Wessler: Bradley crushes Valpo with rebounds, mental toughness

Thursday
Jan 4, 2018 at 12:01 AM

Kirk Wessler Journal Star sports editor @kirkwessler

PEORIA — It is so much fun to watch Bradley’s basketball team do dirty work well.

There are lots of reasons the Braves are 12-4 overall — only one win shy of their total from last season — and why they look like a team that could be a real factor in the Missouri Valley Conference for the first time in so many years we almost can’t count that high.

But the big reason is their mental toughness, evidenced by the dirty work they relish. They scrap. They dive to the floor for loose balls. They contest off-ball movement. They help. They close down.

They rebound.

“They crushed us,” Valparaiso coach Matt Lottich said Wednesday night, after Bradley had battered his team on the boards and won this MVC game, 80-71. “Rebounding won them the game.”

Bradley outboarded the Crusaders, 45-30. The Braves took 33 percent of the rebounds off their own glass and 78 percent off Valpo’s. Bradley’s Dwayne Lautier-Ogunleye and Donte Thomas combined for 26 rebounds — just four fewer than the entire Valpo team.

Lautier-Ogunleye, a 6-foot-4 guard, grabbed a game-high 14. Thomas, a 6-7 forward, had 12. Each of the seven Braves who played at least 10 minutes had two or more, topped by 6-11 Koch Bar’s seven.

And the guys will be talking about those numbers among themselves until the next practice, when the coaches will throw down a challenge.

“Who will be the rebound king for us?” Bradley head coach Brian Wardle said. “Will it be Eli (Childs)? Will it be Donte? Koch? DLO? Tonight it was DLO and Donte. So tomorrow, we’ll be challenging Koch and Eli, and I guarantee they’ll be talking about it.”

Those four have a competition going among themselves. It starts on the practice floor, plays out in front of the general public in games, then rolls back onto the practice floor. Thomas laughed and said it even plays out during their pregame warm-ups, chasing down misses.

“I don’t think there’s a score we keep,” Lautier-Ogunleye said. “But we’re checking.”

“We pride ourselves on rebounding,” Bar said. “Defensive rebounding creates more chances and quick transitions for offense.”

Strong defense and rebounding have not been Bradley calling cards for a lot of years. That helps explain why BU hasn’t won a Valley title since 1996 and hasn’t been in a real championship chase since 2001, which was the last year the Braves finished higher than fourth place and weren’t out of contention before Feb. 1. There have been a couple of exceptions to the defensive posture — notably when Bradley surged late in the season and reached the NCAA Sweet 16 in 2006 and grabbed an NIT bid in 2007.

This season, though, the Braves have entrenched themselves among the top 30 defensive teams in the nation, according to the kenpom.com analytics website. And their rebounding is becoming a force.

“We call it CDR,” Lautier-Ogunleye said. “Compete, defend, rebound.”

A junior now, he has evolved into an important force for this team. As a freshman, DLO was called upon to do too many things on a team full of freshmen who were trying to figure out how to play Division I college basketball. Now, he has focus and a role as a hustling playmaker and defender of the opposition’s No. 1 perimeter player. He’s capable of putting up points, but he doesn’t have to score to be effective.

“Junkyard garbage man,” DLO said when asked to define his role. He smiled because he liked his answer almost as much as he likes the role. “I try to do the little things. Try to frustrate their best scorer. I try to rebound, try to facilitate and do all the things that are not glamorous but that help us win. At the end of the day, anything I can do to help us win, I’ll do it.”

That mental toughness is not his exclusively, either. It’s becoming part of this team’s identity. It’s why they’ve re-established Carver Arena as a tough place for opponents; a true homecourt advantage. It’s why they’re finding ways to win, whether the game is fast or slow, physical or free-flowing. More often than not, they are controlling the tempo and the style.

“It’s really amazing,” Thomas said, reflecting on the transformation of this program from the abyss it was in when he arrived as a freshman. “The energy is so different. The vibe is different.”

Compete. Defend. Rebound.

And win.

That’s refreshingly different.

Kirk Wessler is Journal Star sports editor. Contact him at kwessler@pjstar.com. Follow him on Twitter @KirkWessler.

