SIU 74 Bradley 65 post game thread

[Bravesfan]

Bottom line...this team is not very good right now. But I still see the guys playing hard. They just flat-out aren't good enough right now. You can see flashes here and there. You see the effort, but not the execution.

Our D was beyond poor. (side note- I was shocked to hear Danny and Dave say we had great team D tonight--we did not). However, I think we all knew this year was going to be tough.

This team is finding that out. The coaches, too.

We have to hope they can grow and learn, and find some W's

Yeah, and I meant to apologize to you JD, not Lefty as he had nothing to do with my posts.

I agree, but still we can't lose to teams like this at home, even if this happened last year.

[Bravesfan]

Well this is a no win answer because you won't agree.

I can not remember the years.-

Joe Stowell's last season
One of Stan Albeck's teams with Dion Thurmon and Paul Wilson
The one that was actually the most frustrating to me was the first half of the season on our elite eight team.

All of those I had much higher expectations so they seam worse.

The actual worst one I can remember that may be agreed with is Molinari's first year.

I guess I am really impacted by my expectations. I did admit I did not expect this loss though.

Coach Mo won three conference games his first year, if I recall correctly. We may do the same this year, but don't be shocked if we become the first 0-18 team in a decade or so since Drake "accomplished" that feat in back to back seasons.

[lefty]

[QUOTE=Bravesfan;246415

I do apologize in advance if I offend anyone tonight, including you Lefty as I am not in a good mood after this loss. But yeah, maybe we can sneak a few wins in before the end of the season.[/QUOTE]


No worries here.....I'm unoffendable.....I understand the disappointment......

We are impatient people and we want things to go well sooner than possible. I don't know if it will or not but we need to support the team and give Geno time to work our way back up....if he can't then we move on....I'm not blaming JL for where we are like others are doing. It happened and the administration decided to move on....I think we are going to have to grunt through this year like we did last year...

[Da Coach]

Well this is a no win answer because you won't agree.

I can not remember the years.-

Joe Stowell's last season
One of Stan Albeck's teams with Dion Thurmon and Paul Wilson
The one that was actually the most frustrating to me was the first half of the season on our elite eight team.

Stowell's last season we were 14-14
The only season Dion Thurman played (1988-89) we were 13-14
And I assume you meant the first half of the 2005-2006 Sweet 16 year, since the last time we were in the Elite 8 was 1954. But even that year we were 9-7 and then won our next 4 and and 11 of our next 13 and finished 22-11.
And Mo's season was bad, but his team was nearly devoid of talent, and I don't think we are nearly that bad now. He still finished tied for 9th.

[Bravesfan]

I hope my wife has something for me to do Saturday night. I'm not sure I can watch much more if this. I understand the situation, I understand there needs to be patience and whatnot. I am not criticizing Coach Ford at all. I just don't really feel the need to witness the carnage up close. I have never attended two consecutive games where the opportunities to stand up and cheer due to play on the court could be counted on one hand.

I agree. I'm a diehard Bradley and Cubs fan, and will still watch games even if they are bad. But this is so beyond hope right now, I can't blame myself and other if we just take a step back for a few games or even a year away from watching games until the situation improves a bit. I hope that doesn't make me a fair weather fan, because I have no problem watching this team if they could prove to me that they could win 6 or 7 conference games. Even last year I knew the injuries put us into a situation where things were beyond our control. I thought the crowd at the CU game during the blizzard was more into the game than in others with full attendence, and I was really proud to be a Bradley fan as they pulled out a win against a decent, if not average team (I obtained a tape of the game and the crowd sounded loud).

However, I'm not sure if I can take too much more of this for this season, and again, I hope I don't sound like I'm selling out the team here.

[Beninator]

Coach Ford is going to have to make some changes either in the lineup or on the way the team is playing. CU is going to be very tough on Saturday.

Ironically one of my first comments tonight is that we have slowed down our offense compared to previous games. We also passed the ball much better tonight. Certainly room for improvement and I am still not thrilled with our offensive sets, but a change has been made and I think that needs to be pointed out.

I'll leave the defense out of this as this has been discussed in previous posts, but I felt some of the contributing factors for SIU building their lead in the second half occurred when we went back to playing the one-on-one style which resulted in poor shot selection. Fatigue may have been a factor here as well. Like it or not, Geno should give a couple of players more playing time. There really isn't anything to lose by doing this.

[BradleyJD]

No worries here.....I'm unoffendable.....I understand the disappointment......

We are impatient people and we want things to go well sooner than possible. I don't know if it will or not but we need to support the team and give Geno time to work our way back up....if he can't then we move on....I'm not blaming JL for where we are like others are doing. It happened and the administration decided to move on....I think we are going to have to grunt through this year like we did last year...

It's all we can do.

