OPENING TIPS:
*Three-time defending MVC Champion, Wichita State (11-3, 1-0 MVC) hosts Bradley (6-8, 1-0) in its conference home opener, Sunday afternoon at Charles Koch Arena, Home of Devlin Court.
*Catch every Shocker game, home and away, on FM 103.7 KEYN and online at goshockers.com/listen. Mike Kennedy -- now in his 37th year as Voice of the Shockers -- will call his 1,190th consecutive game, alongside Dave Dahl.
*The game can be seen statewide on Cox Channel Kansas (Cox HD 2022) and in the Kansas City area on Time Warner SportsChannel, with Shane Dennis and Bob Hull.
*WSU-Bradley won't be the first college hoops action of 2017, but it will at least be in the top-three. Nebraska/Maryland and Syracuse/Boston College tip during the 11:00 a.m. hour.  The Shockers  and Braves are one of three matchups scheduled for 1 p.m. CT.

MISSOURI VALLEY CONFERENCE PLAY

rv/rv Wichita State (11-3, 1-0 MVC)   Bradley (6-8, 1-0 MVC)

Sunday, Jan. 1

1:00 P.M. CT

Wichita, Kan.

Charles Koch Arena

Tickets

Game Notes: WSU | BU

COVERAGE

Cox Channel Kansas (HD 2022)               TW SportsChannel (KC Area)

WatchESPN (Subject to Blackout)

Shane Dennis & Bob Hull

KEYN 103.7 FM

Listen

Live Stats

SOCIAL

@GoShockersLIVE | #watchus

@goshockers | #watchus

Go Shockers

SERIES HISTORY

All-Time: BU leads 71-68

In Wichita: WSU leads 45-20

Last Meeting: Jan. 23, 2016 (WSU 88-54)

AT A GLANCE

Stat Comparison BU WSU Points/Game 66.6 81.7 Opp. Points/Game 69.7 63.3 Field Goal % .430 .460 3-PT Field Goal % .358 .367 Free Throw % .644 .715 Rebound Margin -3.0 +9.3 Turnover Margin -2.5 +3.4 Assist-TO Ratio 0.8 1.4 Blocks/Game 4.3 3.9

WSU GAME NOTES (PDF Format)

STARTING FIVE:
1 --- WSU's 13-consecutive victories against Bradley is the Valley's longest active series winning streak. The streak is also tied for the fifth-longest ever involving the conference's 10 current members. SIU (17-straight over Drake from 2000-08) tops the list, followed by Illinois State's 15-gamer against UNI (1976-94)... A win would push WSU's streak to 14 and tie it for fourth-place with Missouri St., which went unbeaten against UNI from '97-04...The Shockers have active streaks of 7+ wins against all but two of their nine MVC rivals (UNI and Illinois State).
2 --- The Braves have dropped seven-straight in Wichita, last winning on Dec. 31, 2008. Since Jan. 1, 2009, the Shockers have won at an .873 clip against Valley foes at Charles Koch Arena (62-9).
3 --- WSU-Bradley is the only Valley game this weekend involving two teams with 1-0 records, which means the MVC will have anywhere from one to four unbeaten teams heading into week two. A win would move WSU to 2-0 for the fifth consecutive year.
4 --- WSU ranks 10th nationally in field goal percentage defense (.372). The Shockers' are shooting nearly as well from behind the three-point line (.367) as their opponents are shooting overall. They've held three foes under 30 percent this year and nine of their 14 opponents to less than 40 percent.
5 --- The Shockers have scored 80 on nine occasions this year, equaling their total from all of last year. WSU is 67-1 under Gregg Marshall when scoring at least 80, with 44 consecutive wins.
 
SCOUTING BRADLEY:
*Bradley is out to a 6-8 start under second-year head coach Brian Wardle, already exceeding its win total from a season ago. Wardle has a track record of success, going 96-65 in five seasons at Green Bay, culminating in three-consecutive postseason appearances.
*The Braves bested Southern Illinois on Thursday night, 60-51, and are 1-0 for the first time since the 2012-13 season and for only the second time in seven years.
*Wardle went all-in on youth last year, building an active roster of 10 freshmen, one sophomore and one senior. Bradley led the nation in inexperience, with freshmen combining for 5,334 minutes (over 500 more than any other team in the nation). That gamble is beginning to pay dividends with six of the 10 freshmen returning as sophomores.
*Dwayne Lautier-Ogunleye was named to last years MVC All-Freshman Team. He attended Auburn High School in Rockford, Ill. -- three years behind recent Shocker alum Fred VanVleet.
*Newcomers have also helped strengthen that core. Bradley's top-two scorers (and three of the top-five) are new to the roster in 2016-17.
*Darrell Brown -- a 5-foot-11 freshman out of Memphis -- scored 2,678 points to break current Golden State Warrior guard Ian Clark's Germantown High School record. He's averaging a team-high 11.8 points.
*Utah State transfer JoJo McGlaston averages 9.0.
*The addition of 6-10 center Koch Bar (originally from South Sudan) has further strengthened the defense. Bar is the MVC's third-best shot blocker at 1.7 per game and averages a team-high 6.2 rebounds.
 
