Wessler: Nothing good about Bradleys loss...

[Bravesfan]

So now we're discrediting the NIT appearances? Come on.



Performance in league play and in St. Louis separates them by quite a bit. I don't get why people discredit the importance of performance in conference so much.

I never said I was discrediting Coach Mo's NIT appearances! Just saying we had a bit of a bigger advantage in securing home games because of the format back then. Plus there might have been one or two seasons where we would have been squarely on the NIT bubble had they taken place ten years later. But Mo earned these appearances, and I'm not taking anything away from what he accomplished.

As far as conference performance is concerned, again, if 3rd or 4th place is good enough for NCAA appearances year in and year out, then the conference performance would not be as critical. But now that the Valley has bottomed out again in recent years, yes it would be a big deal. Just citing the 2006 season where we did not have to be a first place team since our conference was stocked with top 50 teams that year.

Yes, Coach Mo definitely has the advantage in conference finishes, and I may have been a bit quick to give Les that advantage, though so far Les has not finished as low in the Valley as Mo did towards the end of his tenure. But Les still has the advantage in postseason wins (particularly in the NCAA tournament), and is basically even with Mo in St. Louis. Funny I don't remember Mo winning an MVC Tournament championship either, though I think he reached the championship game twice. But he had a few play-in rounds on his resume too.

[BradleyBrave]

Agreed that's ridiculous.



I would ask what Mo's conference records were towards the end of his tenure. I do not expect JL to be near that low. 6 conference wins in any season, especially one with only 3 non-con wins is not going to help your case if your Mo. Like I said, I think they are comparable. I'll give the nod to JL for avoiding seasons that bad, but I don't want to speak too soon...

Ask and you shall receive...

Mo's 2nd to last season ('00-'01) we went 12-6, finished 2nd, and went to the title game.
Mo's 3rd to last season ('99-'00) we went 10-8
Mo's 4th to last season ('98-'99) we went 11-7
Mo's 5th to last season ('97-'9 we went 9-9
Mo's 6th to last season ('96-'97) we went 12-6
Mo's 7th to last season ('95-'96) we went 15-3
Mo's 8th to last season ('94-'95) we went 12-6
Mo's 9th to last season ('93-'94) we went 14-4
Mo's 10th to last season ('92-'93) we went 7-11
Mo's 11th to last season ('91-92) we went 3-15 (Mo's first season)

After the first two rebuilding years, BU didn't have a losing conference record for 8 straight seasons, and won 11 or more league games 6 times. Pretty good I think.

After the debacle in '99-'00 where we were conference favorites, Rob Dye sprained his ankle, and we muddled our way to 1 road win, people wanted Mo out. Had he not gone 12-6 and had us a half away from the NCAA's in '01, he'd have been gone that year.

I will give Les this - He has been better on the road than Mo. My biggest beef with the Mo era was that from about '97 on, we just could not play on the road, no matter how good we were. We were unstoppable at home, but just could not play on the road. Had Mo won some more road games, we may have won another title or two, perhaps danced another time or two, and he may still have a job here or had moved on to another better job. I think the same can be said for Les, although his problems sadly have come at home, which I think irks me even more.

[real fan]

JL gets plenty of credit for those two wins. It's the primary reason he still has a job. If anything he gets too much credit for them, as they have generally masked the lack of progress the program has made during his tenure.

I don't know who is giving Mo more credit than he deserves. All you read about on here is how his players stunk, how his 11 years were awful, and how much worse the MVC was back then. Mo made us a perennial MVC contender. What has JL made us?

I'm by no means a Mo apologist; in fact I wanted a change at the time a change was made. I had no idea how a team with that much talent could lose 20 games, regardless of how young it was. But I will at least give the guy credit for what he did at BU and the success he had. I don't understand why so many on here don't want to do that. The W-L record, like JL's, speaks for itself.

I thought MO was ok when he had a good staff , when his best or no.1 asst coach was P.Donahue he was in trouble and tried to do too much on his own , that is why I believe Les is struggling because he tries to control everything, very disappointing to me in that he was coached by Versace who let his asst. coaches handle practices and other coaching duties, it takes the whole staff working together and coming up with better ideas to make a successful team, not one person which is why there is no i in team, coaches included.

[jrish12]

Yes, Coach Mo definitely has the advantage in conference finishes, and I may have been a bit quick to give Les that advantage, though so far Les has not finished as low in the Valley as Mo did towards the end of his tenure. But Les still has the advantage in postseason wins (particularly in the NCAA tournament), and is basically even with Mo in St. Louis. Funny I don't remember Mo winning an MVC Tournament championship either, though I think he reached the championship game twice. But he had a few play-in rounds on his resume too.

