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MVC Awards (2025-26)

And here was the final vote totals for Player of the Year and Coach of the Year. Nice to see that Jaquan got a lot of support, but finished 2nd to Lundblade. But I am a little surprised to see Coach Wardle finish so far down the list. And what does the sentences "Coaches votes are weighted" mean?
1772641490325.png
 
It is noted fairly prominently in the pdf release
But Bully got robbed
Belmont would have finished 1st w/o TL
Bradley wouldn’t have even been .500 w/o Bully


IMG_5489.jpeg
 
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Sorry, I don't consider a small 2-line blurb on the PDF release (which far fewer people will see) only in a sidebar on the right side of the page a "fairly prominent" mention.

Again, this was the way previous year's releases started at the top. For some reason, they chose to completely omit any mention of the Defensive Player of the Year anywhere near the top 90% of this year's article, and only mention it near the bottom of the article under the wrong photo.
1772644238745.png
 
Can't argue with many of the selections.... except Bully got robbed & maybe Wardle shoulda got a little
more consideration for COY - but whatever........

Two questions I'd like to know the answer to.....

-For Newcomer of the Year, I wonder how close Alex Huibregtse was to Fred King in the votes

-and for the All Freshman team - here's a side-by-side comparison Jack Smiley who made the All Freshman vs Montana Wheeler
I wonder how close in votes Montana was.....
Smiley --- 17 mpg, 8.7 ppg, 1.8 rpg, 2.6 apg, 2.16 A/T, 0.5 steals, 1.2 TO, 50% FG, 44.8% 3-pt & key benefit, 3-pt shooting
Wheeler- 22.1 mpg, 8.4ppg, 1.2 rpg, 2.9apg, 2.90 A/T, 0.6 steals, 1.0 TO, 42.3% FG, 34.4% 3-pt & key benefit, great PG skills

oh so close.....but ordinarily I'd weight those PG skills and woulda put Montana on the All-Freshman Team
 
To the whole point about Jaquan's DPOY getting minimized, this looks like a classic MVC thing where they don't even know what they're doing. Sorry to be blunt towards them but when you have a tweet that sits for 12+ hours and you don't get a working link for your first set of conference awards, I have little confidence that this is anything more than negligence. They couldn't even send out a press release about today's awards without every other team starting to tweet their players before it. If you read the actual website page, the blurb underneath Jaquan actually talks about the DPOY so I think they just uploaded the wrong graphic, honestly.

"The league's Defensive Player of the Year is Jaquan Johnson of Bradley. A three-time MVC Player of the Week, Johnson leads the league in steals and ranks sixth in the NCAA in steals per game (2.58). His 80 steals ranks third-best in the NCAA, and is 12th-best all-time in MVC history. Johnson also ranks second in the league in scoring. He's the sixth Bradley student-athlete to earn the honor. Others include Adebayo Akinkunle (1998), Jerome Robinson (2001), Patrick O’Bryant (2006), Dyricus Simms-Edwards (2013), Malevy Leons (2023 and 2024). The league began selecting a Defensive Player of the Year in 1989."

------

A lot of this is narrative driven. The reality is that whether you look at stats or the eye test, Montana fell off in the second half of the conference season whereas Smiley got better. Love Tana - think he's one of the bright shining lights in upcoming BU seasons, but Belmont actually improved once McClain got hurt and Smiley assumed an even bigger role.

Conference Stats:
1772647514604.png

And I still think Bez Jenkins is arguably the best of their three freshman because he's a great defender as well as good rebounder and can score if needed. If he was on BU, he'd probably been our second or third leading scorer, basically in the Burch/Richardson on steroids role.

Regardless, I hope Montana and Bully use this as motivation this weekend.
 
Lol what a joke....

The DPOY avg's more points, more rebounds, more assists, and shoots better from the floor than your so-called Larry Bird POY.

lol that's the whole essence of Larry Bird's game....does everything well...it's not the Craig Hodges 1 dimensional 3 point specialist award....OH AND BY THE WAY YOUR DPOY SHOT THE SAME 3 POINT % AS HIM AS WELL

ROBBERY
 
BUBraves2006 said:
To the whole point about Jaquan's DPOY getting minimized, this looks like a classic MVC thing where they don't even know what they're doing. Sorry to be blunt towards them but when you have a tweet that sits for 12+ hours and you don't get a working link for your first set of conference awards, I have little confidence that this is anything more than negligence. They couldn't even send out a press release about today's awards without every other team starting to tweet their players before it.
Click to expand...
And although Bradley did post about the Bradley award winners on their social media sites, there is still not an article on the website with any mention of today's MVC awards. Nearly every other team has articles on their websites about the awards.
bradleybraves.com

Bradley University Athletics - Official Athletics Website

The official athletics website for the Bradley University Braves
bradleybraves.com bradleybraves.com
 
BUBraves2006 said:
MVC thing where they don't even know what they're doing.
Click to expand...

