The momentum was at a historic level. Illinois State walked into Carver Arena on Tuesday night with a 14-0 record, its best start ever.

This time was going to be different. The rabid, pro-Bradley crowd was going to be silenced. The six-year victory drought here was going to end.

Then, the referee tossed the basketball in the air.

So much for everything changing … or anything, really.

"From tipoff, it's just a different atmosphere than any other game," ISU junior guard Osiris Eldridge said following another Redbird disappointment in downtown Peoria, this one 56-52. "It's loud, all you see is red and white everywhere.

"It's kind of a little … I don't want to say intimidating … but as a player, you have to find some way to push that to the side and play the game."

The Redbirds did not push much of anything in the first half, least of all Bradley. They let the Braves manhandle them on the boards (22-11), rarely took the ball to the basket and were lucky to be within 30-21 when the halftime buzzer sounded.

It was what we've grown to expect from ISU on Bradley's home floor, which is to say not much.

"I think we fell into that category of 'ISU versus Bradley' instead of playing basketball," Eldridge said. "That hurt us in this game."

Strange things happen to ISU when it crosses the Illinois River. Last year, senior forward Anthony Slack slammed into a basket support early in the game and separated his shoulder. The Redbirds lost, 76-75.

This year, they hadn't left Normal when things began to unravel. Star senior guard Champ Oguchi took a jump shot five minutes into practice on Monday and experienced shooting pain in his back.

He watched the rest of the practice lying down, then - in ISU coach Tim Jankovich's words - went on a "whirlwind of every voodoo back cure that we could possibly think of" with trainer John Munn.

Oguchi started and played 16 minutes Tuesday night, but was nowhere near himself, finishing with three points on 1-for-7 field goal shooting. He played only four minutes in the second half.

Jankovich called Oguchi's injury "no excuse" for the loss, saying, "Everybody deals with those kinds of things."

Still …

"We always seem to deal with them over here," he said.

Indeed, Carver Arena is beyond a house of horrors for ISU. It also is a house of pain. In the final minute Tuesday night, senior forward Brandon Sampay took a shot to his forehead which drew blood.

Yet, in the end, this was about bad play more than bad luck or injuries or anything else. Fired-up Bradley and its 11,592 screaming fans, the second-most in Braves' history, took it to the Redbirds and took them out of everything which had made them 14-0.

ISU senior guard Emmanuel Holloway hardly recognized his team when Bradley had the Redbirds on the run.

"I think each person wanted to be the person who shut the crowd up or beat Bradley," Holloway said. "It was, 'I'm the one who's going to win the game.' It shouldn't be like that. It should be, 'We're going to win the game.'

"I'm glad we learned now instead of in the conference tournament when things get real gritty."

That is the lesson here. That is the positive to take from another negative trip to the west on Interstate 74.

The Redbirds learned a couple of things Tuesday night. One, they are not the same team without Oguchi at his athletic and sharpshooting best. More importantly, they learned how fragile the team concept can be when things get difficult.

"I don't at all think it was unselfish play (in the first half)," Jankovich said. "I think it was misguided aggressiveness.

"We need to learn from that. When things are going poorly, the answer is not individual aggressiveness necessarily. It's better team play."

Nowhere is that more true than Carver Arena, where ISU struggles mightily to stay in character, or stay healthy, or stay unbeaten.

Holloway said when you miss a shot on the road, it's like "you have to play against six people (on defense) because of the crowd."

At Peoria?

"Here, it's like 11 people," he said.

Maybe next year will be different.

But don't count on it.

Randy Kindred is a Pantagraph columnist. To leave him a voice mail, call 820-3402. By e-mail: rkindred@pantagraph.com. The Randy Kindred Blog is at www.pantagraph.com