BU Beats UW-Parkside 87-77

[tornado]

..You have really bad luck when it comes to fans then. Or maybe you just need to have a lower profile at games ....

many know me to be a big BU fan and that I love to talk Bradley basketball - so I am sure I do attract more conversation about BU than most people.
I definitely do not deny anyone their opinions but I do have the ability to perceive which ones are pretty negative...
I also am a bit surprised by some of the very people who argued so vigorously that one must NEVER question the judgement of the admin, but some of those very people now do exactly what they claimed was off-limits in their objection to the on-campus games.
My devotion is first and foremost to the TEAM, coaches & players...and as someone else said - I don't care what any other fan thinks of me - I only care that the coaches and players know how much I support them - and I can assure you they do know...

[LittleBrave]

Ben -- here's a tough hypothetical....

Let's say TB has a monster year -- averaging 20 ppg and gets looks from the NBA..(just play along...)
Then also say DSE has a really good year (avoiding injury such as the foot injury that hampered DSE much of the first half of last year), and also gets on 1st or 2nd team All Conference...
..and a few other BU players have decent years...

Just how high in the standings would BU have to finish in this scenario for you to say Geno did a good job?
Wouldn't a 6-7th place finish with that kind of personnel reflect a bad job of coaching?
Conversely, if BU is in the top-3 would Geno get the credit or would someone finally blurt out the chilling phrase...
"gee JL actually had some pretty fine players there, too bad we never had the chance to see him coach them all when they were healthy."

I LOVE this kind of question, T!
I will take a stab at it - (I know it may have been meant for Ben)

This "hypothetical" situiation could actually happen - I'm very confident in DSE and TB averaging 30+ ppg between the combo - though I'm a little skeptical of the role players like JE, WL, and JP really stepping it up, beyond a small improvement in their game from last year.

So let's say that those 5 and a couple others contribute as they are capable, and we finish 6-7th - then I would say that Geno could have done a better job with what he has - probably meant we lost quite a few close games that we should be able to win given the personnel. So there would be some criticism (not a ton because this team was picked 10th to begin with)

Let's say he finishes 3rd or 4th (WoW! I can't imagine that a reality now)
Then I believe Geno gets the credit - and we dismiss JL as a fine recruiter, which I believe he was - not the greatest, but pretty good. I also think that a lot of JL backers would think had he stayed, we would have had a shot at the conf. title.

[Chico]

many know me to be a big BU fan and that I love to talk Bradley basketball - so I am sure I do attract more conversation about BU than most people.
I definitely do not deny anyone their opinions but I do have the ability to perceive which ones are pretty negative...
I also am a bit surprised by some of the very people who argued so vigorously that one must NEVER question the judgement of the admin, but some of those very people now do exactly what they claimed was off-limits in their objection to the on-campus games.
My devotion is first and foremost to the TEAM, coaches & players...and as someone else said - I don't care what any other fan thinks of me - I only care that the coaches and players know how much I support them - and I can assure you they do know...

Many of us are known as big BU fans and love to talk Bradley basketball. The coaches or the players don't know me now, but they did in the Versace years until I started being able to travel during the season and missing most of the games. IMO, a fan is anyone who takes the time to travel to Carver to watch the game, or never misses a game on television, or someone who is sitting 1500 miles away listening to Dave and the Dans.

[lefty]

Ben -- here's a tough hypothetical....

Let's say TB has a monster year -- averaging 20 ppg and gets looks from the NBA..(just play along...)
Then also say DSE has a really good year (avoiding injury such as the foot injury that hampered DSE much of the first half of last year), and also gets on 1st or 2nd team All Conference...
..and a few other BU players have decent years...

Just how high in the standings would BU have to finish in this scenario for you to say Geno did a good job?
Wouldn't a 6-7th place finish with that kind of personnel reflect a bad job of coaching?
Conversely, if BU is in the top-3 would Geno get the credit or would someone finally blurt out the chilling phrase...
"gee JL actually had some pretty fine players there, too bad we never had the chance to see him coach them all when they were healthy."

the key there T is ..and a few other BU players have decent years. Everyone's definition of decent is different. But if all that happened(I'm playing along)..then we would finish in the top half of the league and we are all fat and happy..... all those things can't happen unless you are winning IMO

[lefty]

We disagree on some things, but I can not see a reason to put Walt as our point guard this year. Walt's contributions to the team are far greater at the 2 guard.

I think you are still going to see WL at point for the next few games anyway.

[basketball nut]

I would be shocked if it was only seven, I would even be surprised if it wasn't mid double digits.

