Dec. 21, 2004

Box Score

PEORIA, Ill. - Despite shooting 51.1 percent from the floor, the Samford University basketball team fell on the road against the Bradley Braves, 79-59, on Tuesday. Bradley finished the contest shooting 50.9 percent from the field and a torrid 50.0 percent from 3-point range.

"They did a great job on us defensively and we weren't able to get many good looks on either our threes or our twos," said Samford head coach Jimmy Tillette. "Also, we didn't take good care of the ball and we had a season-high in turnovers with 18. We threw the ball right to them and they scored a lot of points off of our turnovers."

Samford (5-4) lost its first game in 18 days and snapped a two-game winning streak. The Bulldogs entered the contest coming off of consecutive double-digit wins over Tennessee Wesleyan, 68-30, and Tennessee Temple, 71-56.

Bradley (7-1) extended its home winning streak to 11-consecutive games and earned its fifth victory in a row. The Braves are currently the 29th-ranked team in the RPI (Ratings Percentage Index) and have posted wins over DePaul, 63-53, Butler, 75-66, and Pepperdine, 76-58, this season.

Patrick O'Bryant and Tony Bennett paced Bradley with 17 points apiece, while Samford's Randall Gulina also tallied 17 points, tying his career-high. The Braves' pair of seven-footers, Brandyn Heemskerk and O'Bryant, was dominant on the boards for Bradley and the Braves out-rebounded the Bulldogs, 35-16.

"This was a good environment to play in," Tillette said. "They have a great program and I just wish that we could have taken care of the ball better and made it a better ballgame, but it didn't work out that way. I think that if we could have limited our mistakes and gotten off to a better start, then we would have made it a closer contest."

Bradley opened the game with a 15-6 run and earned a 42-28 lead at the half. The Braves' 7-0 freshman O'Bryant scored 13 of his 17 points in the opening 20 minutes of play and proved to be a major factor in Bradley's 14-point lead at the intermission.

After the Braves jumped out to its early eight-point advantage, Samford cut the lead to 23-16 behind the play of sophomore guard Gulina. The Bulldogs' native of Baton Rouge, La., drilled back-to-back 3-point shots and led the team on an 8-0 run.

Gulina finished the opening period of play with 10 points behind a solid 4-of-7 shooting performance from the field. He ended the game 7-of-12 from the floor with 17 points and three steals.

"We looked stationary and uncertain at times, because we didn't have our anchor (Bryan Boerjan) down there as much as we'd liked to in the first half," Tillette said. "That's the way the foul situation worked out and we definitely didn't attack very well."

Bryan Boerjan, Samford's senior forward from nearby Rock Falls, Ind., fell into early foul trouble in the first half and was forced to sit out a large portion of the opening period. He finished the contest with five points on 2-of-3 shooting.

Samford rallied late in the first half to put together a 7-0 run behind a pair of layups from Gulina and a clutch 3-point shot from J. Robert Merritt. Merritt, the Bulldogs' leading scorer this season, cut Bradley's advantage to 40-28 with a deep 3-point basket from the right wing.

The Bulldogs' Jerry Smith and Jon Mills each turned in double-digit scoring performances on Tuesday.

Smith, Samford's tenacious point guard from Picayune, Miss., finished with 11 points on 5-of-8 shooting, while Mills tallied 10 points and three assists. Mills, the lone Alabama native on the Bulldogs' roster, shot 5-of-8 from the floor and 2-of-4 from beyond the arc.

Samford fell to 1-3 on the road this season and will continue play in its current four-game road swing after Christmas.

"We just need to take this time to enjoy Christmas and to try to get our minds off of basketball for a while," said Tillette. "I said everything that I needed to say to the guys in the locker room and we'll start getting ready for IUPUI when they back on the 26th."

The Samford University basketball team will take a short break for the Christmas Holidays and is scheduled to resume its four-game road trip next week with contests against both IUPUI and Notre Dame. The Bulldogs face IUPUI on Dec. 28, at 7 p.m., and then travel to South Bend, Ind., for a 6 p.m. matchup with Notre Dame on Dec. 30.