Remember - Jeff Jackson's only relevant resume point for this job was that he was #2 to the guy who damn near put the Big 12!! out of business, Bob Bowlsby.

He was an absolute failure as a head coach at Furman and New Hampshire. Had a career winning percentage of around 35%. He had 5 single digit win years out of 10. Went 22-11 for his only winning season out of 10. After Furman fired him, they hired Nico Medved and Bob Richey who have been kinda successful, I'd say.

But he did spend a lot of time as an assistant coach under Kevin Stallings at Vanderbilt where he worked with Dan Muller for several years.

He isn't good at this job, just like he wasn't good at any of them before.
 
Da Coach said:
And although Bradley did post about the Bradley award winners on their social media sites, there is still not an article on the website with any mention of today's MVC awards. Nearly every other team has articles on their websites about the awards.
bradleybraves.com

Bradley University Athletics - Official Athletics Website

The official athletics website for the Bradley University Braves
bradleybraves.com bradleybraves.com
Click to expand...

They can hire me if they want. I've written more words this season than they have in two seasons, probably. :LOL:
 
Nice job. I agree with all your points, as I'd guess all Bradley fans do. But obviously the voting is not based on the objectives you outlined, rather it's quite a bit subjective. Lundblade plays for the 1st place team, and that always seems to be a major factor. Nearly all the recent past Players of the Year were simply the top player on the 1st place team. Some of them were not the best MVC player statistically or otherwise.
Another strong factor is that Lundblade is a senior. That also seems to carry a lot of weight for some voters, though it should not be relevant at all.
Does anyone remember Clayton Custer or Marques Townes? They were the senior team leaders on the good Loyola teams of 2017-18 and 2018-19 seasons. Both years, their best player, by far, was Clayton Krutwig. he finally won the award in 2021.
Another one that really stands out in my memory was Jason Daisy (1997). Bradley senior Anthony Parker was the best player in the MVC that year (1st round NBA draft pick), but his injury caused him to miss several weeks, and that cost him back to back POY awards. SIU's Troy Hudson was also a great player and the MVC's 2nd-leading scorer, who went on to play 11 seasons in the NBA. But, Daisy was a gunner who lead the MVC in scoring for the 4th place UNI team, and that was enough to win the award. I think he played pro ball in Europe for a year or two and did not distinguish himself. And there were others.
List of past MVC Larry Bird Player of the Year Award winners- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missouri_Valley_Conference_Men's_Basketball_Player_of_the_Year#Winners
After a day of expressing our gripes and making our case, it can start to sound like sour grapes, so I'll accept it and move on.
 
I think the snubbing will give plenty of motivation for this weekend. ala Darrell Brown. Would be poetic if Jaquan were to lead us to victory over Belmont in the championship with BU nation chanting MVP, MVP, MVP! Lets GO!!
 
Da Coach said:
Nice job. I agree with all your points, as I'd guess all Bradley fans do. But obviously the voting is not based on the objectives you outlined, rather it's quite a bit subjective. Lundblade plays for the 1st place team, and that always seems to be a major factor. Nearly all the recent past Players of the Year were simply the top player on the 1st place team. Some of them were not the best MVC player statistically or otherwise.
Another strong factor is that Lundblade is a senior. That also seems to carry a lot of weight for some voters, though it should not be relevant at all.
Does anyone remember Clayton Custer or Marques Townes? They were the senior team leaders on the good Loyola teams of 2017-18 and 2018-19 seasons. Both years, their best player, by far, was Clayton Krutwig. he finally won the award in 2021.
Another one that really stands out in my memory was Jason Daisy (1997). Bradley senior Anthony Parker was the best player in the MVC that year (1st round NBA draft pick), but his injury caused him to miss several weeks, and that cost him back to back POY awards. SIU's Troy Hudson was also a great player and the MVC's 2nd-leading scorer, who went on to play 11 seasons in the NBA. But, Daisy was a gunner who lead the MVC in scoring for the 4th place UNI team, and that was enough to win the award. I think he played pro ball in Europe for a year or two and did not distinguish himself. And there were others.
List of past MVC Larry Bird Player of the Year Award winners- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missouri_Valley_Conference_Men's_Basketball_Player_of_the_Year#Winners
After a day of expressing our gripes and making our case, it can start to sound like sour grapes, so I'll accept it and move on.
Click to expand...
Looking at this list.....and man here has been some really good players in this conference. Kind of forget sometimes. Thanks for posting the link DC!
 
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