I am sure the team and coaches aren't happy with where they are either. It's ugly and there is only one way out. You gotta go back to work tomorrow.

[BradleyJD]

I'll leave the defense out of this as this has been discussed in previous posts, but I felt some of the contributing factors for SIU building their lead in the second half occurred when we went back to playing the one-on-one style which resulted in poor shot selection.

Good call, Ben.

Geno even said on the postgame that BU had something like 6 straight possessions where they had only 1 or 2 passes. Not surprisingly, he added, BU did not score on any of those possessions

[Bravesfan]

For me, that was probably last year. This one could get that bad, but there's a lot of basketball left to be played. Also, I have no reason to believe we'd be any better this year had Coach Les been retained. At least now I can think to myself that we have made a new start and it might get better.

Please! We would be 8-7 AT THE WORST if Les was here, with Sam and Remy playing as well. We would have beaten Wofford, W. Carolina and SIU. Now I'm not saying we would be printing tickets to the Big Dance. And maybe Geno's ceiling will be higher than Les's (though we won't know for sure), but it's always a LOT easier to rebuild from the middle of the conference (see Creighton last year, with a new coach I may add) than it is from the bottom of the conference (see Drake 10 years ago).

[lake Camelot]

Stowell's last season we were 14-14
The only season Dion Thurman played (1988-89) we were 13-14
And I assume you meant the first half of the 2005-2006 Sweet 16 year, since the last time we were in the Elite 8 was 1954. But even that year we were 9-7 and then won our next 4 and and 11 of our next 13 and finished 22-11.
And Mo's season was bad, but his team was nearly devoid of talent, and I don't think we are nearly that bad now. He still was about to finish tied for 9th.

OK I will stick with all the ones I posted except the Stowell one. I guess I was too young to remember that year very well.

But especially the 1998-1999 team that was 13-14 in my mind was one of the worst I have ever seen. The Molinari team was bad, but since it was his first year it did not upset me that much.

[Bravesfan]

Maybe. But we were 8-20 that year, but there were no blowouts even close to the 39 point loss last week, and we won 6 MVC games (6-10) and finished 7th in the MVC.

Right now I am not sure we can win 8 games, and I doubt anyone is expecting 6 league wins.

Coach Mo was 7-23 the next season, and 3-15 in the Valley. Again though, will we be able to win 3 Valley games this year? Based on tonight, no. But based on 11 losses in a row last year, possibly as we won 4 of our last 7 regular season games.

Regardless, this year will be very close to those two years, if not worse.

[Bravesfan]

No worries here.....I'm unoffendable.....I understand the disappointment......

We are impatient people and we want things to go well sooner than possible. I don't know if it will or not but we need to support the team and give Geno time to work our way back up....if he can't then we move on....I'm not blaming JL for where we are like others are doing. It happened and the administration decided to move on....I think we are going to have to grunt through this year like we did last year...

Yeah, I meant to say BradleyJD, not you lefty specifically. But I do include you as I apologized in advance to everyone here.

[Bravesfan]

Ironically one of my first comments tonight is that we have slowed down our offense compared to previous games. We also passed the ball much better tonight. Certainly room for improvement and I am still not thrilled with our offensive sets, but a change has been made and I think that needs to be pointed out.

I'll leave the defense out of this as this has been discussed in previous posts, but I felt some of the contributing factors for SIU building their lead in the second half occurred when we went back to playing the one-on-one style which resulted in poor shot selection. Fatigue may have been a factor here as well. Like it or not, Geno should give a couple of players more playing time. There really isn't anything to lose by doing this.

Well that's good that the offense scheme was changed up, as we did score more easily tonight. But some of that may have been because we played a bad team, though Lowery always builds his teams around defense.

Anyway, I was more upset at the way our defense played in the first half when we had fresh legs out on the court. We have to get ALL aspects of the game clicking at the same time to win.

[Air Petey]

.......Another close lose down the stretch. Coach Ford is going to have to make some changes either in the lineup or on the way the team is playing. CU is going to be very tough on Saturday.

Onward and upward.

I must say - once Jim Les was fired... your cup has always been half full.

WOW!! I predicted before the Michigan game we would be 1-9 for the next ten games. BU just screwed that up.... 0 & 10 now.

[Beninator]

Well that's good that the offense scheme was changed up, as we did score more easily tonight. But some of that may have been because we played a bad team, though Lowery always builds his teams around defense.

Anyway, I was more upset at the way our defense played in the first half when we had fresh legs out on the court. We have to get ALL aspects of the game clicking at the same time to win.

Agree that we played a bad team tonight, but one of the games that we started slowing the offense down from the break style that we utilized in earlier games was the Michigan game. Perhaps the best game we have played this season.
I hope I am wrong, but I don't think that we will have very many games this year in which all aspects of the game click at the same time.