I would agree but lost count and didn't want to take my shoes off to keep track.LOL

[basketball nut]

I agree with you here Beninator, but I applaud Geno for giving Walt a try at PG during the preseason. We don't want what happened last year (short handed at PG) to happen again. We saw what kind of season that led to.

Question: Where would Geno have to finish to justify his salary to you? Better than sixth? Or, is it black and white to you? Does he need to win the regular season and/or conference tournament first before he can justify that kind of jack? What if we finish in the top 3? We haven't done that in a decade plus.

Good questions here B4L. I have seen some of the answers. First off we wanted a top of the line coach and that wasn't going to happen w/o paying what they did-mid to upper 6 figure incomes is the normal for good coaches @ mid majors-the better coaches that have already proved themselves are in the low 7 figure bracket alresdy at midmajors. You have to pay for what you get. Is GF the right man for the job isn't the question now. He was hired to do a job and now we will see whether he can-IMO he will succeed but I have been wrong a couple of times in my 64 years-just can't remember when.
As what makes for a successful season still has IMO be:
1: Come prepared everygame.
2: Beat the teams that you should and play tough against everyone else-never know when you are going to steal 1
3: Always give 100%

I can never say we have to finish 1st in order to be successful as their are 9 other valley teams that feel the same way.
Now some will say I am advocating that it is OK to lose and believe me I am not and I want to be first as bad as anyone-I guess I mellowed out in my older age (tell that to the softball team when I was coaching because they won't beleive you)
I think a lot of posters will be surprised at this team this year. We have a couple of very good players w/ some decent players-admittedly we are not deep but barring injuries we should do alright

[real fan]

Understand it is a tough hypothetical...

I set the bar very low for year 1 though. Player development is fairly easy to see on the floor. One of the things I liked about Coach Mo in his first year is that you could see the improvement with his players by January and February.

If Geno gets this team to a third place regular season finish in the MVC this year, I will fully admit that his pay was justified and that I was wrong.

There will always be divided opinion on the Bradley coach regardless of who the coach may be. I think that JL left this team with some fine players, but little depth. I know where you are going with this as far as what some people would say, but that type of statement (re: JL) would have to be proven over time when we see what Geno does with only his recruits.

I think you are too worried about his pay, in order to compete for the top coaches you have to pay them accordinally, why are you challenging Geno"s coaching, he was a 2 time coach of the year which proves he must know what he is doing , I think some are not over the firing of the 2 Jims but it is time to move on and support this staff.

[LittleBrave]

I expected to see mistakes on the floor. But, I did not expect to see the team look completely lost for long periods of time. Our guys had no clue as to what to do on the floor and I hang that on the staff! Remember, Geno stated that he had been working exclusively with the team for the past two weeks and didn't bother with scouting. --and I don't knock him for not scouting Parkside--

I wasn't at the game, so don't know if that was the case, but I wouldn't doubt there was some degree of confusion.

I don't know if it's a good sign or a bad sign that we scored 87 pts. looking completely lost for long periods of time.
Good in the sense we know we can score, but bad that when we play Valley teams, they will exploit our weaknesses (of being lost and making us feel even more uncomfortable).

[buschsquirrel2011]

many know me to be a big BU fan and that I love to talk Bradley basketball - so I am sure I do attract more conversation about BU than most people.
I definitely do not deny anyone their opinions but I do have the ability to perceive which ones are pretty negative...
I also am a bit surprised by some of the very people who argued so vigorously that one must NEVER question the judgement of the admin, but some of those very people now do exactly what they claimed was off-limits in their objection to the on-campus games.
My devotion is first and foremost to the TEAM, coaches & players...and as someone else said - I don't care what any other fan thinks of me - I only care that the coaches and players know how much I support them - and I can assure you they do know...

Fair enough. I hope you don't get any angry fans coming up to you at games. That would suck. I talk basketball on the message boards and then with a group of BU friends and alums. It's great.

Personally it doesn't matter to me if the players and coaches know I support them. I don't care if they know me from Adam. I'm just a fan who enjoys the games and hopes Bradley wins.

[Beninator]

I think you are too worried about his pay, in order to compete for the top coaches you have to pay them accordinally, why are you challenging Geno"s coaching, he was a 2 time coach of the year which proves he must know what he is doing , I think some are not over the firing of the 2 Jims but it is time to move on and support this staff.

