The first round of the 2012 Missouri Valley Conference men's basketball tournament and as with the matchup between the No. 10 seed Bradley Braves and the No. 7 seed Drake Bulldogs. Bradley suffered through a disastrous regular season in the conference, dropping 16 of 18 games and losing both matchups to Drake. The winner of Thursday's game will meet the No. 2 seed Creighton Bluejays in the second round on Friday.
The two regular-season head-to-heads were decided by less than 10 points in each case, so Thursday's game is expected to be fairly close. The Braves are led by Taylor Brown, Walt Lemon and Dyricus Simms-Edwards --who each boast double-digit scoring averages. Bradley holds some dubious marks in the national rankings however, coming in at 300th in points per game (61.5) and 313th overall in field goal percentage (40.2 percent).
As for the Bulldogs, they rank 192nd in points per game (67.2) and 131st in field goal percentage (44.4 percent). Rayvonte Rice and Ben Simons do most of the scoring. Rice holds a 16.6 points per game average on 42.7 percent shooting, while Simons adds 16.2 per contest on 47.5 percent accuracy.
Missouri Valley Conference Tournament, Game 2
#7 Drake Bulldogs (16-14, 9-9 MVC) vs. #10 Bradley Braves (7-24, 2-16 MVC)
Game Time, Date: 8:35 pm CT, Thursday, March 1, 2012
Location: Scottrade Center, St. Louis, MO
TV: MVC TV Network
The full tournament bracket can be found here.
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