Bradley glad to have another shot at home game through NIT

PEORIA, Ill. (WMBD/WYZZ) — Bradley senior Duke Deen says he was ready.

Ready to go on the road and play in the National Invitation Tournament (NIT). He figured the Braves were good enough to make the NIT field but he thought for sure they’d play on the road.

Perhaps against a Big 10 team like last year when BU was sent to Wisconsin.

“We were just wondering where we might be playing and it said, ‘Three seed, Bradley.’ So I stood up,” Deen said about watching the NIT pairings on television Sunday.

At that point, he realized the Braves wouldn’t be heading on a bus to go to their game. Bradley was chosen to host Loyola in the first round of the NIT.

“I said, ‘wait, we got a home game?’ Everybody was packed, we did laundry, we just knew we were going to Iowa,” said Deen who thought the online projections of Bradley traveling to play the Iowa Hawkeyes were going to come true.

Instead, the Braves will play a former Missouri Valley Conference rival on Wednesday at 6 p.m. It’ll be Bradley’s first home game in the NIT since 2007.

The Braves are glad they were wrong about assuming they’d head out of town to play.

“That was the expectation, that we were going somewhere in the Midwest and we’d be on the road. But to get another home game is huge,” said guard Connor Hickman. “We were sitting there and not expecting to a get a top four seed. So it’s a great opportunity to get a home game.”

MVC regular season champ Indiana State is the top-seed in the NIT quadrant in which the Braves are playing. The two could meet in the tournament quarterfinals if each wins its first two games.

But Bradley is only thinking about Wednesday’s game. Which is at home, where the Braves were 13-3 this season.

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