Just the facts.....No opinions

[Braves4Life]

Thanks for taking the time to compile those stats Buesch. Quite interesting indeed.

[AZ BU Fan]

How long were the "rebuilding processes" at UNI, WSU, Miss State, ISU-B with new coaches?

Would supposed rebuilding years following a coaching change be any worse than what we have seen in the past 3-4 years?

If someone can claim devastation following a coaching change someone else can claim it doesn't have to be...

For instance, how long did it take a certain rookie coach to get to the NCAA and NIT following a disaster year at BU with a team full of rookies and no glamour practice facility? And the anwer is: Jim Les, in his 4th season.

AND, I suspect with a top notch coach, the JL recruits will stay vs when a guy was named coach who never coached/recruited a day in his life in High School, College or the NBA....

The doomsday crowd always paints the worst situation, which, in retrospect isn't a nuclear winter compared to what we have now, and, a very possible situation is perhaps no disaster at all. Greg Lansing 1st year at ISU B...Cuonzo Martin 2nd yr at MSU, Gregg Marshall 3rd year at WSU....Greg McCermott 1st year at CU...

Just sayin'

[tornado]

$1.2 million is the amount of salary required to fulfill the contract. But it is also more likely that a buyout clause was included (as is standard with most contracts of this variety) that could be a percentage of that...say 75-80% that might make it a significantly lesser amount.

$1.2 mil would be the minimum....as I think the contract currently is about $450K per year...so the amount to buy out the remaining three years might be $1.35 mil or more as we don't know all the terms...

also .. a "buyout clause" is what big schools write into their contracts for the purpose of getting some compensation when the coach leaves early on his own...not for when the school terminates the contract.

In other words, like when Rich Rodriguez left West Virginia to go to Michigan, WVU was owed a big lump by either RichRod or by Michigan to buy out of the contract...not the other way around....

I cannot possibly imagine that when JL signed a contract extension he'd have allowed a clause that would permit the school to end the employment then NOT pay the terms of the contract! Nobody would do that.

This is just not the way people would bargain. I know for a certainty that when Jim Molinari was fired, the school was the party, of course, that broke the contract so they were fully required to honor their end -- and pay Mo the three more years. They can offer a smaller amount up front but Mo was NOT obligated to accept it and did not -- requiring the school to pay three years into the future the full course of the contract....which they DID have to honor the full amount.

It isn't my point to dicker the possible terms of what the contract says..only to point to the obvious --
that BU would be on the hook well over a million dollars right up front, then would have to spend and commit at least double that to get a NEW head coach of any level of competence...all at a time when many, many of those currently supporting the athletic department (the BSS members) are intensely loyal and love JL and I feel strongly many -- maybe 1/4 or more would curtail their financial support if JL were canned. Again -- you do the math -- and you come up with at least a few million less in the coffers over just the next couple years -- and I strongly suspect BU does not have money like that sitting around.

also -- as I noted earlier -- someon ein the administration thought canning two assistants then hiring 2 new ones would make us a better team -- so does that idea share a little of the blame for our current record. I gotta think if we still have the other two assistants and were 6-11, someone would be whining that part of the blame is due to the weak assistant coaching staff -- that's what people said last year.

[Lakeview Brave]

$1.2 mil would be the minimum....as I think the contract currently is about $450K per year...so the amount to buy out the remaining three years might be $1.35 mil or more as we don't know all the terms...

also .. a "buyout clause" is what big schools write into their contracts for the purpose of getting some compensation when the coach leaves early on his own...not for when the school terminates the contract.

In other words, like when Rich Rodriguez left West Virginia to go to Michigan, WVU was owed a big lump by either RichRod or by Michigan to buy out of the contract...not the other way around....

I cannot possibly imagine that when JL signed a contract extension he'd have allowed a clause that would permit the school to end the employment then NOT pay the terms of the contract! Nobody would do that.

This is just not the way people would bargain. I know for a certainty that when Jim Molinari was fired, the school was the party, of course, that broke the contract so they were fully required to honor their end -- and pay Mo the three more years. They can offer a smaller amount up front but Mo was NOT obligated to accept it and did not -- requiring the school to pay three years into the future the full course of the contract....which they DID have to honor the full amount.

It isn't my point to dicker the possible terms of what the contract says..only to point to the obvious --
that BU would be on the hook well over a million dollars right up front, then would have to spend and commit at least double that to get a NEW head coach of any level of competence...all at a time when many, many of those currently supporting the athletic department (the BSS members) are intensely loyal and love JL and I feel strongly many -- maybe 1/4 or more would curtail their financial support if JL were canned. Again -- you do the math -- and you come up with at least a few million less in the coffers over just the next couple years -- and I strongly suspect BU does not have money like that sitting around.

also -- as I noted earlier -- someon ein the administration thought canning two assistants then hiring 2 new ones would make us a better team -- so does that idea share a little of the blame for our current record. I gotta think if we still have the other two assistants and were 6-11, someone would be whining that part of the blame is due to the weak assistant coaching staff -- that's what people said last year.

Im not in the BSS but I really dont understand the mindset of someone who is willing to donate 50K a year to Bradley who would stop because the basketball team changed coaches. I would think donors would be more inclined to stop supporting the BSS if we werent winning rather than if the coach changed. I donate what I can to the school to give back for what Bradley did for me not because the of the basketball coach.

