Bradley secures 2-seed, ISU the 3-seed at Arch Madness with Senior Day wins
· Yahoo Sports
PEORIA, Ill. (WMBD) – The Bradley Braves came into 2025-2026 as the second-youngest team in the Missouri Valley. Surely a rebuild from two MVC title game appearances in the last three seasons would be necessary, right?
Well, the Braves closed the regular season on Sunday as the two-seed for this year’s Arch Madness tournament after an 87-78 win over Murray State.
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Senior Day saw nearly all four seniors for the Braves shine, including grad transfer Alex Hubrigetse. He led Bradley with 21 points against the Racers and AJ Smith chipped in another 14.
Sophomore point guard Jaquan Johnson also contributed 16 as well. The season began in a rough manner with the Braves losing three of their first four games.
Ending the regular season at second place in the conference would’ve seemed too good to be true to Brian Wardle four months ago.
To get the two seed and finish second with this team; If you told me that before the season, I would have laughed at you. But I’m so proud of them and how hard they’ve work. I pushed them. I pushed them to get better. You can see it’s clicking in longer segments now and so go into St Louis with nothing to lose and play aggressive and in attack mode.
Brian Wardle
The Braves will face either Valpo or Indiana State on Friday in the MVC quarterfinals.
Illinois State meanwhile needed a win over top-ranked Belmont to secure the 3-spot or they would fall to the five seed.
The Redbirds held on to beat the Bruins after a comeback effort led by a 16-point performance from Johnny Kinziger.
Ty Pence would add in another 14 off the bench for the Redbirds. Despite a roller coaster season, the Redbirds still end up with a bye at Arch Madness for the first time since before COVID.
And it manifested itself after a win over the regular season champion.
“Belmont’s really hard to guard. You gotta be fresh. They’re impressive on offense, so I was aware of trying to get guys breaks as much as possible. I think the depth is something that can work in our favor. I think we’ve got some guys on the bench that are really playing their best basketball of the year.”
Ryan Pedon
Redbirds will face either Northern Iowa or Evansville on Friday
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