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Rienk Mast Commits to Bradley

Mast is just the type of player that the majority of us here on BradleyFans said a few months ago that we needed with the final 2019 scholarship- a big wing forward who could score from inside and out. Like most European big men, he will need time to adjust to Division I, and get stronger, and he won't step right in and be a star. Maybe the best Euro big man to play in the MVC was Egidijus Mockevicius of Evansville. He only averaged 5,8 ppg and 5.0 rpg his first season, but then went on to lead the MVC in rebounding the next 3 years. He was 1st team All MVC his junior and senior years and lead the nation in rebounding with 14 rpg.
I am not predicting that Rienk Mast can be another Mockevicius. But I like his upside, and he will give Bradley another skilled forward who can score along with Elijah Childs.
 
tornado said:
Our coaches are trying but it's not like the kids in Chitown are lined up all the way to Joliet to play downstate...
but - one site has Mast ranked as the 26th best international amateur player in the world (outside the US) - I think this is a good get -

video interview of Rienk talking about his Bradley commitment
(he says he is happy and talks about his visit - he liked the coaches, is anxious to play for a good team in a great conference)
He also mentions talking with a Dutch player on Bradley's roster as well as a player named Jordy Kuiper - a UNCG grad playing professionally in Groningen.
https://www.dvhn.nl/sport/Niemand-br...o%2FD8XnS5XdtR
https://www.rtvnoord.nl/nieuws/20396...bijna-een-must
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I am sure our coaches are trying. We also have a head coach that is from the suburbs of Chicago. I am also sure, after four years of recruiting, we haven’t made much of a dent in the Chicagoland or downstate market of Illinois high school players that have made a difference in our program.
 
Da Coach said:
Mast is just the type of player that the majority of us here on BradleyFans said a few months ago that we needed with the final 2019 scholarship- a big wing forward who could score from inside and out. Like most European big men, he will need time to adjust to Division I, and get stronger, and he won't step right in and be a star. Maybe the best Euro big man to play in the MVC was Egidijus Mockevicius of Evansville. He only averaged 5,8 ppg and 5.0 rpg his first season, but then went on to lead the MVC in rebounding the next 3 years. He was 1st team All MVC his junior and senior years and lead the nation in rebounding with 14 rpg.
I am not predicting that Rienk Mast can be another Mockevicius. But I like his upside, and he will give Bradley another skilled forward who can score along with Elijah Childs.
Click to expand...

Hopefully he is a pure shooter as we desperately need one after four years of not getting one. I have talked to people familiar with European basketball and they’ve said defense is not emphasized. I’ve seen enough highlight films of recruits on You Tube and their stats to know it isn’t always what you see. Until I see actual results, I will be highly cautiously hopeful. I still think it is too bad we have to go to Europe to get players. It would be one thing if we were getting difference makers. However, we aren’t and our results bear witness.
 
Vent said:
Hopefully he is a pure shooter as we desperately need one after four years of not getting one. I have talked to people familiar with European basketball and they’ve said defense is not emphasized. I’ve seen enough highlight films of recruits on You Tube and their stats to know it isn’t always what you see. Until I see actual results, I will be highly cautiously hopeful. I still think it is too bad we have to go to Europe to get players. It would be one thing if we were getting difference makers. However, we aren’t and our results bear witness.
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It's very hard to convince a solid division 1 player in the Chicagoland area to come play in Peoria. It appears our coaching staff is trying to find more well rounded players elsewhere such as overseas. By continuing this out of country approach, I would imagine our connections are building and maybe we get better and better overseas kids in Peoria in the future. I'm all for finding the best available players with high upside regardless of where they come from. If he can shoot well, Mast playing alongside Childs or Boya will really allow both post players to really thrive. I'm looking forward to seeing what he can do.
 