The problem is, Mo didnt have the 123.com tournaments being used as "postseason" wins. In games where the school LOST money because they had to pay to be in these stupid tournaments. That's why I think the NIT appearances under Mo are that much better, because there were only 2 options to play in the postseason, NCAA and NIT. I know they were "after regular season play" denoting "postseason" but come on, are you really satisfied with the CBI and CIT qualifying as postseason wins for Les? Had Mo had these tournaments he would be above Les in postseason wins, IMO.

My problem with the St. Louis argument is Les has never been in any other 1st round game better than the 4-5 game. I would like to see being in the 1-3 spot every once in a while in a 9 year career..

[wily coyote]

Ask and you shall receive...

Mo's 2nd to last season ('00-'01) we went 12-6, finished 2nd, and went to the title game.
Mo's 3rd to last season ('99-'00) we went 10-8
Mo's 4th to last season ('98-'99) we went 11-7
Mo's 5th to last season ('97-'9 we went 9-9
Mo's 6th to last season ('96-'97) we went 12-6
Mo's 7th to last season ('95-'96) we went 15-3
Mo's 8th to last season ('94-'95) we went 12-6
Mo's 9th to last season ('93-'94) we went 14-4
Mo's 10th to last season ('92-'93) we went 7-11
Mo's 11th to last season ('91-92) we went 3-15 (Mo's first season)

After the first two rebuilding years, BU didn't have a losing conference record for 8 straight seasons, and won 11 or more league games 6 times. Pretty good I think.

After the debacle in '99-'00 where we were conference favorites, Rob Dye sprained his ankle, and we muddled our way to 1 road win, people wanted Mo out. Had he not gone 12-6 and had us a half away from the NCAA's in '01, he'd have been gone that year.

I will give Les this - He has been better on the road than Mo. My biggest beef with the Mo era was that from about '97 on, we just could not play on the road, no matter how good we were. We were unstoppable at home, but just could not play on the road. Had Mo won some more road games, we may have won another title or two, perhaps danced another time or two, and he may still have a job here or had moved on to another better job. I think the same can be said for Les, although his problems sadly have come at home, which I think irks me even more.

BB thats pretty good stuff, but I bet you won't change AMCs mind about who brought in better talent. If JL has brought in the better talent then MO must have been a hell of a coach to finisher higher then JL most of his tenure. Or if JL has brought in the better talent as AMC wants us to believe then Maybe it is time for JL to go. It just doesn't add up.

[Beninator]

I thought MO was ok when he had a good staff , when his best or no.1 asst coach was P.Donahue he was in trouble and tried to do too much on his own , that is why I believe Les is struggling because he tries to control everything, very disappointing to me in that he was coached by Versace who let his asst. coaches handle practices and other coaching duties, it takes the whole staff working together and coming up with better ideas to make a successful team, not one person which is why there is no i in team, coaches included.

Some very good and interesting points here. I am not certain how much JL tries to control everything, but Coach Platt seems to have a say in our defensive plans. Over all I think that MO and JL were/are middle of the road type coaches. They both graduated players and represent Bradley well. IMO, they both have their advantages and disadvantages as coach. But that is what forums like this are for!

[unbekannt]

I cannot believe that people are wanting for MO. His teams became unwatchable. Unfortunately that is exactly what I have seen this year (and part of last year). Despite the wins over cupcakes, those games were just horrible to watch. Does anyone remember 30 seconds of passing the ball around the perimeter followed by a horrible shot? No more MO basketball!

IF JL has as much talent on this team as people claim, then what's the problem? IF SM is too hurt to play effectively, then why is he out there? If increasingly worse season results are acceptable, then why am I still a fan?

[Braves4Life]

I think Les recruits good players. His problem is that he seems to have a hard time recruiting the right players to fit his system and his players are too similar; they have a hard time playing as a TEAM because he always seems to be missing one or two pieces to the puzzle each year. I also question his ability to motivate his players consistently.

[amckillip]

BB thats pretty good stuff, but I bet you won't change AMCs mind about who brought in better talent. If JL has brought in the better talent then MO must have been a hell of a coach to finisher higher then JL most of his tenure. Or if JL has brought in the better talent as AMC wants us to believe then Maybe it is time for JL to go. It just doesn't add up.

