Bradley’s balance beats Black Bears

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PEORIA, Ill. – Missed free throws, turnovers and other typical early-season maladies may have helped Bradley University defeat the University of Maine at Carver Arena Saturday.

But the true architects of the 71-60 Bradley win in the mutual opener were Mr. Inside and Mr. Outside.

Inside was Marcus Pollard, who stung the Black Bears with 18 points (eight from the free-throw line) and eight rebounds. Outside, Anthony Parker connected on five of nine 3-pointers, scored 20 points and dished for four assists.

Maine coach Rudy Keeling said Parker took advantage of Maine when the Black Bears tried to play zone defense on out-of-bounds plays.

“They ran a lot of trick plays, we lost track of him, and that’s how he scored,” he said.

After battling through three ties and seven lead changes in the first half, Bradley never trailed in the second. Maine pulled to within eight when a Casey Arena reverse layup made it 50-42 with 8:55 left, but Bradley answered with an 18-6 run to lead 68-48 with 3:35 to go.

“It was not a good showing for a homecoming,” Keeling of his return to the college he served as an assistant coach before coming to Maine.

“We’re disappointed because we didn’t shoot well,” he said. “Bradley did a good job taking away our top scorer, Francois Bouchard. Deonte Hursey was the only one to step up offensively.”

Still, Keeling said he thought that poor shooting on both sides may have be attributable to the exhibition games the teams had been involved in.

“The big thing was, it was the first game,” he said. “After playing against the national teams, teams that sometimes don’t play great defense, both teams were playing against teams willing to play defense.”

Hursey led the Black Bears with 14 points, seven steals and seven rebounds (six offensive) from his guard slot. Senior forward Bouchard added 11 points and eight rebounds and Chris Collins had 11 points and six boards.

Maine and Bradley both struggled shooting the ball. The Black Bears made only 23 of 64 attempts (36 percent) from the floor and 11 of 19 (58 percent) from the free throw line. Meanwhile, Bradley was making only 25 of 58 attempts (43 percent) from the floor and less than half their free throw attempts (16-for-35, 47 percent).

“It was a test for us, but I’m not totally discouraged,” Keeling said. “We felt we could play with Bradley, we got it down to four (points), but we just couldn’t get the shot we needed.”

Braves 71, Black Bears 60

Maine Bradley

Name AG G AF F TP Name AG G AF F TP

Jones 1 1 0 0 2 Pollard 6 5 13 8 18

Collins 7 3 4 4 11 Jackson 8 3 1 0 6

Bouchard 11 5 3 1 11 Hildebrand 7 3 6 2 8

Hursey 14 6 2 1 14 Wright 7 2 0 0 4

Arena 13 3 6 2 9 Parker 13 7 3 1 20

Barnes 4 2 0 0 4 Winslow 5 1 4 1 7

Hunt 6 2 0 0 4 Kleine 10 3 4 1 7

Jones 4 0 0 0 0 Zobrist 0 0 2 2 2

Smith 0 0 0 0 0 Funches 2 1 1 1 3

Schmidt 2 0 4 3 3 Burrell 0 0 0 0 0

Kotowski 2 1 0 0 2 Harris 0 0 0 0 0

Keeling 0 0 0 0 0

Totals 64 23 19 11 60 Totals 58 25 34 16 71

Maine 26 60

Bradley 34 71

3-pt. goals: Maine (3-20) – Collins 1-2, Hursey 1-3, Arena 1-3; Bradley (5-13) – Parker 5-9

Other Games

Colby 96, Suffolk 59

(Saturday) Suffolk (1-3) 59

Toglia 4(3), Vieira 5(1), McLaren 3(1), Ace 3(1), Kelley (4), Sullivan 1(2), McDermott (2), Mikalauskis 1 Colby (3-0) 96

Bergeron 6(3), Gaudet 6(2), Stephens 4(8), McCrum 5, Clark 3(4), Walsh 3, McLaughlin (2), Herbert (2), Murray (1)

3-pt. goals: Bergeron 3, McCrum 3, Gaudet 2, Walsh 2, Vieira 2, Toglia

Halftime: Colby 52-33

Bowdoin 81, USM 78

(Saturday) USM (2-2) 78

Blackstone 4(8), Smart 6(3), Tatro 5(1), VanRennekum 3(4), Laprise 3, Reynolds 3, Arrand 1, Elder 1, Kinsey 1 Bowdoin (2-0) 81

Browning 8(8), Arata 6(4), Vezina 5, Chapman 3, Kirek 2(2), Xanthepolous 2(2), Rowley (4), Maietta 2

3-pt. goals: Chapman 2, Arata 2, Tatro 2, VanRennekum 2, Kirek, Blackstone, Laprise

Halftime: USM 40-39