[Braves4Life]

.....BU would be on the hook well over a million dollars right up front, then would have to spend and commit at least double that to get a NEW head coach of any level of competence...all at a time when many, many of those currently supporting the athletic department (the BSS members) are intensely loyal and love JL and I feel strongly many -- maybe 1/4 or more would curtail their financial support if JL were canned.

I find it hard to believe that 25% of the BSS supporters would withhold their financial support if Les was fired. Especially with all of the losing, discontented fans, falling attendance, and poor fundamental and predictable basketball being played. If so, they need to get a reality check and realize what the BSS is all about. If they truly feel that way then I say "who needs 'em?". Bradley doesn't need that BCS BS mentality from it's "big fish" alumni. Let 'em swim away from the school I say!

What I find a more likely scenario is for one, or a small group, of wealthy alumni donors to pool their financial resources and approach President Glasser with a large ($1 Million+) financial gift that is given on an "uncommitted" basis (where the University can use it as it sees fit). However, this donation would be contingent upon Les being fired. It's happened before elsewhere. In fact, similar power plays have been pulled by large donors at BU in the past where they get upset at decisions made by BU regarding Bradley Basketball and they stop their large donations in protest.

If this team continues to lose game after game (especially the home games) and attendance continues to decline so that by season's end the PCC is only half full (or worse), and if PJS editorials continue to get more vicious toward Les and Bradley Basketball, and if more and more fans write letters of anger to Cross and Glasser, etc........... then Yajusneverknow.

[Buesch N Chips]

Im not in the BSS but I really dont understand the mindset of someone who is willing to donate 50K a year to Bradley who would stop because the basketball team changed coaches.

They won't. People say silly things in the heat of battle.

[Da Coach]

People support Bradley or join the BSS for different reasons. Some may have joined because of Coach Les, and therefore might not be willing to continue their support if he is let go.

This should not be so hard to understand. It happened when Coach Molinari was let go. I know some prominent supporters who were close to Coach Mo and were unhappy about the change, and who dropped their support and have never returned to Bradley games.

[tornado]

They won't. People say silly things in the heat of battle.

maybe but when you count noses and realize that the BSS went from 20 members in 2005 to nearly 100 now and most of those are close friends of JL...
several of whom I have heard personally say exactly as I am relating...then you can think as you want no matter how shortsighted your opinions may be

[Fetz86]

To me, winning % in the Valley is the true measure of success or failure. It isn't affected by the ease or difficulty of non-conference schedules or post-season tourney's like the CBI and CIT. You are truly being measured against your peers. And if you factor in all the things that make up the Bradley basketball program relative to their MVC peers, I think it's a fact that we have underachieved in the JL tenure. Compare our resources to the rest of the Valley and we should not be middle of the pack and certainly shouldn't go 9 years without finishing in the upper third or winning a valley tournament title.

+1

[Beninator]

People support Bradley or join the BSS for different reasons. Some may have joined because of Coach Les, and therefore might not be willing to continue their support if he is let go.

This should not be so hard to understand. It happened when Coach Molinari was let go. I know some prominent supporters who were close to Coach Mo and were unhappy about the change, and who dropped their support and have never returned to Bradley games.

This unhappiness and loss of financial support also happened when Joe Stowell was fired from Bradley. I know of a lot of alumni who refused to contribute to Bradley when that happened. Then, we hired Versace and what we discovered was that people love a winner! and guess what... Donations started flowing into the University!

[Buesch N Chips]

maybe but when you count noses and realize that the BSS went from 20 members in 2005 to nearly 100 now and most of those are close friends of JL...
several of whom I have heard personally say exactly as I am relating...then you can think as you want no matter how shortsighted your opinions may be

Apparently I misunderstood. I can see friends of Jim Les not continuing their support if he is fired. What I cannot see is Bradley fans discontinuing their significant financial support just because they think he should be fired and he is not.

[tornado]

Ben -- it was a whole different ball game in the Stowell era...

budgets were miniscule compared to today and the athletic department ran mostly on the revenue the team generated....giving was very small by today's comparisons...so even if a lot of it dried up, the overall revenue changed little as the donors only accounted for a small part of the budget.

Nowadays, the donors account for a substantial part of the budget -- and some of the current pledges and giving are paying off the cost of $50 million in new buildings, helping our recruiting stay on par with everyone else's and helping pay the big costs of running a 21st century D-I athletic program
......and I have to think nobody wants to see that source of giving threatened....so far JL has the support of the majority of the bigger donors....and (sorry ot be so blunt) -- the majority of the whiners who write letters to the PJS or who post on boards are people nobody has heard of or who are not supporting the department with their giving anyway....

[Beninator]

maybe but when you count noses and realize that the BSS went from 20 members in 2005 to nearly 100 now and most of those are close friends of JL...
several of whom I have heard personally say exactly as I am relating...then you can think as you want no matter how shortsighted your opinions may be

But the key question here is how long will the people in the BSS accept and donate toward a mediocre product? We have had a less than stellar performance for 2 years in a row. I can understand the argument to bring back JL next year, but if next year does not pan out for JL, then I would have to believe that some people will want to find another outlet for their money until JL is gone. --just the nature of the coaching business--

[tornado]

But the key question here is how long---

who knows -- but I think it won't happen this year

[Braves4Life]

who knows -- but I think it won't happen this year

When we're there we'll know......