BU 44-Loyola 56

[lefty]

He was sitting at the scorer's table last night (nearer Bradley's bench).

'Right...I do remember seeing him now that you say that.

He needs to get out to people more as T says.....especially now. I have heard this from numerous people that are closer the program than me.

[shaunguth]

I think you have to give some more time in the recruiting....He gets started late recruiting guys last spring for BU....it takes a few years to develop decent relationships with players....I just think you have to wait 3 years or so to see how it all goes...I don't know if GEno is a good coach or not. He won at KSU but it doesn't always mean you do well when you step up...McDermott and Weber come to mind...But we hired Geno and we need to support him the next few years and see how it all shakes out. If we are still messing around at 500 3-4years from now without contending for a conference title then I'm guessing changes will be made.

I do support Geno and will continue to do so, even though some people seemingly don't believe anyone on this board is capable of doing that. I feel bad for everyone involved with Bradley basketball, including the fans. I've stated before and will not change my stance of not "ripping" on Geno for his win/loss record until his third season, when the majority of the roster will be "his". However, it would be nice to see some improvement and I'm not sure anyone sees that right now. My point is that I keep hearing that we need to wait for Geno to bring in the players for his "system" and style of play for him to have any success. I believe he recruited DSE and JP, as well as JC, SS, ad DH. Then I see where people think he should "run off" every player on the team. I'm not real sure what that says. Hopefully, Bell and Pickett are more prepared to contribute than a lot of the players on this team.

[lefty]

I do support Geno and will continue to do so. I feel bad for everyone involved with Bradley basketball, including the fans. I've stated before and will not change my stance of not "ripping" on Geno for his win/loss record until his third season, when the majority of the roster will be "his". However, it would be nice to see some improvement and I'm not sure anyone sees that right now. My point is that I keep hearing that we need to wait for Geno to bring in the players for his "system" and style of play for him to have any success. I believe he recruited DSE and JP, as well as JC, SS, ad DH. Then I see where people think he should "run off" every player on the team. I'm not real sure what that says. Hopefully, Bell and Pickett are more prepared to contribute than a lot of the players on this team.

I was hoping we would be better the further into the season......that is disappointing for sure.....

[FlyingSpaghettiMonster]

I was hoping we would be better the further into the season......that is disappointing for sure.....

Play has been wildly inconsistent. They look decent and competitive some games and then just abysmal in others. It's hard to know what to expect from this team.

[lefty]

Play has been wildly inconsistent. They look decent and competitive some games and then just abysmal in others. It's hard to know what to expect from this team.

exactly...I don't care if Humpty Dumpty is the coach...how do you throw a pass 4 feet over someone's head and/or air ball a shot from 6 feet?....there are some things that just seem to be hard to explain...

[real fan]

This season is about what I expected, I had no high expectations. I do believe we have a bright future, but it will take time. As far as us attempting to be recruiters I thinks we need to let the coaching staff handle that, Peters may be a good player but may not be a good fit for Geno's program. Let them make that call. I personally am hoping that there are three players (I won't name them) on our bench that will loose their scholarship at the end of this season and be replace with some young men that might have a chance of helping the program.

Agree in that the coaching staff will recruit players they believe to fit their system, I am all for replacing 3 players on the bench because if they are not good enough to play on this team they need to move on, this season is not what I expected as far as the team getting better, it has been a train wreck lately and I am very dissappointed in how this season has transpired because I was looking for player and team improvement and to me this has not happened like I expected it would given all the minutes 7 players have gotten on the floor.

[Indy_BB]

Give me a break. You can't truly believe this. Wow.

The exact opposite isn't true either, but isn't significantly closer.

[Bravesfan]

I did something tonight that I'd never thought I'd do during a game, leave a game early. Not because I had somewhere to be but because of just how pathetic we played and I couldn't watch anymore of it. You keep thinking it can't get any worse and that we've hit rock bottom. Yet we keep finding ways of going lower. I don't fault our effort but effort only gets you so far. We have some guys with physical ability, (DSE, WL, JC, TB, JP, SS), but we don't have real high basketball iq on this team plus no natural shooters. No excuse to get beat by a bad Loyola team at home by double digits. I admit that I was one of the polyannas who thought that this years team would do better than 9th. No one can say if JL had stayed that we would have done any better than we had done during the previous 9 years. But it certainly would have been better than this.

