{"id":283357,"date":"2025-11-14T06:12:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-14T06:12:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/283357\/"},"modified":"2025-11-14T06:12:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-14T06:12:09","slug":"womens-basketball-defeats-its-demons-in-carver-arena-the-bradley-scout","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/283357\/","title":{"rendered":"Women\u2019s basketball defeats its demons in Carver Arena \u2013 The Bradley Scout"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Kaylen Nelson celebrates after hitting a shot. Photo courtesy of Bradley Athletics.<\/p>\n

On Nov. 6, 2023, then-junior Kaylen Nelson made her Bradley debut at the Renaissance Coliseum against Kansas City and scored 31 points.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It was the seventh-highest point total in Bradley women\u2019s basketball history.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Since that moment, two years ago, she\u2019s been through hell. An ACL injury kept her out after five games that season and, when she returned last year, it was clear she was playing her way back into form.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But it seems Nelson has begun to exorcise her demons.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In the Braves\u2019 second game of the season against DePaul, Nelson scored 28 points on 10-of-16 shooting en route to a 78-64 win.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m so proud of Kaylen,\u201d head coach Kate Popovec-Goss said. \u201cKaylen has been through a lot in her three years at Bradley. [She] took a chance on us out of the portal, tore her ACL five games in; was our leading scorer. Last year was a little bit up and down for her, just getting her step back and her body back after the injury, and I think that Kaylen just turned a corner with her work ethic this summer.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s a leader for us, and I just love to see that,\u201d Popovec-Goss added. \u201cTo put up 28 points, it\u2019s a result of what you\u2019re doing in the offseason and I think the way that Kaylen has committed to her body [and] recovery leads her to have the confidence that she had tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nelson\u2019s performance came at a crucial time for the Braves. For the first time in three years, the women\u2019s basketball team played at Carver Arena. Its 11,000 seats allowed the Braves to have a bigger turnout than usual.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s a great opportunity to play back-to-back with the men just because the support has been continually growing for our program,\u201d Popovec-Goss said. \u201cPlaying in RenCo, we love our crowd there; I think our fans have been incredible. But to be able to come here and have that energy in the gym is super fun.\u201d<\/p>\n

Beginning with buckets<\/p>\n

The Blue Demons started the game with a lead, going up by five early, but Bradley went on a 14-point run soon after. DePaul ended up cutting a nine-point lead to four before the end of the first quarter, generating two late baskets in 30 seconds.<\/p>\n

Nelson led the Braves with seven points, with sophomore guard Mya Wardle and freshman guard Maya Foz close behind at five and four points, respectively. This marked the start of a career-defining performance for Nelson.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s great to start off with a bucket,\u201d Nelson said. \u201cJust being able to see how they call plays, we knew they were going to pressure a lot. So, we knew that if we could break their pressure, the paint would open up for us and we\u2019d get a lot of paint touches. One of our goals is to try to get a lot of points in the paint.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s what they did.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Thirty-two of the Braves\u2019 78 points came inside the lane, with another 16 of them coming from second-chance opportunities.<\/p>\n

The second quarter gave Bradley a scare. The Blue Demons tied the game up 24-24 with 8:11 left, but were unable to take the lead. The Braves took advantage of this, walking into the locker room with a score of 38-30 at halftime.<\/p>\n

Once again, Nelson led the team with seven points. Junior guard-forward Claire McDougall followed close behind with five and ended the game with eight points.<\/p>\n

Coach Pop credited the defense for the multiple runs they had during the first half, which helped them expand their lead.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur runs come from our defense and I think when we can find ways to grind it out and get stops, good things are going to happen for us,\u201d Popovec-Goss said. \u201cThe focus always, for me, comes back to defense and offensive execution.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes the ball is going to go in, sometimes it\u2019s not,\u201d Popovec-Goss added. \u201cBut when you can string together stops, that\u2019s what allows you to go on those types of runs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shooting for the stars<\/p>\n

In the next ten minutes, Bradley extended their lead to 14, but the big story of the third quarter came from Nelson. In the first eight minutes of the third quarter, she had five points and in the final two she made not one, not two, but three shots in a row from beyond the arc.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have a great support system. They see I\u2019m open, they\u2019re looking for me, they\u2019re telling me to shoot the ball, so I\u2019m gonna shoot it,\u201d Nelson said. \u201cIt was a great feeling to have my teammates around to have my back.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Braves and Blue Demons battled back and forth in the fourth, but in the end, the Braves kept their 14-point margin and took the victory. Nelson\u2019s 28 points were followed by Foz with 14 and Wardle with 13, with the latter leading Bradley in assists (8). Freshman forward Kali Fortson and sophomore forward Ellie McDermid were the top rebounders on the night, grabbing nine boards each.<\/p>\n

Bradley moves to 2-0 after this win and returns to action on Saturday, facing Indiana University Indianapolis in their first road game of the year, followed by a trip to Western Illinois on Thursday. Even though they will be away, the team explained what a win like this does for their morale.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt definitely puts us on people\u2019s radars,\u201d Nelson said. \u201cI think that we\u2019ve already been in that zone; people kind of saw what we were building last year. DePaul\u2019s a great team, a historical program, so coming out and winning the way that we did definitely opens people\u2019s eyes about Bradley.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe got IU Indy next, they\u2019re a great team,\u201d Nelson added. \u201cThey know who we were last year, but we got new pieces. And we can celebrate the win tonight, but tomorrow we\u2019re gonna go into practice and it\u2019s going to be right back to the next game plan.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kaylen Nelson celebrates after hitting a shot. Photo courtesy of Bradley Athletics. On Nov. 6, 2023, then-junior Kaylen…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":283358,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-283357","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-basketball","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-basketball","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283357","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=283357"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283357\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/283358"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=283357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=283357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=283357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}