Junior guard Tyler Brown scored a game-high 21 points, leading Illinois State (15-9, 7-6 MVC) to a 78-48 win against Interstate 74 rival Bradley (6-19, 1-12 MVC) Saturday night on Doug Collins Court at Redbird Arena before 7,744 fans. With the Braves big three scoring combination - Taylor Brown (5 points, 1-for-9 shooting), Dyricus Simms-Edwards (7, 3-12) and Walt Lemon, Jr. (8, 3-11) – held to 20 points on collective 7-for-32 shooting from the field, freshman guard Jalen Crawford was the team’s leading scorer with a career-best 11 points. Bryant Allen aided the Redbirds effort with 11 points off the bench, while John Wilkins chipped in with 10. Bradley will return home to host Indiana State Wednesday night at Carver Arena. Click here for game stats.
-Bob
Off to its best start in school history, the Grinnell College men’s basketball team won a hard fought 102-90 come-from-behind victory over Monmouth College before 875 fans. The Pioneers are now a program-best 14-1 on the season while improving to 10-1 in the Midwest Conference. They’ll take that mark into Saturday afternoon’s contest at Lake Forest College, a team that is 11-0 in the league. Junior guard Griffin Lentsch led Grinnell with 30 points, hitting 5-of-12 from 3-point land. Also in double figures for the Pioneers were Patrick Maher with 16 points and Matt Chalupa with 10. Kenny Foster, Michael DeDecker and David Altman led the Fighting Scots in scoring with 14 points each. The Pioneers had 13 steals and forced 35 turnovers with there tenacious man-to-man defense.
-Bob
Junior guard Dyricus Simms-Edwards matched his career-high with 26 points and Taylor Brown added 23, leading Bradley (6-13, 1-6 MVC) to a 78-67 Missouri Valley Conference men’s basketball win versus Northern Iowa (13-6, 3-4 MVC) Sunday afternoon at Carver Arena before 8,223 fans. The Braves duo together outscored the Panthers 35-31 in the second half, helping the Braves erase a 16-point deficit in the final 17:17 to snap a 9-game overall losing streak, as well as a 16-game January slide that dated back to 2010. The win also marked the first MVC win for first-year Bradley head coach Geno Ford. Walt Lemon,Jr. added 16 points for Bradley, teaming with Simms-Edwards and Brown for 65 of Bradley’s 78 points, just two shy of UNI’s total. Click here for official box score.
-Bob
Derek Nesbitt and Brett Sonne scored goals 1:41 apart and Ben Bishop’s 32 saves made it stand up as the Peoria Rivermen downed the Houston Aeros 2-1 on Saturday night at Carver Arena before 6,240 fans in AHL action. The Rivermen won two out of three on the weekend and have now won nine of their last 13 games to move within three points of the division leaders. Houston ended Bishop’s shutout streak at 13:24 of the third. Bishop, who shutout Lake Erie on Thursday, had not allowed a goal in 134 minutes and 14 seconds. Carson McMillan took a bad angle shot that Bishop initially made a save on. The rebound went to the front of the net right to the stick of Jed Ortmeyer for his seventh goal of the season. Click here for game stats.
-Bob
The No. 23 Creighton Bluejays squandered all but two points of an 18-point lead but held on for an 87-78 Missouri Valley Conference victory in front of 8,771 at Redbird Arena over Illinois State. Doug McDermott led the Bluejays with 20 points, while three of his teammates also finished in double figures.Jackie Carmichael was the only other Redbird to reach double digits with 14. Illinois State shot 46.4 percent (32-69) from the field and 25 percent (8-32) from beyond the arc. Five of ISU’s three-pointers were made by Bryant Allen. Creighton shot 57.1 percent (32-56) from the field and 55.6 percent (10-18) from three-point land. Click here for the final game box score.
-Bob
