Meet Journal Star senior sports writer and columnist Dave Eminian
Journal Star reporter Dave Eminian covers Bradley Braves basketball and Peoria Rivermen hockey.
INDIANAPOLIS — The Bradley Braves basketball team worked through its annual secret scrimmage on a neutral floor Saturday in Indianapolis.
The Braves faced NCAA Division-I program Eastern Kentucky and won handily, according to speculation from social media. BU coach Brian Wardle didn’t confirm a score, noting the event wasn’t approached as a game.
“We got to work on a lot of different things, different offensive plays, zone defense and pressing,” he said. “We set aside 10 minutes for zone defense work only.
“That’s what I love about closed scrimmages, you get to look at your team. We got some things to work on.”
The scrimmage was actually arranged in late summer when Wardle was moving his daughter, Eastern Kentucky freshman basketball guard Mya Wardle, into the campus.
“I ran across the EKU basketball head coach while getting Mya set up,” Wardle said. “They were having trouble finding a scrimmage partner, and so were we. We wanted a high-major for this date, because it worked perfectly with our schedule.
“But this worked out just fine, so we set it up.”
Wardle said he played starting point guard Duke Deen about 20 minutes, and took long looks at most of his depth players as well.
“Eastern Kentucky plays a helter-skelter, man-to-man defense,” Wardle said. “That was good for us to face.”
Next up for Bradley is an exhibition game against Millikin on Oct. 30 in Carver Arena.
Dave Eminian is the Journal Star sports columnist, and covers Bradley men’s basketball, the Rivermen and Chiefs. He writes the Cleve In The Eve sports column for pjstar.com. He can be reached at 686-3206 or deminian@pjstar.com. Follow him on X.com @icetimecleve.