Thursday
Jan 4, 2018 at 12:01 AM

Kirk Wessler Journal Star sports editor @kirkwessler

PEORIA — It is so much fun to watch Bradley’s basketball team do dirty work well.

There are lots of reasons the Braves are 12-4 overall — only one win shy of their total from last season — and why they look like a team that could be a real factor in the Missouri Valley Conference for the first time in so many years we almost can’t count that high.

But the big reason is their mental toughness, evidenced by the dirty work they relish. They scrap. They dive to the floor for loose balls. They contest off-ball movement. They help. They close down.

They rebound.

“They crushed us,” Valparaiso coach Matt Lottich said Wednesday night, after Bradley had battered his team on the boards and won this MVC game, 80-71. “Rebounding won them the game.”

Bradley outboarded the Crusaders, 45-30. The Braves took 33 percent of the rebounds off their own glass and 78 percent off Valpo’s. Bradley’s Dwayne Lautier-Ogunleye and Donte Thomas combined for 26 rebounds — just four fewer than the entire Valpo team.

Lautier-Ogunleye, a 6-foot-4 guard, grabbed a game-high 14. Thomas, a 6-7 forward, had 12. Each of the seven Braves who played at least 10 minutes had two or more, topped by 6-11 Koch Bar’s seven.

And the guys will be talking about those numbers among themselves until the next practice, when the coaches will throw down a challenge.

“Who will be the rebound king for us?” Bradley head coach Brian Wardle said. “Will it be Eli (Childs)? Will it be Donte? Koch? DLO? Tonight it was DLO and Donte. So tomorrow, we’ll be challenging Koch and Eli, and I guarantee they’ll be talking about it.”

Those four have a competition going among themselves. It starts on the practice floor, plays out in front of the general public in games, then rolls back onto the practice floor. Thomas laughed and said it even plays out during their pregame warm-ups, chasing down misses.

“I don’t think there’s a score we keep,” Lautier-Ogunleye said. “But we’re checking.”

“We pride ourselves on rebounding,” Bar said. “Defensive rebounding creates more chances and quick transitions for offense.”

Strong defense and rebounding have not been Bradley calling cards for a lot of years. That helps explain why BU hasn’t won a Valley title since 1996 and hasn’t been in a real championship chase since 2001, which was the last year the Braves finished higher than fourth place and weren’t out of contention before Feb. 1. There have been a couple of exceptions to the defensive posture — notably when Bradley surged late in the season and reached the NCAA Sweet 16 in 2006 and grabbed an NIT bid in 2007.

This season, though, the Braves have entrenched themselves among the top 30 defensive teams in the nation, according to the kenpom.com analytics website. And their rebounding is becoming a force.

“We call it CDR,” Lautier-Ogunleye said. “Compete, defend, rebound.”

A junior now, he has evolved into an important force for this team. As a freshman, DLO was called upon to do too many things on a team full of freshmen who were trying to figure out how to play Division I college basketball. Now, he has focus and a role as a hustling playmaker and defender of the opposition’s No. 1 perimeter player. He’s capable of putting up points, but he doesn’t have to score to be effective.

“Junkyard garbage man,” DLO said when asked to define his role. He smiled because he liked his answer almost as much as he likes the role. “I try to do the little things. Try to frustrate their best scorer. I try to rebound, try to facilitate and do all the things that are not glamorous but that help us win. At the end of the day, anything I can do to help us win, I’ll do it.”

That mental toughness is not his exclusively, either. It’s becoming part of this team’s identity. It’s why they’ve re-established Carver Arena as a tough place for opponents; a true homecourt advantage. It’s why they’re finding ways to win, whether the game is fast or slow, physical or free-flowing. More often than not, they are controlling the tempo and the style.

“It’s really amazing,” Thomas said, reflecting on the transformation of this program from the abyss it was in when he arrived as a freshman. “The energy is so different. The vibe is different.”

Compete. Defend. Rebound.

And win.

That’s refreshingly different.

Kirk Wessler is Journal Star sports editor. Contact him at kwessler@pjstar.com. Follow him on Twitter @KirkWessler.

Choose the plan that’s right for you. Digital access or digital and print delivery.

Learn More