Couldn't agree more bigjimmy! I have been one of the those who has continued to say that we would have won at least 4 or 5, and maybe more games just for the fact that the players wouldn't have to learn a new system. But I understand that most want long term success that surpassed what Les did here, and I am willing to give Ford the chance to get this team moving in the right direction. But I'm not sure if we have started in that right direction just yet.

[Bravesfan]

What's even more interesting to me is these are probably the same people that follow the "it can't get any worse" (than last season) thought process.

Very true.

[Da Coach]

Give me a break. You can't truly believe this. Wow.

It's true. What player do you think would play for Bradley? Averkamp is clearly their best player, and Bradley was one of the schools that recruited him, and we did not think he was good enough to offer him. Their second leading scorer and rebounder didn't play (Gibler). Many of the rest of Loyola's players didn't even have other D1 offers, and one of their starters was a freshman walkon (Dokubo).
There is a reason they are dead last in their league with an RPI near the bottom of all D1 schools.

[Bravesfan]

I don't know about 100 years but certainly not in the near future. It's going to take time for Geno to replace EVERYONE that's on the current roster B4 we see ANY light at the end of the tunnel thats not a train.

Wily, I have to respectively disagree with your points, and I apologize in advance if I sound harsh, but I'm not. However, you're saying that Geno won't be competitive until year 5 until each and every holdover of the Les era is purged from the Bradley system. I don't buy that, and that's an insult to Geno even after the season he's had. Despite the difficulties of this season, and despite some mistakes that everyone who has been involved with the team has made, I still support Geno and believe he can turn things around.

That said, I think we have several salvagable players that can work well in Geno's system if we have more depth and after more of his players are in here. But I and most other Bradley fans are sure as heck not going to wait four more years until we even see "ANY light at the end of the tunnel".

Secondly, who's to say that Les couldn't have finished third or higher in the near future? I don't, but I base my opinion from the fact of what he did with this team in 2006 and 2007. In 2006 we finished tied for 5th, but earned an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament. Last year, the Valley's first place team in Northern Iowa became the first Valley regular season champion that failed to earn an at-large bid in two decades. I'm hoping you are seeing where I am going with this. If we finished in 5th in 2006 and earned an at-large bid that year, that's the equivalent of finishing in first or second most years. So that almost counts as a top 3 finish even if it wasn't officially. And in 2007 Les finishes 4th with a 10-8 record which shows that the Valley was still strong, and still equivalent to a top 3 Valley finish most years, with a much different team as well.

So to say that it would be "one hundred" years (or not in the immediate future) before Les finished in the top 3 is, at least in my opinion, unfair to Les and his coaching abilities. But he is gone and I'm obviously more concerned on how well Geno performs here in the future, and hope he can make some nice strides next year.

[JMM28]

It's true. What player do you think would have made Bradley's team? Averkamp is clearly their best player, and Bradley was one of the schools that recruited him the most, and we did not think he was good enough to offer him.



There is a reason they are dead last in their league with an RPI near the absolute bottom of all D1 schools.

I would gladly take Averkamp. A big man that can shoot a bit from the perimeter would really help a team with no good shooters. It would also ease the inside defensive burden on Prosser or Thompson. Rick Majerus thought enough of him to offer him a scholarship, so I will trust his judgement over most. He would be the same class as Prosser which also included DSE, Eastman, Milos. I can only assume interest from the BU end fell off when Prosser signed. Unfortunate really.

And realistically, Loyola and Bradley are not terribly different in terms of rankings at this juncture. Kenpom has them within 15 spots of each other, which would usually mean close to a pickem game on a neutral floor. Obviously it will be hard to win when everyone besides Crawford shooting for s*** and scoring 44 points.

[Bravesfan]

This season is about what I expected, I had no high expectations. I do believe we have a bright future, but it will take time. As far as us attempting to be recruiters I thinks we need to let the coaching staff handle that, Peters may be a good player but may not be a good fit for Geno's program. Let them make that call. I personally am hoping that there are three players (I won't name them) on our bench that will loose their scholarship at the end of this season and be replace with some young men that might have a chance of helping the program.