KMart said:
It's very hard to convince a solid division 1 player in the Chicagoland area to come play in Peoria. It appears our coaching staff is trying to find more well rounded players elsewhere such as overseas. By continuing this out of country approach, I would imagine our connections are building and maybe we get better and better overseas kids in Peoria in the future. I'm all for finding the best available players with high upside regardless of where they come from. If he can shoot well, Mast playing alongside Childs or Boya will really allow both post players to really thrive. I'm looking forward to seeing what he can do.
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Saying we can’t get mid major college basketball players from Chicagoland or elsewhere in Illinois to come to Bradley, is an excuse or verification of the reputation our program has throughout the state. Last year there were 47 former high school basketball players that played in the NCAA tournament from Illinois. I refuse to believe we can’t get two or three a year. In the past, coaches have sold Bradley as a place you can come to and get plenty of playing time, be away from home and your parents/relatives/friends can visit on weekends and watch you play. Coaching is a tight knit fraternity. Having good, trustworthy and established relationships with high school coaches is paramount to recruiting within this state. I wonder if we have that. The fact is this...after four years of this “out of country” approach we are mired in last place and not even ranked in the Top 200 of the country! You can’t use injuries or a difficult schedule for the perennial MVC Tournament play-in rounds or being in last place again. Maybe it’s time for Wardle to hire a couple of distinguished, well respected high school coaches from the Public League/Chicagoland to shore up our recruiting. What do we have to lose? What we’’’ are doing isn’t working.
 
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I know our coaches are recruiting the Chicago area...
and a few of the names on our recruiting lists and kids we have offered over the past few years were from Chicago...
If the kids want to go elsewhere despite being recruited and offered by Bradley - then I would rather our guys get their top targets from somewhere else
and not dip down into the 2nd tier kids just to say we landed one from Chicago.

Just a few kids who we did recruit & offer - Roosevelt Smart, Luwane Pipkins, Prentiss Nixon, Zion Griffin, George Conditt, Ty Mosley, Messiah Jones, Alonzo Verge,
Christian Negron, Melo Burrell, Charlie Moore, Ben Coupet, Nick Robinson, Zion Morgan & others...
 
tornado said:
I know our coaches are recruiting the Chicago area...
and a few of the names on our recruiting lists and kids we have offered over the past few years were from Chicago...
If the kids want to go elsewhere despite being recruited and offered by Bradley - then I would rather our guys get their top targets from somewhere else
and not dip down into the 2nd tier kids just to say we landed one from Chicago.

Just a few kids who we did recruit & offer - Roosevelt Smart, Luwane Pipkins, Prentiss Nixon, Zion Griffin, George Conditt, Ty Mosley, Messiah Jones, Alonzo Verge,
Christian Negron, Melo Burrell, Charlie Moore, Ben Coupet, Nick Robinson, Zion Morgan & others...
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Maybe a couple of second tier kids from Chicagoland or elsewhere in the state would open doors to others. And just maybe, those second tier kids are better than the bulk of the players that make up our roster that has kept us mired at or near the basement of the MVC. We should not be this bad, year after year. We offer great academics, great facilities, an opportunity to play a lot of minutes and not that far from home. Other than Brown and Childs, I’m not terribly impressed with our top targets from elsewhere. The results are proof.
 
well, I hear ya...but I just want to win - no matter where they come from...I am not against landing any kid that can help and Chicago kids welcome if they want to come to Bradley...but
Duke doesn't fill their roster with Durham NC kids....Notre Dame's roster doesn't have a single Indiana kid and none from Chicago.

Another example - all we heard a couple years ago about UIC was how incredible their prowess was landing the Chicago kids...their new coach was making headlines stocking up on them...
...KJ Santos, Dominique Matthews, Lance Whittaker, Tai Odiase, Josh Joiner, Paris Burns, Gabe Snider, Julian Torres (who was a Wardle recruit at Green Bay who switched to UIC when Wardle left), Drew Hackett - all Chicago or Chicago-area kids...
and guess what........here we are 2-3 years later and none of them are left (except Matthews, who is a very deep sub) and in the interval, UIC has never had much success
and are currently below .500 - sitting 8th in the Horizon. Should we have gotten those guys? ISU doesn't have a single Chicago kid. Who have we missed on that we should have landed from Chicago?