THE SERIES:
*The programs have met 139 times. WSU has played more games against Bradley than any other opponent, with the exception of Drake (149 games). Consequently, no team has beaten the Shockers more than the Braves (71 wins all-time).
*The series gap has closed considerably in recent years, with WSU's 13-game winning streak, making it 71-68. This is the closest the count has been since the 1940s when Bradley won each of the first 10 meetings in the series to pull away.
*11 of the 13 WSU wins during the streak have come by 14-or-more points with an average margin of victory of 22.2 points.
*The Shockers are 45-20 against the Braves in Wichita with wins in 11 of the last 13 Charles Koch Arena encounters.
*Bradley last tasted victory at Charles Koch Arena on Dec. 31, 2008. The Braves' seven-game losing skid in Wichita is one loss shy of their worst stretch ever. From 1971-79, BU dropped eight-in-a-row at then-Henry Levitt Arena.
*All seven Shocker wins in the current streak have come by double-figures. A 12-point win (81-69) kicked off the streak on Jan. 3, 2010. Since then, WSU has won by 20, 37, 22, 20 and 34. The Braves' 54 points in the 2016 game snapped a run of five-straight trips in which they had failed to break 50.
*WSU has won its last six games in Peoria, one more than its entire win total from 1990 through 2010. Prior to this current six-game road streak, WSU had managed back-to-back wins at Bradley on just two other occasions, spanning 61 years (2003/2004 and 1976/1977).
 
LAST YEAR vs. BRADLEY:
*WSU won both regular season games by an average margin of 30.5 points (85-58 in Peoria on Jan. 3 and 88-54 in Wichita on Jan. 23).
*In the two games, the Shockers forced 43 Bradley turnovers, with Fred VanVleet (6) and Ron Baker (5) combined for 11 of WSU's 23 steals.
*Markis McDuffie -- the eventual MVC freshman of the year -- was right at home against Bradley's group of 10 freshman, scoring in double-figures twice. He had a team-high 14 in Peoria and 10 in Wichita.
*WSU used big first-half runs to take control of both games. Up 20-18 in Peoria, the Shockers launched a 19-0 run over a stretch of five minutes and eventually went into the half up 48-24. In Wichita, WSU scored the first 10 points and raced to a 17-3 lead.
 
RANDOM KNOWLEDGE:
*Bradley head coach Brian Wardle holds an obscure NCAA record. On Feb. 16, 2000 -- while playing for Marquette -- he scored all 17 of his team's points in the first half against DePaul (which ganged up on him with 27 for a 10-point lead at the break). Wardle isn't the first D-I player to score 100% of his team's points in a half, but his 17 points is by far the highest total.
*Shaquille Morris has played more minutes against Bradley than any other active Shocker (74) and averaged 9.0 points, 4.3 rebounds in four  previous meetings, while shooting 68% from the field (15/22).
*WSU's record for most consecutive wins over one opponent is a 17-game streak against Friends University from 1920-27.
 
TO THREE, OR NOT TO THREE?
*The Shockers have topped 40 percent from three in each of their last four games inside Charles Koch Arena and are shooting .410 overall on campus. 
*The Braves have kept five straight opponents (and 11 of 14 overall this year) under 40 percent. After holding SIU to 2-of-26 from deep on Thursday, Bradley leads the MVC in three-point field goal defense (.300).
 
A SHOCKER WIN WOULD…
… Improve their overall record to 12-3
… put them at 2-0 in MVC play for the fifth-consecutive year (they've reached 4-0 in each of the last four).
… extended their winning streak against Bradley to 14-in-a-row, tied for the third longest in school history (WSU won 14 against Sterling College from 1914-40).
… push their home winning streak against the Braves to eight, matching their longest in this 70-year series (WSU also won 8-in-a-row over Bradley at Levitt Arena from 1971-79).
… close the gap in the all-time series to 71-69 Bradley (the closest it has been since Jan. 5, 1949 when the Braves won 66-51 in Wichita to improve to 2-0 against the Shockers).
… extend their Charles Koch Arena streak to 11 games.
… give them 10-consecutive January victories (WSU went 9-0 in January, 2016).
 
A SHOCKER LOSS WOULD…
… drop them to 11-4 for the year.
… put them at .500 in MVC play for the first time since a Dec. 31, 2011 home loss to Creighton dropped them to 1-1.
… be their first against Bradley since a 75-73 loss in Peoria on Feb. 24, 2010, snapping a 13-game streak.
… be their first home loss to the Braves since Dec. 31, 2008, snapping a seven-game streak.
… be less good than a win.
 
UP AHEAD:
*WSU welcomes Drake (3-10, 1-0 MVC) to town on Wednesday night for a 7 p.m. CT tip of Cox Channel Kansas.
*The Bulldogs play Sunday afternoon at Southern Illinois, then go directly to Wichita in what will turn into a long, five-day road trip.
*The Shockers have won the last nine encounters with Drake, last losing Jan. 24, 2012 in Des Moines.