Final score: Nevada 91 Bradley 69

[Da Coach]

I'm not sure we have the talent right now. Last year's freshmen were players available, but not recruited by any other programs. I think Wardle is doing the best he can with the cards he was dealt with and this turn around is a three to four year project. I know Versace went from last in the MVC to first, but that was an exception. This is like a big ship that was sailing in the wrong direction for years and turning the ship around was last year's goal. We are at least on course, but it is going to take better players to return this program to our fans expectations. Don't give up on this team and I believe much better days are coming.

One more thought, and maybe some won't agree. I know Coach Wardle was dead set against recruiting juco talent as he felt that was "going for the quick fix", and instead wanted to build almost exclusively with 4 year recruits. But that 4-year recruit philosophy can backfire easily if the recruits you get are not able to adjust to D1, or as we saw last spring, many of the freshmen left and we essentially had to start over again..
However, as we can see with a bunch of juco kids in the MVC, sometimes rebuilding can be augmented successfully with occasional juco talent. Jojo is a juco and is one of our best couple players (if not the best), though he's not a typical juco transfer.
Right now, 10 of the top 24 scorers in the MVC are juco transfers and 10 of the top 20 rebounders are juco transfers who are all contributing greatly to teams who were "rebuilding". In almost every case of where teams bring in multiple jucos, those teams outperform their expectations. Juco kids usually look to go to schools where they will play right away, since they only have 2 years, so I believe Bradley could have gotten any of those kids or comparable kids, and filled some gaps and made this team better.
And the final argument for jucos is that it might help prevent a team from going multiple years as a bottom-dweller like Bradley has been, waiting for the young talent to develop. That can greatly damage the attendance and fan following, as well as cause donations to dry up. For what it's worth, I believe we'd all be watching a much better quality of basketball if we had gone this way, and watching games wouldn't be so painful and frustrating. We'd better hope the long-term results with the freshmen developing works out, but we can't afford to keep having the kind of turnover we had the last couple years.

 

[Dubl R 1]

I don't remember how he got his points last night but he seemed overmatched I thought by Nevada bigs. He only had 2 rebounds and I think 2 fouls in the first half which limited playing time....

JoJo and Brown were the killers last night shooting 2-15........as well as Luuk with his foul trouble. I doubt we win many games with those 3 guys not playing well

1st half... caught a ball in the paint off a switch for a 2 handed dunk

2nd half... missed step back 15 jumper from right corner
Dump down pass he caught, pump faked, made an and 1 left handed
Layup. Made the free throw.
Off pick and roll, caught the ball, made move in traffic for up and
Under layup

I agree he was overmatched a bit... but man our guards were way overmatched, as your reply points out. 3-4 from our big man on super limited touches. I'd rather he get some chances than an overmatched jo jo shooting 15 shots. The problem was we dug such a hole that we pressed and felt we didn't have time to establish anything down low. We eventually at some point will have to work inside out to have some success, like at Eastern the other night.

 

[Vent]

Good college basketball teams have at least 3 players that are 6-4 to 6-8 that can catch and shoot from the perimeter and also drive to the basket. We don't have any that can do it consistently. Until we do, we can talk about how good of kids we have, how the coaches are doing it the right way and whatever other clich?©s. The bottom line is the game has changed and you must be to shoot the ball better than ever to win. We can't. It's always, I saw them in practice or they shot well the other night. It apparently much more difficult to recruit good basketball players to Bradley than we thought.

 

[carter]

Substitutions

Substitutions

Does anyone have thoughts on how often we have seen substitutions?I know it's nice to have a bench but it seems to me we need 5 starters for continuity.I think Coach is changing up way to much.

 

[Dub]

Wow guys.

Let me ask you this:
1. Does anyone think we WILL NOT have more wins this year than last (5 total).
2. Does anyone believe we WILL NOT have more wins the following year than we will this season?

You all know this is an incremental process. We took a major hit and the road to recovery has been started down.

People are just so tired of losing that they have lost patience... but have faith. Is it fair to expect that we would have a 1 or 2 season miraculous return to MVC dominance?