BTW - how many Chicago kids have we landed the past decade or so?
How many have made a difference?

I count only 2 or 3 difference-makers in the last 12 years - Donte Thomas (suburbs, and took 3-4 yrs to make a difference), Cunningham (arguable didn't really make any difference), and Walt Lemon - a Jim Les guy.

Here they are:
Alex Foster - via transfer - 2015
Donte Thomas - from the suburbs - 2014
Josh Cunningham - 2014
Jermaine Morgan - via transfer - 2014
Mike Shaw via transfer - 2013
Xzavier Taylor - 2013
Ka'Darryl Bell - suburbs - 2012
Devon Hodges - suburbs - 2011
Walt Lemon - 2010
Sam Maniscalco - 2007- a difference-maker but committed 12 years ago
Tony Bennett - 2004
Michael Rembert - 2003
then before that Jabbar Battle, Joey Paul, Chris Mroz...
 
I want to win too, and we aren’t. We’ve got a weaker non-con schedule and a weaker conference schedule and still can’t finish in the top three, let alone be a top 150 team. I’m not ready to throw the towel in and say we can’t get a couple of better players a year from Illinois. Very few kids that we’ve brought in during the last four years, other than Child’s and Brown, have stood out from the rest of the team. Most are projects that we hope get stronger and adjust to college play. As for Duke and others at the top, they recruit different players than us and go national for the best. The caliber of recruiting doesn’t have to be top shelf to get us out of this mess. We struggle to get players on the All Conference team. Hopefully going into year 5 of recruiting gets better. This can’t continue.
 
I hear ya - I am as frustrated as anyone - even when we win (SMU, Penn State, at SIU) we really didn't play all that well-
we just happened to catch teams playing even worse than us...
We have suddenly become the worst shooting, worst scoring team in the MVC and turn the ball over more than anyone else...
but I don't see a lot of evidence - except that four minute stretch to start the 2nd half vs. Missouri State - that we have a way to snap out of it.
 
tornado said:
I hear ya - I am as frustrated as anyone - even when we win (SMU, Penn State, at SIU) we really didn't play all that well-
we just happened to catch teams playing even worse than us...
We have suddenly become the worst shooting, worst scoring team in the MVC and turn the ball over more than anyone else...
but I don't see a lot of evidence - except that four minute stretch to start the 2nd half vs. Missouri State - that we have a way to snap out of it.
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We haven’t been a consistently good shooting team in Wardle’s tenure here. And turnovers...they still plague the program. Same thing, different season. Four years into a rebuild, with the exception of character, we have the same weaknesses as the first day Wardle stepped on campus, in a weaker league. As for men’s basketball, this appears to be the new norm for Bradley.
 
Vent said:
Maybe a couple of second tier kids from Chicagoland or elsewhere in the state would open doors to others. And just maybe, those second tier kids are better than the bulk of the players that make up our roster that has kept us mired at or near the basement of the MVC. We should not be this bad, year after year. We offer great academics, great facilities, an opportunity to play a lot of minutes and not that far from home. Other than Brown and Childs, I’m not terribly impressed with our top targets from elsewhere. The results are proof.
Click to expand...

The previous coaching staff took on lower tier players from Chicagoland hoping it would open doors to higher quality recruits. They eventually landed two (Thomas, Cunningham) and by then it was too late. The staff shouldn’t ignore any place that might yield a solid player.

Also, we do have 3 Illinois players on the team right now. Idk what brummett will be by his senior year but he looks solid. Kennel is good wing depth. Hanley is on the team too. So it’s not like the staff is saying they can’t get rotation guys in state, they just seem to be exploring all options.
 
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