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Final score: Bradley 80 SIUE 55

Da Coach

Da Coach

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Bradley (3-5) hosts SIU-Edwardsville (3-5) Saturday, Dec. 4, at 2 pm at Carver Arena. This game is on ESPN3.
ESPN3 link- https://www.espn.com/watch/player/_/id/0a14ae74-b56e-45aa-aef4-e7e9ac84a86c
Live stats- https://bradleybraves.com/sidearmstats/mbball/summary
Chat room- www.chatzy.com/bradleyfans

SIUE played relatively close games in losses to Creighton and Marquette, but they also had embarrassing losses to Chicago State and to first-year D1 school, St. Thomas. Their 3 wins have been over Knox College, Youngstown State, and Omaha.
SIUE Schedule/results- https://siuecougars.com/sports/mens-basketball/schedule

SIU-E is coached by Brian Barone in his 3rd season. He is the son of former Bradley assistant coach Tony Barone, and he's also a former teammate of Bradley head coach Brian Wardle when they both played for Marquette in 1999-2000 and 2000-2001, then coached by Tom Crean. They both graduated from Marquette in the same class 20 years ago. Brian Barone was also Coach Wardle's top assistant coach when they were at Wisconsin-Green Bay, before Wardle took the Bradley job.
One other Bradley connection- Former member of Brian Wardle's staff, Troy Pierce, is now an assistant coach on Brian Barone's staff.

SIUE is a member of the Ohio Valley Conference, where they have struggled the last couple years since Barone was hired.
In fact, SIUE has never had a winning season since joining Division I in 2010.
SIUE historical record- https://www.sports-reference.com/cbb/schools/southern-illinois-edwardsville/

SIUE Roster- https://siuecougars.com/sports/mens-basketball/roster
SIUE Stats- https://s3.amazonaws.com/siuecougars.com/stats/mbball/2021/pdf/cume.pdf

They have 3 double-digit scorers, but they appear to be a poor three-point shooting team, averaging only 27.4% as a team through 8 games.

Bradley stats- https://s3.amazonaws.com/sidearm.sites/bradley.sidearmsports.com/stats/mbball/2021/pdf/cume.pdf

Bradley's 3-point percentage is up a little to 31.1%, still the worst among MVC teams, and Bradley's free throw percentage is just 61.1%, which also ranks 10th in the MVC.
But Bradley's FG% defense ranks #1 at 38.9%, and Bradley also ranks #1 in rebounding, rebounding margin, offensive rebounds, and defensive rebounds.
MVC stats- http://www.mvc.org/mbb/stats/confldrs.htm
 
Interesting to have an incoming opponent with a HC that has that deep of a relationship with our HC. “Battle of the Brians.”
 
Dub said:
Interesting to have an incoming opponent with a HC that has that deep of a relationship with our HC. “Battle of the Brians.”
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Yes, and likewise, a connection to Bradley basketball. Brian Barone was born in December, 1977, just a few months before his dad was named an assistant coach at Bradley under Dick Versace in March of 1978. So Brian grew up and spent nearly all of his first 7½ years in Peoria until his dad was hired away by Creighton in 1985 as their new head coach. My seats were behind the Bradley bench in those days, just above where coaches families sat, and I recall seeing Brian and his older brother Tony, Jr. at Bradley games as youths, having fun with the players and watching the games. Great family, and it was sad to see Tony, Sr.'s passing a couple years ago. I hope Brian can build a successful program at SIUE.
A couple bios of Brian Barone-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Barone
http://brianbarone.com/about/
 
Brian has his dad's eyes. I hope he does well and moves to a higher level one day. Who knows, he may end up at Bradley before he's done.
 