I agree with you that Bradley needed to pay their head coach among the upper echelon of MVC coaches. Perhaps I zero in on the salary, as that is part of what I do for my job. However, I disagree that Geno has proven that he deserves to be in this pay tier. To date as a head coach, he has not won a conference tournament nor has he been in charge of a team that has made an NCAA tournament. That is not to say that the potential isn't there. It could be.. It is IMHO a bit of a leap of faith on the part from Bradley. jmho

As for the 2 Jims comment, let me clarify where I have stood about this.

I was among the people who thought Molinari should have been fired. I appreciate what he did at Bradley, but thought that the time was right to move in a different direction. During the time of the search for the new coach, I really wanted BU to hire Brian Gregory... (as you will see, I like the Izzo coaching tree) At the time, I also liked the African American Ivy League coach whose name escapes me at this time...

As for JL, I was among the group who wanted to give JL one more year but understood the reasoning to fire him. My favorites for the search were Rob Jeter, and Mark Montgomery. I think that Northern Illinois made a great hire in Montgomery at only $300k/yr. Jeter and Montgomery were my favorites as at the time, as I had no clue that Bradley was going to commit to paying the new coach at the upper level of MVC coaches.

[lefty]

I agree with you that Bradley needed to pay their head coach among the upper echelon of MVC coaches. Perhaps I zero in on the salary, as that is part of what I do for my job. However, I disagree that Geno has proven that he deserves to be in this pay tier. To date as a head coach, he has not won a conference tournament nor has he been in charge of a team that has made an NCAA tournament. That is not to say that the potential isn't there. It could be.. It is IMHO a bit of a leap of faith on the part from Bradley. jmho

As for the 2 Jims comment, let me clarify where I have stood about this.

I was among the people who thought Molinari should have been fired. I appreciate what he did at Bradley, but thought that the time was right to move in a different direction. During the time of the search for the new coach, I really wanted BU to hire Brian Gregory... (as you will see, I like the Izzo coaching tree) At the time, I also liked the African American Ivy League coach whose name escapes me at this time...

As for JL, I was among the group who wanted to give JL one more year but understood the reasoning to fire him. My favorites for the search were Rob Jeter, and Mark Montgomery. I think that Northern Illinois made a great hire in Montgomery at only $300k/yr. Jeter and Montgomery were my favorites as at the time, as I had no clue that Bradley was going to commit to paying the new coach at the upper level of MVC coaches.

I'm guessing that in another year that Geno was going to be moving up and maybe to a better job than BU.....at least that's maybe what BU was thinking. Geno won his conference the last two years and lost to the conference champ each time..so no they didn't go the NCAA tourney...but I think everyone believes he can coach....obviously it's only a good hire if he wins....I think he will ..actually I was little shocked at the amount initially but after thinking about it for a few weeks I think it will turn out good for BU.

[Future Walk-On]

There are definitely "degrees" of fandom in every sport. We need to all admit that.

Its not like we are going to use this to start a caste system...so I don't think everyone has to worry.

[jasonpeoria911]

Geno mentioned several times the few days before this game that they had just began to install/learn the playbook, out of bound plays, etc. Of course they are going to look a little lost when they only know a few plays in the new system. I think it's great that they still put up 87 points and the average points allowed is only a few higher than what is normally given in this system. It will get better with more practice and actual game play.

Jason

At least coach didn't have to say, "It was a wake-up call."

Re: Where do I expect us to finish? Anywhere from sixth to tenth place in the MVC.

As for last Tuesday, I wanted our coach to try new combinations and he did.. Most coaches do this in these games anyway. I expected to see mistakes on the floor. But, I did not expect to see the team look completely lost for long periods of time. Our guys had no clue as to what to do on the floor and I hang that on the staff! [/QUOTE]

[peoriaspitfire]

I think most everyone made some good points in this thread, but because it was just an exhibition game I tried to take everything I saw with a grain of salt. I will say it was great to see TB back on the court. We really missed him last year. Congratulations to DS for a great first game. I love DSE and I have always said I would take 4 DSE??™s and a big man any day. WL, JE and JP are all going to get a lot of minutes this year. I??™m also a huge fan of SS and JC and I??™m looking forward to seeing them grow into the mix. I was really hoping to see MK light it up from outside and a bit more from NW, but maybe that will happen next Tuesday??¦

Here are a few super short videos I took at the game:

http://s629.photobucket.com/albums/uu19/peoriaspitfire/Bradley%20Basketball/?action=view&current=TB_Putback.mp4

http://s629.photobucket.com/albums/uu19/peoriaspitfire/Bradley%20Basketball/?action=view&current=TB_Drive.mp4

http://s629.photobucket.com/albums/uu19/peoriaspitfire/Bradley%20Basketball/?action=view&current=WL_Shot.mp4