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Let's start the campaign -- Brian Wardle for Coach of the Year!!

Y

yoda

Well-known member
What a great season! Coach Wardle has the youngest team in the Valley, lost four senior starters from last year and still
way outperformed expectations in a strong year for the MVC.
Sure, Belmont's Casey Alexander is in the mix, but he's got a lot more returning talent.

And maybe UIC;s Rob Ehsan and Valpo's Roger Powell got some notice but BOTH flopped at the end of the season when
it really mattered as did Belmont- losing two key games over the last 3 weeks, probably blowing their at-large chances.

But Coach Wardle got his team up and ready when it mattered - here against Belmont, ISU and Murray State and the sweep
of Drake and all the lower teams in the standings - with no really bad losses like UIC just had at InSU & ISU & Valpo had vs Evansville.

Congrats Coach Wardle... four 20-win seasons in a row.... the most since Jim Les 20 years ago and before that you have to go back to 1960.

301 wins overall and another Top-2 finish in the MVC
 
It would be great to have Coach Wardle get the award! However, we've been close the last few years as a 2nd and 3rd seed losing to Drake! Maybe we can make the leap this year and win Arch Madness!
 
He should get some votes. Unfortunately, I think many of the people who vote just pick the coach of the top team. But Bradley lost 4 starters and their top 4 scorers from last year's team, and lost 9 players altogether. Bradley had to replace a huge portion of their production, with only 6 players returning, and that included a walk-on (Gus), two freshmen (Jaquan & Timo), a sophomore (Demarion), and a couple juniors (Corey & Meta). Many expected this to be a rebuilding year with a roster composed of 5 freshmen (2 of them redshirting), 3 transfer portal guys, and a juco transfer. No returning player averaged more than 6.6 ppg last year (Jaquan). On top of the roster rebuild, Coach Wardle's staff has been completely rebuilt, as well. Yet the pieces fell together nicely.
 
I think you can chalk up this season as a successful one yet again...and the Braves are playing their best ball of the season (as is the norm for Wardle's teams), tho I was disappointed at how we played last game at UIC, which fortunately didn't cost us the 2-seed!

Win at least 1 game in St. Lou and you'd have to say we exceeded expectations, especially considering the mediocre seasons by our returning seniors. AJ Smith's emergence really helped us near the end of the season. He IMO was the X-factor and I'd been riding him all season for underperforming.

The biggest (and maybe only negative of the season) was the downfall of Burch, who many fans thought would be our go-to guy for scoring.
I would have loved to see our other freshmen (Zobes and DJ) get more PT but D-Rich had some bright moments to build on.

For the ups and downs we Braves fans experienced, good to end the reg. season on a high note. The fans of all other Valley teams are likely not as satisfied except maybe Belmont and Valpo. Teams (and their fans) with high expectations or who started out strong (UNI, ISU-red, Murray) are likely not too happy right now.
 
I think it was said that it is four years running now that we have 20 wins. I consider that an incredible accomplishment considering what we lost last year in addition to a makeover of the coaching staff. Will Wardle get Coach of the year? He is deserving and in my opinion will get votes. Will he get the honor we can only guess, but he has my vote if I could cast one. Do not know how much longer Wardle will remain as coach. Maybe he really likes the situation he is in here. But time marches on and the day will come when he leaves. So enjoy it while we can and hope for future success while he is here.
 
One other thing I want to compliment Coach Wardle on is something a lot of us complained about during the season, including me.
His time management skills have worked out pretty well, despite the times we thought his substitution patterns might have hurt the flow of some games. Because of his subbing, no Bradley players averaged more than Alex Huibregtse's 30.7 minutes per game. Jaquan Johnson's 30.3 mpg was the only other player who averaged over 25 minutes per game. Plus, He was able to get a lot of the bench players, like Montana Wheeler, Timo van der Knaap, Corey Thomas, Kai Yu, Dietrich Richardson, and even Matthew Zobrist into some games and expose them to meaningful minutes, not just the garbage minutes at ends of games. Hopefully that distribution of playing time will improve the team's depth and will pay off in the tournament, where 3 or 4 games in 3 or 4 days can affect a team's play. Below is the average playing times-
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Coach Wardle is this Bradley Fan’s Coach of the year. Accomplished season with Bradley team, and in
a position to win the MVC tourney.

