgson as they got within a possession. With under nine minutes left, two more free throws by BU got them within one at 60-59.
Ryan Taylor ended a field goal drought of over five minutes as his bucket ended the stretch. He hit another one with 7:33 remaining to put the Aces back up by three at 64-61. Less than two minutes later, the tenth trey of the day for Bradley was a big one as Dwayne Lautier-Ogunleye gave the Braves a 66-64 advantage.
From there, the Braves extended their lead to ten on another Hodgson three at 80-70 with just over a minute left before they extended it for the 84-72 win.
Bradley shot 51.9% on the day, including 57.1% in the second half. UE hit 50% of its shots in the first 20 minutes, but was just 8-of-23 (34.8%) in the final period.
A trip to Wichita State on Tuesday will mark the final road game of the regular season. The Aces and Shockers meet at 7 p.m. Seven days from today, the Aces welcome Indiana State to the Ford Center for the regular season finale at noon.
