SIU 74 Bradley 65 post game thread

[lefty]

Yes. Will is hurt, and we have a new regime. You can either ignore both of those sets of factors and hold both coaches responsible for their seasons, or you can accept both sets of factors and let both seasons pass. The concept of doing both, one for each coach, is hypocritical, and we have that from both sides.

Agreed....well said

[Beninator]

We would have been better this year if JL stayed. We would have had Abel, SM and Harris. That would have given us the depth that is needed for this year to compete for 40 minutes.

Now a deep breath everyone. We will not be much better next year unless we get a super recruit. I'm not blaming GF. I'm giving him 3 years to see positive results. This is a re-building process at this time which we should not be pointing our fingers at GF or JL. It is what it is and since I have not paid for season tickets I'll stand by patiently. I have paid for the streaming video which I have only used twice

+1 The only way I see us getting much better next year is either a super recruit or possibly a couple of very good Juco players to add to the mix of what we have. I think we are in for an interesting off season.

[real fan]

Stowell was a fine coach, but he had a coaching mentality straight out of Hoosiers- just give me 5 guys and I'll coach them up. Unfortunately he never felt it was very important to recruit better talent and athleticism, while the rest of college basketball, and especially the MVC were doing just that.

His teams were also competing against Louisville, Memphis and a lot more top 10 teams in the country, try recruiting against those teams, he was a very good x"s and o"s coach and his players got better.

[Bravesfan]

Stowell was a fine coach, but he had a coaching mentality straight out of Hoosiers- just give me 5 guys and I'll coach them up. Unfortunately he never felt it was very important to recruit better talent and athleticism, while the rest of college basketball, and especially the MVC were doing just that.

This almost sounds like Geno, except hopefully he will recruit better talent and athleticism, AND most importantly, more fundamentally sound players.

[real fan]

After last nights fiasco I have to admit Air Petey is correct in the wins we will have , SIU is a mediocre team at best, what is wrong with our inside defense, Wichita and SIU did layup drills against it, Prosser is really struggling to guard his man and gives no help side defense at all, also once again we get little production off the bench , if I was Geno I would definitely recruit over a lot of these players because things are not going to get better if he keeps several of these non contributing players that he got stuck with.

[Bradleyfan1]

After last nights fiasco I have to admit Air Petey is correct in the wins we will have , SIU is a mediocre team at best, what is wrong with our inside defense, Wichita and SIU did layup drills against it, Prosser is really struggling to guard his man and gives no help side defense at all, also once again we get little production off the bench , if I was Geno I would definitely recruit over a lot of these players because things are not going to get better if he keeps several of these non contributing players that he got stuck with.

Amen, if hes not gonna use the kids then let them know that and dont continue to give the mins to JP when his hands are as bad as his defense just cuz somtimes he makes a layup or catches a rebound!

[BradleyJD]

Amen, if hes not gonna use the kids then let them know that and dont continue to give the mins to JP when his hands are as bad as his defense just cuz somtimes he makes a layup or catches a rebound!

I don't get the down-view or hating on JP. The guy who screams behind me all game....and always has was screaming to get JP out. The back to back possessions where there were TO's on passes to JP were as much a fault of the entry passes as they were on JP.

Passes are a 2-way thing. You can't throw it at people's feet and expect them to hold posts and catch the ball there.

[lefty]

I don't get the down-view or hating on JP. The guy who screams behind me all game....and always has was screaming to get JP out. The back to back possessions where there were TO's on passes to JP were as much a fault of the entry passes as they were on JP.

Passes are a 2-way thing. You can't throw it at people's feet and expect them to hold posts and catch the ball there.

No doubt there were times entry passes were poor...especially in the second half...there were also several times where JP couldn't hang on to a pass or rebound....or was too slow moving on defense....But

I attribute much of that to fatigue....if JP has to play 30 plus minutes it's going to be tough....

