Some good Bradley numbers

[Da Coach]

The Sweet 16 year-Awesome
NIT the next year-Great
Last year-Good while we were winning, but we also lost a ton of games too
This year-disappointing, there is no way around that. When a talented team under performs people are going to complain about it, and for good reason. period.

Do you think Bradley's performance this year could have anything to do with not having their best player and returning leading scorer? Or even the serious injury to WE, or the less serious injuries to Sam M.'s foot, and Sam S. nose?

[mportsch]

I've never liked the use of wins or winning percentage to describe a team's quality - we all know that schedule strength can really impact those numbers. My favorite measure of a team is Pomeroy rating, which not only takes into account wins and losses but also looks at how a team plays against each opponent. It adjusts nicely for schedule strength and puts all schools on equal footing.

Bradley has been very solid over the past 3 seasons - here's BU's final Pomeroy rankngs each season:

2005-06: 26
2006-07: 61
2007-08: 81

That's an average ranking of 56, which is pretty darn good. Here's the average Pomeroy ranking for each MVC team over the past three seasons (not including this year):

46) SIU
55) Missouri St.
56) Bradley
5 Creighton
7 Northern Iowa
81) Wichita State
91) Drake
105) Illinois State
151) Indiana State
15 Evansville

Clearly, Bradley is in that upper tier of the MVC over the past three seasons, and an average finish just outside the top 50 nationally is very good (better than a substantial number of BCS conference schools).

Now, this has been a disappointing season thus far. If you include this season's rankings (which Pomeroy himself would tell you aren't completely mature yet), here's how it shakes out (past 4 seasons including this year):

57) Creighton
62) Southern Illinois
74) Missouri State
85) Bradley
86) Wichita State
90) Drake
9 Illinois State
107) Northern Iowa
136) Evansville
184) Indiana State

Bradley is still in that upper half, although it gets a lot closer from spots 4 through 6. The good thing is that Bradley still has a chance to turn this season around, and I'd be pretty surprised if BU actually finishes as deep in the Pomeroy rankings as they currently are (172nd). I still see upside for Bradley, as this is a fairly inexperienced team that should get better as the year goes on. The NCAA Tournament is pretty well out of reach (barring an MVC Tourney title), but this could still be an NIT or CBI team before the season is through, and that would be a positive result considering the great players Bradley lost from last year's team (including Warren thus far).

Hopefully the Braves can get the turnaround started on Sunday, with a winnable home game against SIU.

[Fetz86]

Yes I do, but we still should be able to play better defense, shoot Free Throws better, and we should have beaten UMKC and UWM, and looked better then we did last night.

[BradleyBrave]

Numbers can be dangerous and when posted- invite others... like these below
And what is the most important number and desired result?

MVC Records & results from 2005-now

SIU 38-16 1-1st, 1 2nd and 1-3rd place in conf. 1 Tourney title
CU 35-19 2-2nd, 1 4th in conference 1 Tourney title
MSU 32-22 2-2nd, 1-7th in conference No titles
BU 30-24 2-5th, 1-4th in conference No titles
UNI 29-25 3-5th in conference No titles
WSU 26-28 1-1st, 1-6th, 1-9th in conf. No titles
DU 26-28 1-1st, 2 7th in conference 1 title
ISU 23-31 1-2nd, 1-7th, 1- 9th in conf. no titles
InSU 17-37 1-7th, 1-9th, 1-10th in conf. No titles
EU 14-40 2-th, 1- 10th in conf. No titles

Decidedly middle of the pack at best.. I for one would like to see a conference championship, or a top 3 finish or a Tourney title....

Depends what our standard of success is. I remember when BU's standard of success was contending for conference titles. I remember when beating Creighton and Southern Illinois, and finishing ahead of them in the conference was commonplace. Now it seems like folks are content with finishing in the middle and talking about how talented we are and what a great style of play we play. Personally, I would rather play boring and win then play flashy and lose. I don't think the two are mutually exclusive, but unfortunately we only have the 'flash' part down. Make all the excuses you want, we are what the record says we are. Over 7 years it says we're real average.

[BuBraves55]

im not worried about the last 3 years. let's talk about the present... little different story

[pfunk880]

negnels (my new name for the negative nellies who always look for the worst)

That is sooooo clever!

