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Final score: Duquesne 78 Bradley 70

Da Coach

Da Coach

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Staff member
Bradley (1-4) plays Duquesne (1-4) in the 7th-8th place game in the Paradise Jam on Monday, Nov. 22 at 12 Noon.
The game is streamed on ESPN3.
Direct link to ESPN3 video stream- https://www.espn.com/watch/player?id...3-801299a8211b

Live stats- https://twuathletics.com/sidearmstats/mbball/summary
Radio- www.1470wmbd.com
Chat room- www.chatzy.com/bradleyfans

Duquesne won their first game of the season at home against Rider, but then lost their next 2 home games to Hofstra and Weber State.
Then they lost their first 2 games in the Paradise Jam to Northeastern and Colorado and are now 1-4.
Duquesne schedule/results- https://goduquesne.com/sports/mens-basketball/schedule
Paradise Jam Bracket- https://s3.amazonaws.com/sidearm.sit...en_Bracket.pdf

Duquesne was picked 11th out of 14 teams in the Atlantic 10 preseason poll.

Schedule- https://goduquesne.com/sports/mens-basketball/schedule
Roster- https://goduquesne.com/sports/mens-basketball/roster
Duquesne stats- https://s3.amazonaws.com/goduquesne.com/stats/mbball/2021/pdf/cume.pdf

There are a couple familiar names on the Duquesne roster. One of their starters is 6'7" 3rd year center Tre Williams, a transfer from Indiana State. He spent 2 seasons at Indiana State as the starting center before transferring to Duquesne when his coach, Greg Lansing, was fired. Williams scored 17 points and had 7 rebounds in their loss to Colorado on Saturday, and he now averages 11.4 ppg (2nd on the team) and 7.6 rpg (tops on the team).
And another Duquesne starter and now their leading scorer is 6'7" 3rd year forward Kevin Easley, Jr. He scored 19 points and had 12 rebounds in their 84-76 loss Saturday to Colorado . He is now averaging 13.4 ppg and 4.5 rpg. Easley was a 2018 recruit who was offered a scholarship by Bradley, but eventually committed to VCU, then reneged and committed to Chattanooga. Then after one year, he transferred to TCU, then after another year to Duquesne.
Kevin Easley thread on Bradleyfans- https://www.bradleyfans.com/forum/sp...sley#post25638

Their only other double-digit scorer is 6'3" freshman guard Amir "Primo" Spears. He is averaging 10.8 ppg through 5 games.

Prior to today's game against Colorado, Duquesne was shooting just 25.8% from three as a team. In the game Saturday, they did much better, shooting 11-24 (45.8%). They are now shooting 29.8% for the season.

Bradley stats after 5 games- https://bradleybraves.com/documents/...dley_stats.pdf
 
How long before people start blaming Wardle? Look at his record during the regular season. It’s horrible. Had a couple lucky runs in the conference tournament, other than that ???? Thought he was looking for shooters. Apparently has found any
 
Horrible? Wardle won 63 games over 3 seasons from 2018-21. Not many coaches in Bradley history have done that. And he won the MVC tournament two years in a row. No Bradley coach has ever done that before. I think most fans would not agree that he was just lucky.
Yeah, last season was a bummer, and if fans want to blame Coach Wardle, that's understandable. But there were factors that contributed to the down year that were beyond his control. And because of what happened last season, Bradley does not have any returning 5th year seniors like many MVC teams do, so it will be a bit of a rebuilding season. I'm willing to give him a chance to rebuild. Speaking for myself, I'm disappointed with how this season has started, but I'm not ready to throw in the towel and go through another coaching change.
 
JMG 76 said:
How long before people start blaming Wardle? Look at his record during the regular season. It’s horrible. Had a couple lucky runs in the conference tournament, other than that ???? Thought he was looking for shooters. Apparently has found any
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Couldn't disagree more and the MVC tournament wins weren't lucky. Those were good teams, and the showing against MSU in March Madness only solidifies that argument.

Wardle's losses came in large part his first year here where he needed to build a complete team from scratch halfway through the recruiting season (we literally had one player stay after Geno was let go), and last year where we had the scandal in Missouri in a season destroyed by COVID with no fans and almost no practicing.

Wardle teams always seem to get better as the year goes on, and the way he has been giving the freshman playing time tells me he isn't so concerned with winning right now as he is in teaching. He's consistently prepared for the MVC tournament because that's almost the only way to make March Madness, and in the end, that's what matters.

This is a young team with a lot of new parts, but I am confident come tournament time, we will be rolling. I'd love to see any coach do any better than BW has as Peoria is not exactly a recruiting hotspot and the NCAA has made it more difficult every year for mid-majors to compete, which means teaching teamwork is paramount to our chances. Fact is, players just get better under his coaching, so if patience is given and he's allowed to coach (unlike last year), these guys will improve drastically if history holds true.
 
Bradley team enjoying the day off yesterday-
https://twitter.com/bradleyumbb/stat...73699437678594

FEvAEZJUYAMZkUL

FEvAEZKVEAUzcVo
 
Tommy said:
Couldn't disagree more and the MVC tournament wins weren't lucky. Those were good teams, and the showing against MSU in March Madness only solidifies that argument.

Wardle's losses came in large part his first year here where he needed to build a complete team from scratch halfway through the recruiting season (we literally had one player stay after Geno was let go), and last year where we had the scandal in Missouri in a season destroyed by COVID with no fans and almost no practicing.

Wardle teams always seem to get better as the year goes on, and the way he has been giving the freshman playing time tells me he isn't so concerned with winning right now as he is in teaching. He's consistently prepared for the MVC tournament because that's almost the only way to make March Madness, and in the end, that's what matters.

