Wessler: Bradley bested by better team

[BradleyJD]

"Better team, better program.

Better coach."

Those last two words of Kirk's melodramatic rant just reek of a personal dart thrown right at JL's temple.

Stop at the first two, you make your point fine, continue on and you are twisting into a personal thing.

Like I said, he writes in a way that you really can't dispute what he says,

The reason you can't dispute it is because it's the truth.

Looking at BU and CU, they do have the better team, program, and coach. The numbers do not lie.

[Bravesfan]

Typical kick-them-while-they're-down piece. Fine, all the negative nellies will lick this up and call him a hero..
If Bradley wins Saturday, his next column will be kissing BU's butt again.

Definitely agreed. And this is coming from someone who generally agreed with most of what he wrote in this column. The problem is this guy is about as inconsistent as anyone I have ever followed in sports media, with maybe the exception of Jay Mariotti!

I did not like the fact though that he implied most of the defensive issues with this team over the last eight years stem from Les. I don't know how much more Les can drill defense into his team.

I think the most telling fact was the quote from AW where he basically said that for "whatever reason" they went away from the tough defense that helped win them the last four games because the shots seemed to come easy over the last two games. Well AW, they came easy the because they played two bad teams, though Bradley played great defense at SIU on top of that.

I like that Les is trying to instill the Coach Mo philosophy that defense wins games. The big difference between Mo and Les is that Mo for the most part did not have great offensive teams. However, the defense was so good under him that we won far more games than we lost, at least after his first two seasons. What's a shame about our team this year is that we are a much better offensive team under Les (sorry Les haters, I disagree with you that we can't shoot the ball!), but the team still does not realize, at least on a consistent basis that great defense is what sets up our offense! And that was brought out by the fact that this team panicked the first 14 minutes last night when our shots would not fall. They gave up too many easy threes and did not play with the same defensive intensity that they did the previous two weeks. Again, intensity is different than effort. The effort was there, but intensity dropped off when they started panicking and taking bad shots.

This obviously has to change with some tough opponents still remaining on our schedule. It appears to be a mental issue with this team, but hopefully we are on the cusp of climbing over this hurdle in time for a strong finish.

Having said all of this, I do believe Creighton may be the better team, especially without P'Allen playing, and I give them all the credit for disrupting our game last night. I do believe however that we can be the better team in most of our remaining games, and all we need to do is start by getting a win at Illinois State this Saturday. They are good, but they are beatable, and I think if we play with a thorough defensive minded focus we should be able to get this win.

[Beninator]

Definitely agreed. And this is coming from someone who generally agreed with most of what he wrote in this column. The problem is this guy is about as inconsistent as anyone I have ever followed in sports media, with maybe the exception of Jay Mariotti!

I did not like the fact though that he implied most of the defensive issues with this team over the last eight years stem from Les. I don't know how much more Les can drill defense into his team.

I think the most telling fact was the quote from AW where he basically said that for "whatever reason" they went away from the tough defense that helped win them the last four games because the shots seemed to come easy over the last two games. Well AW, they came easy the because they played two bad teams, though Bradley played great defense at SIU on top of that.

I like that Les is trying to instill the Coach Mo philosophy that defense wins games. The big difference between Mo and Les is that Mo for the most part did not have great offensive teams. However, the defense was so good under him that we won far more games than we lost, at least after his first two seasons. What's a shame about our team this year is that we are a much better offensive team under Les (sorry Les haters, I disagree with you that we can't shoot the ball!), but the team still does not realize, at least on a consistent basis that great defense is what sets up our offense! And that was brought out by the fact that this team panicked the first 14 minutes last night when our shots would not fall. They gave up too many easy threes and did not play with the same defensive intensity that they did the previous two weeks. Again, intensity is different than effort. The effort was there, but intensity dropped off when they started panicking and taking bad shots.

This obviously has to change with some tough opponents still remaining on our schedule. It appears to be a mental issue with this team, but hopefully we are on the cusp of climbing over this hurdle in time for a strong finish.

Having said all of this, I do believe Creighton may be the better team, especially without P'Allen playing, and I give them all the credit for disrupting our game last night. I do believe however that we can be the better team in most of our remaining games, and all we need to do is start by getting a win at Illinois State this Saturday. They are good, but they are beatable, and I think if we play with a thorough defensive minded focus we should be able to get this win.

Great post!

[SFP]

Another quality post from Bravesfan!

[BUFAN]

Mediocre teams DO LOSE TO MEDIOCRE TEAMS AT HOME you just don't do that, we are an aspiring mediocre program at best. We have a lot of work to do and a long way to go.

[Carver Arena Guy]

One thing....talking about defense being a priority and teaching it properly are two entirely different things.

You can't just say---"ok, we are going to have a defensive mindset" "we are going to become a defensive team", and then not teach it properly. Again, Les can drill and talk about defense. But that's just not the same as getting it done.

Im not saying one way or another (I'm not at practice)--but why do we all assume that the players are being taught great defensive principles in practice yet they are the ones breaking down in games? Is there a chance the base isn't even solid to begin with?

[Bravesfan]

One thing....talking about defense being a priority and teaching it properly are two entirely different things.

