Bradley is 5th Most Improved Team in the Country

[PTownHawkeye]

In terms of wins improvement, Bradley is the 5th most improved team in the nation (out of 340 D-I teams), having already won 5 more games to this point than they won all of last year. See pg 2, fact 6.

http://www.mvc-sports.com/media/2012...l/mvc_1-21.pdf

Sidenote - didn't realize the Valley puts this weekly notebook out every week...some very interesting statistics across the league (like the fact that the Valley has the top 2 rebounders in the country who are under 6'1, Jeff Early and Troy Taylor).

[aggieman]

What is the SOS of the four teams ahead of us though?

[Bravesfan]

I'll take this for what it's worth, and that is "mid-term" ranking of the most improved teams at the moment. Hopefully 3 or 4 more wins will keep us in the top 10 of this list by the end of the season. I'll be more concerned with how we end the season than where we are right now. But it is very encouraging to see where we are at right now.

[tornado]

I'm glad we're improved - we really do have some great kids who should be applauded for their hard work

[BradleyJD]

It's all baby-steps in moving towards where we want to be. I know some may think BU has only beaten "bad" teams, but for the kids in the program wins are wins. They need to feel and see improvement in the form of wins.

I think we all like seeing the "big boys" play against Bradley, but frankly we don't yet have enough horses to play them game in, and game out. Besides the Valley is plenty good enough for BU at this point.

Keep moving forward with this progression and we will continue to get good results.

[DeltaBrave03]

I'm glad we're improved - we really do have some great kids who should be applauded for their hard work

And a great coach who plays to their strengths, and puts them in positions to succeed.

[Da Coach]

Looking at the schedule for the next few weeks, I hope we don't get stuck at +5 for a while.

[Buesch N Chips]

Bradley and Illinois are both entering huge gauntlets in their schedules. If both can go .500 through those, I would be stunned, but giddy!

[aggieman]

Looking at the schedule for the next few weeks, I hope we don't get stuck at +5 for a while.

I hate to say it but I don't think we will finish with much more than that +5 and likely won't be anywhere near that next year

[Bravesfan]

I'm glad we're improved - we really do have some great kids who should be applauded for their hard work

Absolutely!

[tornado]

being most improved can be a mix of being better in the subsequent year or just being really, really bad the prior year then playing weaker opponents the next.

I also note that in mentioning we are (TIED FOR) 5th most improved - nobody seems to mention what teams we rank behind in spots 1 thru 4...
but I will mention them for the sake of completeness...
Here are the teams were are batlting for the title of most improved....

Bryant (only had 2 wins total last year),
Towson State (who are 9-10 after being 1-31 last year),
Canisius (were 1-19 in the weakly MAAC last year),
Santa Clara (were 0-17 last year in their conference, WCC)

[Bravesfan]

being most improved can be a mix of being better in the subsequent year or just being really, really bad the prior year then playing weaker opponents the next.

I also note that in mentioning we are (TIED FOR) 5th most improved - nobody seems to mention what teams we rank behind in spots 1 thru 4...
but I will mention them for the sake of completeness...
Here are the teams were are batlting for the title of most improved....

Bryant (only had 2 wins total last year),
Towson State (who are 9-10 after being 1-31 last year),
Canisius (were 1-19 in the weakly MAAC last year),
Santa Clara (were 0-17 last year in their conference, WCC)

Canisius is another program with a rich basketball history (we played them in the 1995 NIT). Again, surprising they fell so far down last season.

[Bravesfan]

I hate to say it but I don't think we will finish with much more than that +5 and likely won't be anywhere near that next year

I'm not quite that pessimistic. At the very worst, we split against Evansville and UNI at home, beat ISU red at home, and split against Drake and MSU on the road. We could win more, but this should be the worst case scenerio. So I think +8 will be good, but I think we could do better.

Next year is a roll of the dice with our losing some seniors, but hopefully we will have more depth once the new players get used to Valley competition.

[Beninator]

IMHO It will be nice for Geno to go to a recruit's home with a team that is getting publicity for being improved and where he can tell the recruit we have improved, but we want YOU to get us to the next level.

[Future Walk-On]

I hate to say it but I don't think we will finish with much more than that +5 and likely won't be anywhere near that next year

I really doubt you "hate" saying this.