Enjoy the process and quit looking for instant gratification.

 

[Da Coach]

I doubt anyone thinks we won't win more games this year than last. Even last year's team would have had several more wins with the easier schedule, though I think everyone agrees this year's team is better and deeper. But you are right, that the many years of losing has really done severe damage to Bradley's tradition and their once loyal fan base. Drawing 5,300 to watch a good opponent may be good for 8 of the other 9 MVC teams, it would have been unheard of just 4-5 years ago.
I still recall some people complaining when the attendance fell to under 9,000 with the unfortunate 2010-11 season when the administration fired the 2 assistants, and manipulated things to deprive the team of its 2 best players. As bad as that season was, we never saw attendance numbers drop within thousands of where they are now. And people said it could not possibly get any worse. I predicted it would take years to get back to where we were, and that we might never recover from the damaging changes the previous administration forced down the throats of the fans, and I was mocked for my predictions, which all turned out to be right.

Fans are just tired of the losing, but just as much the fans are tired of the bad play, poor shooting, poor passing, and other facets of the game that should be correctable. There are way fewer fans left now than there were 5 years ago, and many will never be back. But I have talked to many of the remaining fans, and they are very close to giving up and not renewing their tickets. The price of tickets and maintenance is just way too much for the quality of play we are seeing. The ones I have talked to are all developing other interests and they just no longer care about Bradley like they once did. I guess that will be the legacy of the previous administration and the Board that brought them and stayed with them way too long. But it needs to get a lot better quickly or we are going to see attendance numbers like Drake's soon. They filled their arena as recently as 2008 (7,000+), but now are averaging around 2,500 per game at home).

 

[pfcmsh]

Fatique

Fatique

Does anyone have thoughts on how often we have seen substitutions?I know it's nice to have a bench but it seems to me we need 5 starters for continuity.I think Coach is changing up way to much.

I was lucky enough to hear Coach Wardle talk in October of this year. He mentioned that last year, the few kids he played ran out gas in the 2nd half of games. Perhaps he wants to avoid that this year?

 

[Bradleyfan1]

Good college basketball teams have at least 3 players that are 6-4 to 6-8 that can catch and shoot from the perimeter and also drive to the basket. We don't have any that can do it consistently. Until we do, we can talk about how good of kids we have, how the coaches are doing it the right way and whatever other clich?©s. The bottom line is the game has changed and you must be to shoot the ball better than ever to win. We can't. It's always, I saw them in practice or they shot well the other night. It apparently much more difficult to recruit good basketball players to Bradley than we thought.

Jo Jo, Nate, Pittman, Luuk,

Pitts best games were 2nd half of last season to and he's put a couple good ones together.

Jo Jo has been real good , I'm not writing him off after one bad game.

Can't say enough about Kennel or Luuk.

We are doing it the right way. So when we get to the top we are there to stay.

 

[Braves2006]

Jo Jo, Nate, Pittman, Luuk,

Pitts best games were 2nd half of last season to and he's put a couple good ones together.

Jo Jo has been real good , I'm not writing him off after one bad game.

Can't say enough about Kennel or Luuk.

We are doing it the right way. So when we get to the top we are there to stay.

I agree. This is just one bad game against a really good team. We all knew there would be ups and downs again this season. I'm not jumping off the cliff like some after the beat down on Saturday. Heck... we are 4-4! I'll take that for now after winning only 5 games last year. Just think, if we were to finish .500 this season, how many fans would be ecstatic? This one sure would..

 

[LittleBrave]

I agree. This is just one bad game against a really good team. We all knew there would be ups and downs again this season. I'm not jumping off the cliff like some after the beat down on Saturday. Heck... we are 4-4! I'll take that for now after winning only 5 games last year. Just think, if we were to finish .500 this season, how many fans would be ecstatic? This one sure would..

I'm with you Braves2006!

Just one bad game - our toughest opponent to date - maybe makes the guys realize we have to work harder and learn from their mistakes.

I look for a better effort vs Ball State - let's take 'em to the wire!

I'm still very optimistic for this program, and we can't keep with the dismal outlook after a bad game.