• Welcome to BradleyFans.com! Visitors are welcome, but we encourage you to sign up and register as a member. It's free and takes only a few seconds. Just click on the link to Register at the top right of the page, and follow instructions. If you have any problems or questions, click on the link at the bottom right of the page to Contact Us.

2025 BU commit- Montana Wheeler

Coach/Yoda, in your opinion, is this the most talented signing class we've had in decades?
 
Tommy said:
Coach/Yoda, in your opinion, is this the most talented signing class we've had in decades?
Click to expand...

Hard to say definitively, because we don't know how all these guys will turn out, or whether they will stay at Bradley for their entire careers. But on the surface, I think it does appear to be the best incoming freshman group in decades, and Coach Wardle is not done yet.
I don't know if this has been posted yet, but listen to Coach Wardle talk about his first 3 commits - https://bradleybraves.com/news/2024/11/14/bradley-mens-basketball-signing-class-update.aspx

Probably Jim Les' two best recruiting classes -
2003- Marcellus Sommerville, Daniel Ruffin, J.J. Tauai, Michael Rembert
2004- Patrick O'Bryant, Tony Bennett, Jeremy Crouch, Lawrence Wright, Sam Singh, and Lance Stemler

These were probably the three best Jim Molinari classes-
1992- Deon Jackson, Billy Wright, Dwayne Funches, Marcus Pollard, Rick Harris
1993- Anthony Parker, Aaron Zobrist, Kerry Burrell, James Baptist, Brian Hildebrand
2001- Danny Granger, Joah Tucker, Antoine Tisby, Mike Suggs, Brandyn Heemskerk, Michael Stewart

You might have to go back to Dick Versace's 1984 recruiting class to find the group that accomplished the most-
1984- Hersey Hawkins, Donald Powell, Jerry Thomas, Greg Jones, Len Bertolini, Trevor Trimpe, Tim Bankston, Jerome Childs

And considering this was his first year at Bradley, Versace had a pretty good first recruiting class in 1978-
1978- Mitchell Anderson, Carl Maniscalco, Donald Reese
 
Tommy, I'm not sure about that. Chet Walker's team was the only freshman team to beat the varsity in the annual game. Walker's teams were nationally ranked and played against players like Oscar Robertson. Walker only had three varsity years.

It is impossible to compare players from different generations but thought Walker was worth mentioning. I know DC and Yoda saw him play in person and could comment more about the players on his team. I believe there was a year or so in there where they were ranked in the top 10. I hope my memory is not bad as I could only listen on the radio and I am getting much older:) My main source of info in those days were the games on the radio and the PJS stories.
 
LongTimeFan said:
Tommy, I'm not sure about that. Chet Walker's team was the only freshman team to beat the varsity in the annual game. Walker's teams were nationally ranked and played against players like Oscar Robertson. Walker only had three varsity years.

It is impossible to compare players from different generations but thought Walker was worth mentioning. I know DC and Yoda saw him play in person and could comment more about the players on his team. I believe there was a year or so in there where they were ranked in the top 10. I hope my memory is not bad as I could only listen on the radio and I am getting much older:) My main source of info in those days were the games on the radio and the PJS stories.
Click to expand...
Chet is certainly worth a mention! Good point, LTF!
 
Sorry, didn’t mean to hijack Montana’s welcome post!
Montana! We’re excited to have you and we are expecting big things!
 
LongTimeFan said:
Tommy, I'm not sure about that. Chet Walker's team was the only freshman team to beat the varsity in the annual game. Walker's teams were nationally ranked and played against players like Oscar Robertson. Walker only had three varsity years.

It is impossible to compare players from different generations but thought Walker was worth mentioning. I know DC and Yoda saw him play in person and could comment more about the players on his team. I believe there was a year or so in there where they were ranked in the top 10. I hope my memory is not bad as I could only listen on the radio and I am getting much older:) My main source of info in those days were the games on the radio and the PJS stories.
Click to expand...

I actually never saw Chet play in person while he was at Bradley. I saw him numerous times in the NBA, but I did not arrive on the Bradley campus until several years after Chet was gone.

And, not to diminish Chet Walker's contributions at Bradley, but there was another Bradley freshman team that beat the varsity squad, and did so rather easily. I was there to witness it. It was the 1970-71 BU freshman team pictured and listed below.
Not only did they beat the BU varsity team in a preseason scrimmage, they went on to finish their season undefeated at 15-0, including a pair of blowout wins over a really good Louisville freshman team and a 105-79 clobbering of a very talented Notre Dame freshman team. I believe that Notre Dame team included future consensus All-American and NBA star John Shumate.

1970-71-freshman-team.png
 
yoda said:
Monatana Wheeler had two awesome games this past weekend...

31 points, 8 assists, then
12 points and a career high 20 ASSISTS!- https://x.com/xaviertxhoops/status/1859087168875946052

has anyone ever seen a game with somebody getting 20 assists?
(I have, Anthony Manuel had 21 assists in 1987, with Hersey scoring 51.
In all of NCAA history only 9 people have had more than 20 assists and only 24 have hit 20)
Click to expand...

Anthony Manuel had one of the all-time top assist years ever that year (1987-88, I believe) averaging 12 apg.
 
PhiAlphaBoy said:
Anthony Manuel had one of the all-time top assist years ever that year (1987-88, I believe) averaging 12 apg.
Click to expand...

yes- 12.0 assistst per game, the second best yearly assist average in the HISTORY of college basketball!
BUT --you know what - he still didn't finish 1st in the nation that year, since Southern University's Avery Johnson just happened to have
the all time best single season assist numbers the same season, at 13.3 assists per game.
To this day, they still stand at #1 & #2 all time for single season assist leaders.
https://www.sports-reference.com/cbb/leaders/men/ast-per-g-player-season.html
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top