NORMAL – A strong 3rd Quarter wasn’t enough for the Illinois State Redbirds as they fell to the Bradley Braves 62-66 in the War On I-74.
The Redbirds were able to hold a lead early in the 2nd, but mistakes on both sides of the ball allowed to Braves to take over and never look back. Head Coach Kristen Gillespie said one thing the team talks about is moving the ball around, which they struggled to do throughout the game.
“A big theme coming in was just trusting one another on the defensive end, trusting one another on the offensive end,” said Coach Gillespie. “And we talk about multiple paint touches, multiple sides and we just went away from that. We’ve got to continue to work on that, continue to demand that.”
The Redbirds headed into the 2nd Quarter tied at 15, but could’t get too much going as the Braves went on a 12-0 scoring run and held ISU to without a field-goal in 8:10.
Despite being down by 14 at the start of the second half, the Redbirds turned things around on offense, shooting 57.1% from the field in the 3rd, including a pair of 3-pointers. ISU was able to cut the lead to 2 points late in the fourth, but were unable to regain the lead.
Juju Redmond led all ISU scorers with 18 points and was 1 of 4 Redbirds in double-digit scoring.
The Redbirds return to the court next Friday night for another conference match-up with the Loyola Ramblers. WZND will have a live broadcast of the game starting at 6:50.