Two Bradley Freshmen to redshirt

[tornado]

The Pantagraph feels that the Eureka resident is one of their guys and covers his redshirt..

http://www.pantagraph.com/sports/college/basketball/men/article_b3a55d42-cf16-11de-aaf7-001cc4c002e0.html

[AE Braves Fan]

I like AT and hope he has a great year, but I was expecting JP to be ahead of him on day 1. I guess my expectations were unrealistic.

[romar]

To me the move of redshirting JP says the WE is healthy, AT is ready & MK is going to be expected to provide some minutes this year.

[romar]

Correct me if I'm wrong but BU has now had a fairly long consecutive string of 5th/6th year seniors that will continue into the future. Going back to DA, then Ruff, followed by SS, & now Singh, Warren next year, then WE & AT, then skips a year to get to JE & JP.

Looking at the scholarship grid, if the nucleus of this young team (EM, TB, WE & AT) continues to improve BU should enjoy a very nice run.

[FutureBrave2013]

This is all speculation but I think by the end of the year JP will be better than AT and SS. However, as a 5th year senior he will have a chance to be a 1st team all-conference guy.

I think redshirting Prosser will pay off.

[ghunt]

We probably had two 6' 8" players on the floor when Milos was in the game on Sunday. And we'll probably see more of him throughout the year. In Egolf's freshman year, I remember seeing him on the floor at the same time as David Collins early in the season.

With this many taller players, if they come along as planned, then we'll probably get our bigger line-up.

Egolf was first tried as a real 4 and should be. That year when that happened we perfomed well and it was part of rotation for not even a handful of games--then Jim stopped it in favor of going small due to his perceptions that are strength lies in guard play, especially during the conference season. As oopsed to what we give up in terms of interior defensive weakness and poor rebounding when we go small. If we had solid 3 pt. shooting like the first 2 years we went guard happy, then you may be able to make the difference up, but last year reality set in. NIU and Creighton were tough inside and we could not shoot from the perimiter, and to top it off those 2 teams and ISU had a balanced floor game, too. We did not.

Some folks are talking as though rotating three guys at the 5 spot (one of whom is a 4) is acceptable and we done that the last threee seasons--it did not work. We have not had a true 4 play significant minutes since Marcellus. And, even then, not until did he starting playing touger and establish and inside offennsive presence down the stretch (especially in the NCAA) did we make a run. That is what success will take--strength at the 4 on both sides of the court and a balanced offense. That will be acomplsihed by using the proper personnel and running different offensive sets. Maybe Taylor Brown can emerge as a decent 4, but he is more a Lawrence Wright and not a Marcellus Sommerville. Bottom-line, until we solve those isues we will not get over the hump.

With all that out of the way, this will be one heck of an interesting season with all the unkowns--guys cominng back from injuries (Warren & Egolf), new personnel, seeing if Jim adjusts to what he has, the possible emergence of Brown, Roberts maybe taking it to another level, Sam M trying to bounce back from something of a sophomore slump, opportunities for some RPI building if not marquee wins, and some games that could could turn into RPI killing losses. You've got to love it--I can't wait...Go Braves!

[amckillip]

Sam M trying to bounce back from something of a sophomore slump...

WTH? sophomore slump? He was easily the second best player on the team, behind an ALL-MVC player. I am biased toward SamM as I see him as a hard working, team leader, but please explain how SamM, while playing out of position and being the 2nd leading scorer and leading the team in A/TO ratio, had a sophomore slump?

[bert notorius]

I will miss not seeing the Green Hornet play this year.

[FutureBrave2013]

Egolf was first tried as a real 4 and should be. That year when that happened we perfomed well and it was part of rotation for not even a handful of games--then Jim stopped it in favor of going small due to his perceptions that are strength lies in guard play, especially during the conference season. As oopsed to what we give up in terms of interior defensive weakness and poor rebounding when we go small. If we had solid 3 pt. shooting like the first 2 years we went guard happy, then you may be able to make the difference up, but last year reality set in. NIU and Creighton were tough inside and we could not shoot from the perimiter, and to top it off those 2 teams and ISU had a balanced floor game, too. We did not.

Some folks are talking as though rotating three guys at the 5 spot (one of whom is a 4) is acceptable and we done that the last threee seasons--it did not work. We have not had a true 4 play significant minutes since Marcellus. And, even then, not until did he starting playing touger and establish and inside offennsive presence down the stretch (especially in the NCAA) did we make a run. That is what success will take--strength at the 4 on both sides of the court and a balanced offense. That will be acomplsihed by using the proper personnel and running different offensive sets. Maybe Taylor Brown can emerge as a decent 4, but he is more a Lawrence Wright and not a Marcellus Sommerville. Bottom-line, until we solve those isues we will not get over the hump.