This is a young team with a lot of new parts, but I am confident come tournament time, we will be rolling. I'd love to see any coach do any better than BW has as Peoria is not exactly a recruiting hotspot and the NCAA has made it more difficult every year for mid-majors to compete, which means teaching teamwork is paramount to our chances. Fact is, players just get better under his coaching, so if patience is given and he's allowed to coach (unlike last year), these guys will improve drastically if history holds true.
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Agree completely with your assessment of how the season will shape up. I said all along this won't be the same team at the beginning of the year then what they will be when they get to St Louis.
Am I disappointed so far? Yes as the shooting has been horrendous but then BW isn't shooting the ball the players are. Some of that is just getting confidence in their shot and some can be blamed on the other teams Defense. We need Mast and Ville to start hitting their shots but then that will come.
 
While I agree Wardle has done a very good job up until last year, if this team does not improve markedly between now and the end of the MVC tourney this could be his last year. This team is VERY bad right now and losing to VERY bad teams. Unless they improve significantly I could see them winning 3-4 games this year. That's a tough scenario to keep a coach who has been here a while.
 
TampaBrave said:
While I agree Wardle has done a very good job up until last year, if this team does not improve markedly between now and the end of the MVC tourney this could be his last year. This team is VERY bad right now and losing to VERY bad teams. Unless they improve significantly I could see them winning 3-4 games this year. That's a tough scenario to keep a coach who has been here a while.
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Just sharing information I have heard, but there is a certain faction of the fanbase that are ready to move on from Wardle. My personal opinion is that he should get one more year after this one unless somehow there is a coach out there that we can't pass up.
 
While the Braves will almost certainly improve as the season goes on, these early losses will do nothing to inspire fans to return to Carver -- in fact, I'm afraid it will be the opposite unless we surprise in the conference schedule. There is still time to right the ship, get on something of a roll, and put some fans in the seats. But right now, given the bad record and other factors, it's hard to see.
 
We had some good spurts but not enough to win this one.

Roberts and Hickman looked good and were the only ones with some spark, Mast looks like he has regressed from last year, Kent hardly did anything and Hannah didn't even play, Henry did ok this game. Leons played alright, at least he could hit his 3s.

We just can't get any consistent play out of anyone. I don't think we will win many games until we do.
 
Don’t give up on this team or Wardle. They fought back from a 15 point deficit to 4 points late in the game. There were several bad calls, including Henry’s fourth foul, when the opponent jumped on his back when Henry clearly got the rebound. I’m disappointed in the outcome, but they don’t give up and there are some players to build on. This team barely lost to Colorado State and they are in the final tonight.
 
Clear positive takeaway from this game was the shooting. If we can get that type of shooting this year, we're going to be fine.
 
Tommy said:
Clear positive takeaway from this game was the shooting. If we can get that type of shooting this year, we're going to be fine.
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Except we weren’t fine today. It’s pretty bad how many of the returning players aren’t improved from last year. Mast has regressed it seems. If he and Ville aren’t making threes they are giant liabilities on the floor. Henry looks like he shouldn’t be playing small forward full time. It isn’t a coincidence that we made our comeback when Coach went small with Henry as a power forward.

I didn’t understand why Leons was on the bench for most of that time since he’s been our most consistent big but it was working. Howell has played better the last couple games, but I still want to see more minutes for Ekono. Montgomery needs to be getting heavy minutes.

I’d like to see coach really shake things up with a new starting lineup: Roberts/Hickman/Montgomery/Leons/Boya. Make the returning players earn their spots back. I know Boya has his injury concerns but he’s been our best center even though he doesn’t add much on offense. And putting Henry back on the bench is more about returning him to a more familiar role.

Something needs to change for coach to not start feeling the heat. Just saying we’re a good shooting team in practice and that the shots will start falling isn’t enough. I’m not an advocate for a coaching change, but I can see why some people would be.
 
ihatetea said:
I'm not an advocate for a coaching change, but I can see why some people would be.
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I'm not advocating for a coaching change either but if this team doesn't improve quickly it might not matter. It's not just the fact we haven't won a game yet(D2 games are irrelevant) but the competition has not been good. You can try to cherry pick a team here or there saying they're good but this list: Brown, Duquesne, Howard, South Dakota St? The reality is EVERY BU coach who had coached more than 3 seasons already and won less than 10 games was fired since Albeck*. Combine that with no ticket revenue 2 seasons ago, limited revenue last year, and the potential for fans staying away again with a bad team and something will need to change.

Understand I think Wardle is a good coach and has proven it and I think this is unprecedented times with Covid and the chaos of the transfer portal. I think he is the right man for the job. Combined with last years poor record and I just think too many things may work against him this year if they don't turn this around ASAP.

*Albeck 8-20 in 90/91 - Fired
Molinari 9-20 in 01/02 - Fired
Les won 12 in 10/11 - Fired
Ford 9-24 in 14/15 - Fired
All of these coaches had significant success with BU but that couldn't help them when they had a really bad season.
 
ihatetea said:
Mast has regressed it seems. If he and Ville aren’t making threes they are giant liabilities on the floor.
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I don't think he has regressed at all. This is just who he is. He is not a very athletic or physically strong player, and consistently plays below the rim. His shot has been off, but he got pushed around underneath most of the game. He would benefit greatly from developing his footwork and game similar to Krutwig. Krutwig is stronger, but he had great footwork.

Ville is and has been a defensive liability his whole time here. If his shot is on he is a great asset, but his game is very limited otherwise.
 
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