[Chico]

His teams were also competing against Louisville, Memphis and a lot more top 10 teams in the country, try recruiting against those teams, he was a very good x"s and o"s coach and his players got better.

In the days those teams were in the MVC the Braves were just as well thought of and I believe were gone before JS was let go.As for "more top 10 teams", check out JS's non conference schedules. Sure he played UCLA a couple times maybe, but not in Peoria. Only non MVC top team I can remember seeing in the Fieldhouse was UNLV.

[Beninator]

I don't get the down-view or hating on JP. The guy who screams behind me all game....and always has was screaming to get JP out. The back to back possessions where there were TO's on passes to JP were as much a fault of the entry passes as they were on JP.

Passes are a 2-way thing. You can't throw it at people's feet and expect them to hold posts and catch the ball there.

I agree. If anything, JP needs this playing time to get experience. I also think that JP could benefit from some of Tom Izzo's rebounding drills.

[Beninator]

No doubt there were times entry passes were poor...especially in the second half...there were also several times where JP couldn't hang on to a pass or rebound....or was too slow moving on defense....But

I attribute much of that to fatigue....if JP has to play 30 plus minutes it's going to be tough....

+1.. Which is why I would like to see a larger rotation from our bench. We might as well get some of the bench guys some experience.

[BradleyJD]

I agree. If anything, JP needs this playing time to get experience. I also think that JP could benefit from some of Tom Izzo's rebounding drills.

He does have some quality drills. We use some of his box-out drills in junior high.

[spoon]

I am not going to comment much, because there really isn't much to say. I would rather invite the apologists and the coaching change advocates to come on here and give us their excuses for the debacle we witnessed tonight.

Un-ban them first.

[Bravesfan]

There is not a game on our schedule that we can book as a should win game. Not with the team we have. They are a team coming off one of the worst in school history and I don't care who the coach is, we were not going to finish in the top half of the conference.

The talent is not there, we are a mixture of some good athletes with few true basketball skills (passing, defense, shooting etc) and some guys who have good bball IQ but don't have the athletic skills to get it done.

Until GF gets his own roster of guys in here, I for one will hold off on demanding success in terms of wins. IMO a change was needed and to think that change was going to happen and result in a huge difference right away in wins and losses is ridiculous.

Well I for one did think there were at least 3 to 4 should win games on the schedule as we did beat some teams of similar depth in the non-conference season. For example, I don't see Drake, Evansville or even SIU as any better as SEMO, Northeastern or George Washington. So yes, I did expect at least 3 or 4 of those types of wins, and believe me, 3 or 4 wins is a lot better than 0 or 1 win in terms of this team making progress, even if we basically are no better in number of wins as we were last year. So I do sincerely hope we can get 3 or 4 wins before the end of the season. Right now though, we seem like a team that may go 0 for the Valley, and that's not good in terms of turning things around, at least in the short term.

[Bravesfan]

Not a whole lot of positives I saw about last nights game. Last night only further gave evidence to the lack of shooting and overall depth that our team has. I still do not understand why Eastman is allowed the shoot the 3, Prosser and Sticks need to learn to box out, Geno needs to learn to switch to a zone when they go on a rally for a straight 10 points by simply driving in the lane and for the love of God free throws, free throws, free throws.

The defense is what I was most frustrated with last night. We were getting beat on easy lay-ups all in the 2nd half and Geno still play man defense? SIU just walked in and made lay ups or excuse me twice they made dunks. I haven't been critical of Geno's coaching in the previous games but last night was inexcusable.

Since I thought this would be the only home game we would win from the valley i'll be spending the rest of nights at the gym. Maybe with a little practice in FT ill go out for the team next year.

I agree. You can't put too much criticism on Geno this season as he was dealt a bad hand, but I agreed he had an off night last night. The defense was bad in the first half as well, and that's the time we need to build a 10 point lead on a team like this. The lack of depth on this team makes it difficult to defend in the second half of games, but our legs were fresh in the first half, and SIU still came in here and made us look like Chicago St.!