PhiAlphaBoy said:
Brian has his dad's eyes. I hope he does well and moves to a higher level one day. Who knows, he may end up at Bradley before he's done.
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Excuse my long post... Brian was an assistant at Green Bay all 5 years that Brian Wardle was head coach there, including being named Associate Head Coach for the 2014-15 season. It was assumed by many that he would become either an assistant at Bradley with Coach Wardle, or the new head coach at UWGB. But, neither happened. So Brian has had to work very hard to rebuild his career and work his way back up, which doesn't happen easily or often. He was even out of coaching for a couple years.
It will be tough for him at SIUE. Unfortunately, the SIUE job has proven to be a dead-end job since they started transitioning to D1 in 2008 and officially became D1 in 2010. No coach has had success there, yet. There are huge obstacles to overcome, similar to schools like Eastern Illinois and Western Illinois. They still have D2 or D3 level facilities, somewhat isolated location, difficulty recruiting- not a lot of D1-eligible talent in the area, and terrible financial and fan support (ex-BU women's coach Paula Bucher learned all this). They average a few hundred fans per game.
Barone may need to go harder after the juco and foreign kids to build his program to compete in the OVC, but even that probably won't easily lift them to the level of Murray State, Morehead State, Austin Peay, Belmont, etc, As a non-football school, they would probably have been better off if they had joined the Summit League. The OVC has lost Eastern Kentucky, Jacksonville State, and soon Belmont, but they still have several good, long-established winning programs to compete with.
 
What is Barone's current relationship status with Wardle DC? Brian had to take a few years off in 2015 to get some personal issues in order so he was probably "untouchable" when Wardle took the Bradley job. He's now having to start at the bottom again to get his once bright career back on track. I hope he can achieve enough success at SIUE to at least make a lateral move to a program with more upside and fan support.
 
They have been close friends since their years at Marquette. Brian is also very close to Bargen, Foster, and Adams, and all their families from their days at UWGB.
 
Da Coach said:
They have been close friends since their years at Marquette. Brian is also very close to Bargen, Foster, and Adams, and all their families from their days at UWGB.
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Would he make more as an assistant with Bradley if a position opened up? IMO the current staff could use some new blood.
 
Prob not or they'd have to give all the other assistants raises because they've been here 7 years.
 
Bradley 80 SIUE 55
https://bradleybraves.com/sidearmstats/mbball/media

Other than a sloppy first 10 minutes, a pretty good performance by everyone. Terry Roberts is the leading scorer with 17, but 12 different players scored.
Good shooting percentages, but the one down side is the 17 turnovers, 4 by Roberts.
Bradley also sent SIUE to the foul line 26 times, way too many for a team that shot only 27.6%. And 11% from three.
 
A couple other observations from the stats-
>> Bradley continues their MVC worst free throw shooting with 18-28, 64.3% today
>> Bradley had a double-digit rebounding advantage for most of the game, but the final few minutes with subs in the game changed that to a 39-35 advantage for BU
>> SIUE had 14 offensive rebounds against a far better rebounding Bradley team. There were a lot of balls that Bradley appeared to rebound, only to have them stripped away and go to SIUE.
>> Bradley was very active on defense- 10 blocks and 13 steals, to go along with holding SIUE to 27.6% FG% (16-58 ) and 11.1% from three (2-18 )
>> Other than turnovers, the offense keeps looking better. Bradley was 26-52 (50.0%) and 10-22 (45.5%) from three, and they had 16 assists.

Overall, this team keeps improving. The next game will be tough- road game at Toledo next Tuesday. Toledo is 6-1 and they are currently playing at Michigan State on the Big Ten Network. The score as I post is Michigan State 43 Toledo 23 at halftime.
 
Official box score- https://bradleybraves.com/sports/men...boxscore/21063
PDF version- https://s3.amazonaws.com/sidearm.sit...dsville_55.pdf

Attendance 3,685-
By the way, can anyone speculate why Bradley keeps playing 2 pm games on Saturdays? All 3 Saturday games so far have been 2 pm start times. And there were no hockey games any of these last 3 Saturday games. I am sure there would be better attendance if we played Saturday night games. :roll:
Bradley does not play a Saturday night game until January 22 against SIU, and there are only 3 all year.
 
Da Coach said:
Official box score- https://bradleybraves.com/sports/men...boxscore/21063
PDF version- https://s3.amazonaws.com/sidearm.sit...dsville_55.pdf

Attendance 3,685-
By the way, can anyone speculate why Bradley keeps playing 2 pm games on Saturdays? All 3 Saturday games so far have been 2 pm start times. And there were no hockey games any of these last 3 Saturday games. I am sure there would be better attendance if we played Saturday night games. :roll:
Bradley does not play a Saturday night game until January 22 against SIU, and there are only 3 all year.
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No idea DaCoach. I assumed that it was because of the Riverman on Saturday nights. It’s kind of a shame because most Saturday night games draw better than any other times.
 