The players you're saying are so good finished 9-20. 9-20! D@mn straight you won't change my mind. We're at half the win total already and were at meltdown!!! Quit throwing around 'as AMC wants you to believe' I'm not trying to pull the wool over your eyes, it's my opinion, get over it. If you would read my posts you'd see that I am not sold on JL at all. But that would require comprehending and argument, not just reading the first few words. Something that clearly is beyond a reasonable request.

[real fan]

I cannot believe that people are wanting for MO. His teams became unwatchable. Unfortunately that is exactly what I have seen this year (and part of last year). Despite the wins over cupcakes, those games were just horrible to watch. Does anyone remember 30 seconds of passing the ball around the perimeter followed by a horrible shot? No more MO basketball!

IF JL has as much talent on this team as people claim, then what's the problem? IF SM is too hurt to play effectively, then why is he out there? If increasingly worse season results are acceptable, then why am I still a fan?

I for one was happy to see MO go because his program had gone down and the games were tough to watch, Les is not doing better and he promised us an uptempo offense that could score 80 points or more a game, all of a sudden in the last 3 years he has become too defensive oriented, yes you need to have good defense but with the players we have had in the last several seasons our offense should be a lot better, Les is getting closer to the Molinari teams that had a lot of trouble scoring and fans cannot get excited about games barely reaching 60 points when they were promised a more exciting brand of basketball, we need more offense period.
I remember back when Molinari let A.B. coach the offense at home when the team was struggling to score over 50 and the night A.B. was in charge of the offense they score over 8o points.

[BradleyBrave]

The players you're saying are so good finished 9-20. 9-20! D@mn straight you won't change my mind. We're at half the win total already and were at meltdown!!! Quit throwing around 'as AMC wants you to believe' I'm not trying to pull the wool over your eyes, it's my opinion, get over it. If you would read my posts you'd see that I am not sold on JL at all. But that would require comprehending and argument, not just reading the first few words. Something that clearly is beyond a reasonable request.

Are you really disputing the talent on the 9-20 team? Danny Granger, plus Joah Tucker (Horizon POY), Antoine Tisby (SEC player), and 2 all-MVC guys (Gilbert and Gillingham). Your bench consists of Marcello Robinson and Mike Suggs, both very solid player for both Mo and Jim Les. Jason Faulknor was also on that roster, and may have been serviceable had it not been for a myriad of injuries. But he's the 8th guy I am talking about. It could be one of the biggest wastes of talent in Bradley history...but the talent level on that team is indisputable. Talent wasn't an issue then. It hasn't been an issue for the better part of the JL era, but in almost all areas, we're either on par or worse off than we were record-wise. The number of end of year all-league players tilts quite a bit in Mo's favor as well, which again is hard to argue against.

Again, I wanted Mo GONE after that year. Maybe I was a year premature, but I couldn't and still can't fathom 9-20 with that team. In hindsight I think that team had a couple league titles in it, but we will never know. Hindsight is always 20/20.

[jrish12]

Are you really disputing the talent on the 9-20 team?
Maybe I was a year premature, but I couldn't and still can't fathom 9-20 with that team. In hindsight I think that team had a couple league titles in it, but we will never know. Hindsight is always 20/20.

Maybe they didnt buy in to the system

[Future Walk-On]

Maybe they didnt buy in to the system

Yeah agree completely. ALL they had to do was buy-in.

[Beninator]

Maybe they didnt buy in to the system

Yeah they would have been yanked from the game before we could establish any offensive flow. Also forget about taking advantage of the shot clock for a 2 for 1 possession at the end of the game! smh
Just a little truth based humor for you BradleyBrave!

[wily coyote]

The players you're saying are so good finished 9-20. 9-20! D@mn straight you won't change my mind. We're at half the win total already and were at meltdown!!! Quit throwing around 'as AMC wants you to believe' I'm not trying to pull the wool over your eyes, it's my opinion, get over it. If you would read my posts you'd see that I am not sold on JL at all. But that would require comprehending and argument, not just reading the first few words. Something that clearly is beyond a reasonable request.

I'm done rehashing this subject over with you. You must not remember that 9-20 team was made up with mostly freshmen and a few good seniors. One who ended up being hurt most of the season. I like you was ready for Mo to move on. His teams were very boring at the end. Sounds very familar today. Look at the rest of Mo's records removing his 1st 2 years. He was bringing in his own players from the Albeck mess. Take those three years out and Mo had pretty good teams and his record doesn't include a bunch of wins from cupcake tourneys that we've play of late. I agree it was time for Mo to move on and if things don't change in a hurry it will be time for another change. P.S. I hope I'm wrong but I don't see a change coming.