You can't just say---"ok, we are going to have a defensive mindset" "we are going to become a defensive team", and then not teach it properly. Again, Les can drill and talk about defense. But that's just not the same as getting it done.

Im not saying one way or another (I'm not at practice)--but why do we all assume that the players are being taught great defensive principles in practice yet they are the ones breaking down in games? Is there a chance the base isn't even solid to begin with?

And at the same time, how do we know he's not teaching it properly? That's my point, and as you just stated we are not at practice, so we don't know how he is teaching it.

So basically it comes down to coaching versus players who are just not "getting it", which yes, would be come a recruiting issue if that's the problem. But it could also be a third factor which you don't always see when recruiting a player, and that is that some players with good potential sometimes have difficulty playing at the next level. Or at the very least it takes them longer to grasp the system.

I don't think our players are playing terrible, but they are not playing as consistent as they could be either. I still believe that things will eventually fall into place, and we have already seen some signs of that with a solid home win against MSU and a very good road win at SIU. I think this team will surprise us with some more good wins before the end of this season, and a great year next year.

[Bravesfan]

Great post!

Thanks! I try to be the "voice of reason" around here and not knee-jerk one way or the other based on the outcome of a game.

[BUFAN]

One thing....talking about defense being a priority and teaching it properly are two entirely different things.

You can't just say---"ok, we are going to have a defensive mindset" "we are going to become a defensive team", and then not teach it properly. Again, Les can drill and talk about defense. But that's just not the same as getting it done.

Im not saying one way or another (I'm not at practice)--but why do we all assume that the players are being taught great defensive principles in practice yet they are the ones breaking down in games? Is there a chance the base isn't even solid to begin with?

I don't think Jim knows anything about defensive techniques or how to teach it let alone how to break down another teams offence and how to defend it. Like you said it takes more than talking about it.

[Bravesfan]

Another quality post from Bravesfan!

Thanks! Btw, I could not get back onto the chat last night for some reason. I probably downloaded too much junk to try to get that stupid game video working! Maybe next time.

[Carver Arena Guy]

I don't think Jim knows anything about defensive techniques or how to teach it let alone how to break down another teams offence and how to defend it. Like you said it takes more than talking about it.

To be fair, I am not saying Jim doesnt know what he is doing coaching defense. Again, Im not at practice. But there is certainly a breakdown somewhere along the chain. It's best to look at all aspects of the system.

[Bravesfan]

I don't think Jim knows anything about defensive techniques or how to teach it let alone how to break down another teams offence and how to defend it. Like you said it takes more than talking about it.

Then how did we almost upset UNI at their place a couple of weeks ago? Oh, that's right. I guess that was all "blind luck" then!

[Carver Arena Guy]

Then how did we almost upset UNI at their place a couple of weeks ago? Oh, that's right. I guess that was all "blind luck" then!

So the BU record is 10-9-1 (1 for an almost upset)

[Buesch N Chips]

To be fair, I am not saying Jim doesnt know what he is doing coaching defense. Again, Im not at practice. But there is certainly a breakdown somewhere along the chain. It's best to look at all aspects of the system.

So what exactly do we do wrong when we play defense, coach? Is it the defense that is called or the way we play the defense that is called, because both are being called out. Do we cross our feet, pick them up too close to half court, bend our back, what? Please tell me what all of the players have been told that is wrong.

Sheesh. We hold four straight teams under 60 or whatever, no one says anything about the good defense, now we give up 73 in one game and the sky is falling and the nellies are back in full force. How can you not see the improvement over earlier in the year. We routinely gave up 50 point halves around Christmas.

We had trouble last night stopping the lightning and the thunder at the same time. Stop one, the other would rise up. Lawson was better than our 5, and they made 3's.

[Carver Arena Guy]

So what exactly do we do wrong when we play defense, coach? Is it the defense that is called or the way we play the defense that is called, because both are being called out. Do we cross our feet, pick them up too close to half court, bend our back, what? Please tell me what all of the players have been told that is wrong.

Sheesh. We hold four straight teams under 60 or whatever, no one says anything about the good defense, now we give up 73 in one game and the sky is falling and the nellies are back in full force. How can you not see the improvement over earlier in the year. We routinely gave up 50 point halves around Christmas.

We had trouble last night stopping the lightning and the thunder at the same time. Stop one, the other would rise up. Lawson was better than our 5, and they made 3's.

See, go back to my post. I never said that the fault was with being how they were teached. I said it is an option. Just like the guys not doing what the coach says is an option. I have also not been on this bandwagon that the defense is awful.

I think the #1 problem is that people are looking at how many points the other teams scores as a direct result of good/bad defense. The point total is indicitive of mostly pace of play, not the quality of defense. There are some good defensive teams who give up more points than bad defensive teams.

The UNI game was lower scoring partly because they play a slower pace while Creighton plays at a faster pace. Remember, there are two teams on the court, not just Bradley. Field goal percentage defense and defensive efficiency are much better judges of how good a teams defense is than PPG allowed.

Bradley has been pretty decent in opponents FG%. 3rd in the league. They have struggled guarding the three point shot. They are 7th there. Bradley is 7th in scoring defense and sixth in scoring margin.

I don't think Bradley is a terrible defensive team. I think they are about average. And that is where they are in the standings.