Funny story... Early in the 2nd half today, there was a play where Terry Roberts was double-teamed along the sideline right in front of Brian Wardle. One of the SIUE defenders clearly hacked Terry on the arm causing him to drop the ball out of bounds for a turnover. One ref, whose name is Michael Svoboda, was right there but did not call a foul. Coach Wardle was a bit upset, even though Bradley had a big lead at the time. He yelled rather loudly at the ref as the play went back down toward the SIUE end, "Mike, Mike, Mike, I don't know you, but that was a foul!". Most fans on our side heard it clearly, and there was a loud roar of laughter.
 
Question- I was not in Peoria for the game but did they do something in addition to the moment of silence for Tony Barone ? It was nice that Tony’s wife was there bit did not see anything about Dick V. Any info on how he is doing ?
 
houstonbrave said:
Question- I was not in Peoria for the game but did they do something in addition to the moment of silence for Tony Barone ? It was nice that Tony’s wife was there bit did not see anything about Dick V. Any info on how he is doing ?
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For those who missed it, Bradley had a very nice pre-game tribute to former Bradley assistant coach Tony Barone just before the game. It lasted a couple minutes with a video and talk by Paul Herzog outlining Tony's lifetime coaching achievements and history with Bradley. It also included a brief moment of silence. Tony died 2 years ago. The only mention of Versace was part of the tribute that mentioned Tony served as assistant coach under Dick Versace from 1978-1985, before beginning his own head coaching career at Creighton, then Texas A&M, then the Memphis Grizzlies.

They also briefly recognized a guest at the game, former Cubs relief pitcher and MLB Hall of Famer Lee Smith, who was sitting courtside. I have no idea why he was there or why he was honored. No reason was given. To my knowledge, he has no connection to Bradley.

Dave Eminian reported about it in his column-
https://www.pjstar.com/story/sports/...ue/8777694002/

As far as Dick Versace, he is now 81 and was still living in Chicago last I knew. I last heard his health was weakening and he doesn't get out much any more. But he still follows basketball.

Btw, another former Bradley assistant coach, Chuck Buescher, was at the game, but was not recognized.

And of course, former Bradley Coordinator of Player Development under Brian Wardle, Troy Pierce (now an assistant coach under Brian Barone), was there on the SIUE bench.
 
Da Coach said:
For those who missed it, Bradley had a very nice pre-game tribute to former Bradley assistant coach Tony Barone just before the game. It lasted a couple minutes with a video and talk by Paul Herzog outlining Tony's lifetime coaching achievements and history with Bradley. It also included a brief moment of silence. Tony died 2 years ago. The only mention of Versace was part of the tribute that mentioned Tony served as assistant coach under Dick Versace from 1978-1985, before beginning his own head coaching career at Creighton, then Texas A&M, then the Memphis Grizzlies.

They also briefly recognized a guest at the game, former Cubs relief pitcher and MLB Hall of Famer Lee Smith, who was sitting courtside. I have no idea why he was there or why he was honored. No reason was given. To my knowledge, he has no connection to Bradley.

Dave Eminian reported about it in his column-
https://www.pjstar.com/story/sports/...ue/8777694002/

As far as Dick Versace, he is now 81 and was still living in Chicago last I knew. I last heard his health was weakening and he doesn't get out much any more. But he still follows basketball.
Click to expand...

Not sure if there was any connection to maybe SIUE but Lee and his wife were leaving the arena at the same time my grandson and I were and I asked him if he would mind having his picture taken with my grandson which he graciously said he would. Even took the time to chat it up with him a little bit also. Seemed like a class act
 
That's nice to hear. He and his wife did stay and watch the entire game and seemed entertained. But I am still puzzled why he was there and given an introduction.
Lee Smith was drafted as a 17-year old out of high school in Louisiana by the Cubs. He did attend Northwestern State University in Natchitoches, Louisiana, but I am not sure he is a graduate.
He worked his way up through the Cubs minor league system, though he never spent any time in Peoria because he made it to the major league club in 1980, five years before the Cubs became affiliated with the Peoria Chiefs in 1985. So I am not finding any connection to Bradley, Peoria, Central Illinois, or SIUE.
 
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