For sure, Coach Wardle is following the women’s team. Coach Popovec-Goss and team having a chance for
a 20 win season.

Congratulations Bradley Men and Bradley Women. ‘Once a Brave, always a Brave’
BU ‘62 and ‘64
 
Just trying to think back to when Bradley has had a 5-pt. lead or more with under 4 minutes to go and lost....7-pt or more leads with 6 minutes to go.
Coach Wardle has been great in holding onto leads the last few seasons. Not easy to do time and time again. And they had won 6 straight OT games before the 2-OT loss at UIC last week.

Just a heck of a job this season with what he's had to work with.
 
LittleBrave said:
Just trying to think back to when Bradley has had a 5-pt. lead or more with under 4 minutes to go and lost....7-pt or more leads with 6 minutes to go.
Coach Wardle has been great in holding onto leads the last few seasons. Not easy to do time and time again.
Just a heck of a job this season with what he's had to work with.
Click to expand...
LB, I was thinking about something similar at yesterday's game. Against many teams, even when it feels tight, if we have more than a possession lead under 4, it feels like our team just knows what to do to hold the lead and, at times, expand it. That was the frustrating thing at the end of the UIC game: I felt like we played as if we had the lead instead of like we were trailing.
 
A 2nd seed with the 2nd youngest group is quite an accomplishment for Coach Wardle! I don't think he worries about coach of the year! He just wants his team to play a high level of competition, to give them a decent shot at Arch Madness! I'm sure now getting to the Championship game is the minimum of expectations! Of course he wants to win it as most likely an Underdog, but his Braves teams have come through in the past! I just read the average seed to win Arch Madness has been the 2nd seed! Coach Wardle has the Braves seeded exactly perfectly! The 1 seed has more pressure! The 2 seed is what he loves....Bradley is the Challenger, in attack mode, as he loves to say....THE HUNTERS! I love that scenario!
 
Stevezall said:
I don't think he worries about coach of the year! He just wants his team to play a high level of competition, to give them a decent shot at Arch Madness! I'm sure now getting to the Championship game is the minimum of expectations!
Click to expand...

I believe so too SteveZ.

I would, however, be pissed if Quanny doesn't get the MVC POY even tho BU players often get the shaft with these end-of-season awards.
I don't think there's much comparison between him and anyone else in the league - his value to the team and all-around solid numbers in just about every category.

Give coach of the year award to Casey, but do what's right and give Bully the POY award as he is more deserving than anyone in the Valley.
His biggest disadvantage is being a sophomore vs Lundblade being a senior, but ultimately the head coaches hold the most weight for deciding who gets the award.
 
Scoretable said:
Coach Wardle is this Bradley Fan’s Coach of the year. Accomplished season with Bradley team, and in
a position to win the MVC tourney.

For sure, Coach Wardle is following the women’s team. Coach Popovec-Goss and team having a chance for
a 20 win season.

Congratulations Bradley Men and Bradley Women. ‘Once a Brave, always a Brave’
BU ‘62 and ‘64
Click to expand...
Maybe I should have added "Coach Popp for MVC Women's Coach of the Year"

btw- after the game when Coach Wardle commented on the radio- he said we have the "second youngest team"
when based on DI experience, but if based on actual age, we have the youngest team. Several schools have 23 & 24
year old super-seniors.

AI search says this...
"The youngest team in the Missouri Valley Conference (MVC) men's basketball for the 2025-26 season
(current as of March 2026) is the Bradley Braves."

Valpo is also very young but has Joe Vick (23 y/o), Isaiah Barnes (23 y/o), Brody Whittaker (23 y/o),
Owen Dease (22yr, 8mo), Kyontae Thomas (22 y/o) - but Barnes and Whittaker count as 1st year DI players because they came from DII
 
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