With all that out of the way, this will be one heck of an interesting season with all the unkowns--guys cominng back from injuries (Warren & Egolf), new personnel, seeing if Jim adjusts to what he has, the possible emergence of Brown, Roberts maybe taking it to another level, Sam M trying to bounce back from something of a sophomore slump, opportunities for some RPI building if not marquee wins, and some games that could could turn into RPI killing losses. You've got to love it--I can't wait...Go Braves!

Butler went to the sweet 16 essentially playing 4 guards. Size is extremely overrated.

[KillerB]

Butler went to the sweet 16 essentially playing 4 guards. Size is extremely overrated.

Size by itself is extremely overrated. Size with talent is tough to battle with just talent.

By the way, I don't recall Butler having a lack of size.

20010 Butler roster
11 Alex Anglin G/F Junior 6-5 177
32 Garrett Butcher F Sophomore 6-7 209
3 Zach Hahn G Junior 6-1 176
20 Gordon Hayward G/F Sophomore 6-9 207
54 Matt Howard F Junior 6-8 230
24 Avery Jukes F Senior 6-8
30 Emerson Kampen C RS-Freshman 6-9 189
22 Grant Leiendecker G RS-Junior 6-5 182
1 Shelvin Mack G Sophomore 6-3 215
5 Ronald Nored G Sophomore 6-0
14 Nick Rodgers G Senior 6-2 168
44 Andrew Smith C Freshman 6-11 239
33 Chase Stigall G RS-Freshman 6-4 195
2 Shawn Vanzant G Junior 6-0 172
21 Willie Veasley G/F Senior 6-3 206

[ghunt]

WTH? sophomore slump? He was easily the second best player on the team, behind an ALL-MVC player. I am biased toward SamM as I see him as a hard working, team leader, but please explain how SamM, while playing out of position and being the 2nd leading scorer and leading the team in A/TO ratio, had a sophomore slump?

Somehow I almost knew you would be the first one to catch that and respond to that reference I think I qualified it with "something." His numbers between the 2 seasons:

08-09
GP-GS Min--Avg FG-FGA Pct 3FG-FGA Pct FT-FTA Pct Off Def Tot Avg PF FO A TO Blk Stl Pts Avg
36-32 1181 32.8 138-336 .411 71-206 .345 107-128 .836 4 64 68 1.9 81 3 110 74 0 41 454 12.6

07-08
38-15 1034 27.2 96-230 .417 55-150 .367 45-62 .726 16 50 66 1.7 81 2 114 54 0 31 292 7.7

Ok, he had a slight down-tick in shooting percentages, but he increased his minutes and opportunities, getting to the line and making those shots, and total points. I see what you are saying, but maybe I succumbed to expectaions that he could improve his game more to make up for the losses of JC and Daniel. But also maybe the offensive system points out the need for extremely good permiter shooters and Sam is not at that high-level. I agree he is a solid player and has 2 more years to develop/progress.

[amckillip]

Somehow I almost knew you would be the first one to catch that and respond to that reference I think I qualified it with "something." His numbers between the 2 seasons:

Well yeah,

08-09
GP-GS Min--Avg FG-FGA Pct 3FG-FGA Pct FT-FTA Pct Off Def Tot Avg PF FO A TO Blk Stl Pts Avg
36-32 1181 32.8 138-336 .411 71-206 .345 107-128 .836 4 64 68 1.9 81 3 110 74 0 41 454 12.6

07-08
38-15 1034 27.2 96-230 .417 55-150 .367 45-62 .726 16 50 66 1.7 81 2 114 54 0 31 292 7.7

Ok, he had a slight down-tick in shooting percentages, but he increased his minutes and opportunities, getting to the line and making those shots, and total points. I see what you are saying, but maybe I succumbed to expectaions that he could improve his game more to make up for the losses of JC and Daniel. But also maybe the offensive system points out the need for extremely good permiter shooters and Sam is not at that high-level. I agree he is a solid player and has 2 more years to develop/progress.

I would gladly take SM's season over JC's or DRuffs sophomore seasons. Neither averaged over 10 ppg, Sam actually averaged as much or more than both of them did in their sophomore years in his freshman year. Sam was not DRuff in his Junior season, or JC in his Junior or Senior season (I'll take SamM last year vs. DRuff's senior season). But I really don't think we could have expected much more out of Sam last year. If you wanna talk about a sophomore slump, check out JC's numbers...

[CABUFan]

Didn't see this posted yet:

http://www.bradleyhoops.com/homepage/x870210163/Feeling-sting-of-redshirting

The headline seems a bit misleading.

[amckillip]

Didn't see this posted yet:

http://www.bradleyhoops.com/homepage/x870210163/Feeling-sting-of-redshirting

The headline seems a bit misleading.

It had been a while since the PJStar made misleading comments about BU basketball and Coach Les. Its been what? Since September? I normally like Reynolds, but he took the absolute wrong take on that....

[jeffsu]

I like the article, though. He at least did some digging and talked with the guys. Also, good to know to DSE was considered for a redshirt, but Les thought he was progressing well enough.

And keep in mind -- the columnist rarely writes the headline. There's some other buffoon to mess that up