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That's a nice complimentary piece on Bill Cole. I would love to see the Peoria Journal Star write nice articles about all the bench players, role players, and reserves Bradley has. In fact, I'd like to see any article about even the starters Bradley has. But back to the Cole article...
It actually supports what people have been posting for years about Bill Cole- that he will never be more than a role player who plays a few minutes a game, mostly in blowouts like he did against and SIU-E and Presbyterian. In fact the article repeatedly uses the term "role" as if it is a high compliment, which it is not.
He played 12 minutes in their last game against Wofford, even though, as the article says, he played as well as anyone. Mike Tisdale played 32 minutes in that game, though Cole played just as well. He played a ridiculously low 14 minutes against Northern Illinois, despite Illinois blowing them out, and a meager 16 minutes against Presbyterian, despite the 46 point blowout!
Tisdale, Semrau, Simpson, and Griffey haven't done much in their 4 games so far, yet Cole can't seem to stay on the floor very long. All those big men will be back next year, along with another big man Meyers Leonard, who probably has more talent than all the others, insuring that Bill Cole will remain a low-minute reserve player for the remainder of his career at Illinois. He'll play less minutes as Illinois gets into their Big Ten schedule, since that has been the pattern of the last 2 years, and he doesn't match up well with big forwards on other Big Ten teams.
The fact remains that Cole is in his junior year at Illinois, and for his career, he has averaged playing a whopping 6.7 minutes per game!
Illinois has walkon players who average more minutes per game than that!
(Walkon Jeffrey Jordan, who is also a junior, has averaged 7.4 mpg for his career at Illinois, including 18 minutes per game this year!)
Is there anyone who doubts he would be starting the last couple years if he was playing at a midmajor school, and would probably be a star, instead of playing fewer minutes off the bench than some walkon at Illinois?
Furthermore, he has only played in less than half of Illinois games so far (33 games total now in his junior season). That's fewer games than most of the Bradley players played in just last year alone.
I do think Cole is happy now in his role as a low-minute reserve at Illinois, and Bradley fans are happy for him. But I don't think that's always been true. He did consider transferring the last 2 summers, and spent a lot of time in open gyms up at Bradley playing with the BU players. It is likely he'll spend the rest of his career at Illinois coming off the bench for a couple minutes at a time, and roaming around the 3-point line hoping to get off a shot, then quickly taking a seat back on the bench. And even fluff pieces like that John Supinie article won't help him get more playing time once the Big Ten games begin.
It actually supports what people have been posting for years about Bill Cole- that he will never be more than a role player who plays a few minutes a game, mostly in blowouts like he did against and SIU-E and Presbyterian. In fact the article repeatedly uses the term "role" as if it is a high compliment, which it is not.
He played 12 minutes in their last game against Wofford, even though, as the article says, he played as well as anyone. Mike Tisdale played 32 minutes in that game, though Cole played just as well. He played a ridiculously low 14 minutes against Northern Illinois, despite Illinois blowing them out, and a meager 16 minutes against Presbyterian, despite the 46 point blowout!
Tisdale, Semrau, Simpson, and Griffey haven't done much in their 4 games so far, yet Cole can't seem to stay on the floor very long. All those big men will be back next year, along with another big man Meyers Leonard, who probably has more talent than all the others, insuring that Bill Cole will remain a low-minute reserve player for the remainder of his career at Illinois. He'll play less minutes as Illinois gets into their Big Ten schedule, since that has been the pattern of the last 2 years, and he doesn't match up well with big forwards on other Big Ten teams.
The fact remains that Cole is in his junior year at Illinois, and for his career, he has averaged playing a whopping 6.7 minutes per game!
Illinois has walkon players who average more minutes per game than that!
(Walkon Jeffrey Jordan, who is also a junior, has averaged 7.4 mpg for his career at Illinois, including 18 minutes per game this year!)
Is there anyone who doubts he would be starting the last couple years if he was playing at a midmajor school, and would probably be a star, instead of playing fewer minutes off the bench than some walkon at Illinois?
Furthermore, he has only played in less than half of Illinois games so far (33 games total now in his junior season). That's fewer games than most of the Bradley players played in just last year alone.
I do think Cole is happy now in his role as a low-minute reserve at Illinois, and Bradley fans are happy for him. But I don't think that's always been true. He did consider transferring the last 2 summers, and spent a lot of time in open gyms up at Bradley playing with the BU players. It is likely he'll spend the rest of his career at Illinois coming off the bench for a couple minutes at a time, and roaming around the 3-point line hoping to get off a shot, then quickly taking a seat back on the bench. And even fluff pieces like that John Supinie article won't help him get more playing time once the Big Ten games begin.
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