Welcome to the boads ncaafreak. I expected we would finish in last place this season as well. However, I did not expect to be blown out by a middle tier team twice in Evansville, have our worst home loss in history against Wichita St., and lose to a bad Loyola team by double digits at home this late in the season. That doesn't sound like much improvement to me.

[Da Coach]

I would gladly take Averkamp. A big man that can shoot a bit from the perimeter would really help a team with no good shooters. It would also ease the inside defensive burden on Prosser or Thompson. Rick Majerus thought enough of him to offer him a scholarship, so I will trust his judgement over most. He would be the same class as Prosser which also included DSE, Eastman, Milos. I can only assume interest from the BU end fell off when Prosser signed. Unfortunate really.

And realistically, Loyola and Bradley are not terribly different in terms of rankings at this juncture. Kenpom has them within 15 spots of each other, which would usually mean close to a pickem game on a neutral floor. Obviously it will be hard to win when everyone besides Crawford shooting for s*** and scoring 44 points.

This article says Averkamp picked Loyola over 2 other offers (Wisconsin-Green Bay and Wisconsin-Milwaukee)-

http://hswisconsin.scout.com/2/812361.html

Sorry if it is a premium article, but here is a clip that includes quotes from Averkamp himself-
The 6-foot-8-inch, 220-pound starting center at Germantown High School began laying the groundwork for that career when he followed up on a verbal commitment he made in June, inking his letter of intent to play hoops at Loyola University Chicago during this week??™s early signing period.
Averkamp also contemplated offers from UW-Milwaukee and UW-Green Bay, but he chose Jim Whitesell??™s Ramblers, also a member of the NCAA Division I Horizon League.
???I lined them up and visited all three right in a row so I could compare everything at the same time, and I was comfortable with the campus and enjoyed the city,??? Averkamp said. ???It??™s about two hours from here, so it??™s far enough away that I??™m on my own and close enough that my family can come down for games. And it??™s got good academics.???

So I am not convinced that Majerus legitimately offered him.
Regardless, I would trust Coach Les' judgement too, as he had a pretty good eye for talent. And by the way, virtually every recruiting service had Jordan Prosser rated significantly higher than Averkamp. I agree though, that Averkamp has developed into a pretty good player, but I don't see him playing as much in a system like Geno's.

[wily coyote]

Wily, I have to respectively disagree with your points, and I apologize in advance if I sound harsh, but I'm not. However, you're saying that Geno won't be competitive until year 5 until each and every holdover of the Les era is purged from the Bradley system. I don't buy that, and that's an insult to Geno even after the season he's had. Despite the difficulties of this season, and despite some mistakes that everyone who has been involved with the team has made, I still support Geno and believe he can turn things around.

That said, I think we have several salvagable players that can work well in Geno's system if we have more depth and after more of his players are in here. But I and most other Bradley fans are sure as heck not going to wait four more years until we even see "ANY light at the end of the tunnel".

Secondly, who's to say that Les couldn't have finished third or higher in the near future? I don't, but I base my opinion from the fact of what he did with this team in 2006 and 2007. In 2006 we finished tied for 5th, but earned an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament. Last year, the Valley's first place team in Northern Iowa became the first Valley regular season champion that failed to earn an at-large bid in two decades. I'm hoping you are seeing where I am going with this. If we finished in 5th in 2006 and earned an at-large bid that year, that's the equivalent of finishing in first or second most years. So that almost counts as a top 3 finish even if it wasn't officially. And in 2007 Les finishes 4th with a 10-8 record which shows that the Valley was still strong, and still equivalent to a top 3 Valley finish most years, with a much different team as well.

So to say that it would be "one hundred" years (or not in the immediate future) before Les finished in the top 3 is, at least in my opinion, unfair to Les and his coaching abilities. But he is gone and I'm obviously more concerned on how well Geno performs here in the future, and hope he can make some nice strides next year.

Bravesfan, I can see how you got confused by my post. I should not have said until Everyone was gone because that infers each and everyone. What I should have said was until all of Jims recruits are gone. I think Wells, Crawford and maybe SS will be useable. I think we are going to like Wells and Crawford in the near future and if SS is as good as they say he is. Thats 3 pretty good ones to build on. Hopefully Geno can get us back to where we expect to be but it's going to take at least 3 to 4 years. WE just need to be patient