[tornado]

Da Coach...I think you proved exactly what you set out to prove with this thread...

No sooner did you say something true, but something very nice and uplifting about BU...
and immediately it was followed by several Debbie Downer posts digging just as hard as can be to find something negative....

Pessimism is alive and well............and I hope you all had a Merry Christmas...

[pfunk880]

Da Coach...I think you proved exactly what you set out to prove with this thread...

No sooner did you say something true, but something very nice and uplifting about BU...
and immediately it was followed by several Debbie Downer posts digging just as hard as can be to find something negative....

Pessimism is alive and well............and I hope you all had a Merry Christmas...

You call it hard digging to calculate a winning percentage? Hard to figure out that the reason we had the most wins is because we played significantly more games (and had significantly more losses as well)?

Do you think we're stupid?

[amettrick]

Da Coach...I think you proved exactly what you set out to prove with this thread...

No sooner did you say something true, but something very nice and uplifting about BU...
and immediately it was followed by several Debbie Downer posts digging just as hard as can be to find something negative....

Pessimism is alive and well............and I hope you all had a Merry Christmas...

What you see as searching for something negative, the majority of people in the world see as searching for something a little less propaganda-laden.

[ER3]

Da Coach...I think you proved exactly what you set out to prove with this thread...

No sooner did you say something true, but something very nice and uplifting about BU...
and immediately it was followed by several Debbie Downer posts digging just as hard as can be to find something negative....

Pessimism is alive and well............and I hope you all had a Merry Christmas...

Realism is alive and well...

The winning percentage numbers, the absence of Valley titles, the lack of top 3 Valley finishes, the growing number of losses, etc. brought up in this thread are absolutely just as 'true' as the number of wins figure originally brought up by DC...
You need to be able to acknowledge those numbers as truths as well...even if they don't fit into your little rose-colored assessment that all is well on the Hilltop.

[Da Coach]

Sorry, but the subject was wins. It was stated that Bradley does not win often enough.

You can post all the negative statistics you want to dig up, like is done in virtually every thread whether it's relevant or not, but that does not change the fact that Bradley has more wins, and more post-season wins, and as many NCAA wins as any other MVC school in the past 3 years.

[tornado]

I find it easy to come up with lots of things for BU fans to be proud of and thankful for...
We also have better looking cheerleaders, more ex-players in the NBA, more ex-players in the pros around the world, and a more loyal fan base as proven by how many of our folks travel to support the team, than any other Valley team.
We even have more of our ex-coaches who are coaching elsewhere at the DI level, and BU has produced the best play by play guys over the years...even the guys who do the broadcasting for other teams' games.
We will soon have state of the art facilities, and our head coach is as loyal to this school as any coach can be.

[brocks]

I would like to add that it seems to me like Coach Les is missing a couple VERY important assistant coaches that have left recently and were a part of his past successes.

One of them has "left." The other just isn't on the payroll anymore.

[SaintLouBrave22]

One of them has "left." The other just isn't on the payroll anymore.

So what is it the other two guys on the staff do...?

I know one of the three recruited our players from the South...

[ER3]

Sorry, but the subject was wins. It was stated that Bradley does not win often enough.

You can post all the negative statistics you want to dig up, like is done in virtually every thread whether it's relevant or not, but that does not change the fact that Bradley has more wins, and more post-season wins, and as many NCAA wins as any other MVC school in the past 3 years.

We have won a lot of games over the past 3 years...that is wonderful. However, in the big picture...determining how a program is doing has to be measured in more than just total wins...wouldn't you agree with that?
Bringing up those other metrics is not simply being negative, as you would like to believe...these are all relevant numbers...it is necessary to provide all of the facts about how BU is doing over the past three years.
Wins are very, very important...and we've won a lot over the past 3 years...however, avoiding losses is also important...something we haven't done as well as other Valley teams...being in contention for Valley titles...also something we have not come close to doing...wining Valley tournaments, etc., etc., etc.
The facts are...overall we are trending downward over the last 4 years now...from the NCAA, to the NIT, to the CBI, to likely no postseason tourney this year...I think it is reasonable to assume that we can begin to trend upwards over the next 3 years...but we are a program in decline over these last 4 years...even if the win total doesn't tell you so.