Final: BU 63 UIC 62

[Bravesfan]

I noticed that too. Kaplan ripped BU for getting rid of Les when it happened, and I believe Les was a guest on some NCAA show Kaplan hosted soon after he was fired.

I didn't hear about this at the time. Very interesting!

[wily coyote]

Well I certainly don't think we have a team of very talented guys.....

We do have a few talented kids but not many. Love JE and JP but if they are getting major minutes you won't contend for titles. Also lack of depth from our bench hurts. Geno and his staff have done a whale of a job this year.Hopefully they can bring in some top tier Valley players than we can better evaluate whether he can coach or not. My bet 's on Geno.

[Bravesfan]

I assumed you were exaggerating. But that is pretty much what it says. Except for the Geno Ford calling plays part.

Not what I saw. I personally feel it is a pretty poor recap.

I agree. Basically the crux of Geno's offense is to go and penetrate inside for scores. If the lane is not open, then they can dish the ball out and try for an open three point shot or reset the offense.

If our game plan was not to penetrate, then why did one of the UIC players AND their coach both contradict the article and admit it was the UIC defense that let Bradley back in the game?

Yes, agreed that this was not great journalism by the Sun Times, especially the gem about Geno not calling plays at the end!

[Bravesfan]

I think it's time for certain of our fans here and on other boards to stop trashing our kids - as they have more talent than they're being given credit for..

I agree. We are 16-13 because we do have enough talent to at least be competitive and to win over half our games this year. But we also have a great coaching staff as well to be able to get 16 wins out of a team with only 3 or 4 consistent starters and very little depth off the bench. So everyone involved with the team should be commended for a job well done so far.

[Bravesfan]

so...everyone's happy that we had to abandon the game plan if we had any chance of winning?

Yes, if that's what it takes to win. That means the coaches realized what was not working and they made the adjustments at the right time to give up the best chance of winning.

However, I don't think our game plan was abandoned. In every game this year, we have always tried to penetrate the inside lane, but credit UIC's defense early on for making things difficult for Bradley's offense. I think UIC's defense did relax somewhat late in the game, and our zone defense also threw UIC off their game by the end. Yes, we need more talent to beat a team that we should have beaten by 10 or more points, but at this stage in Bradley's rebuilding process, any road win is big. I don't care if we won by 1 point or 25 points. I'll take this win any day!

[Da Coach]

Did anyone else listen to Coach Ford's postgame radio show? He seemed overly preoccupied with some bits of confetti that fell when the PA system was blasting loud music. I saw that but didn't think much about it during the game, but it sure seemed to bother the coach.

[Chico]

Does anyone know if this game will be re-broadcast on Comcast?

[battlebasset]

I'm wondering if they obtained some outdated Bradley media guide from early last year. I just don't get how they can be so missguided considering that they did mention that Bradley is one of the most improved teams in Division I this year.

I don't know who the play-by-play announcer was today, but the analyst Dave Kaplan is a long time sports talk host and reporter on WGN radio. Considering that Bradley hardly gets any media coverage in Chicago despite their large alumni base here, this does not surprise me that Kaplan and the other announcer were so missinformed.

When ever a BU game is on television, I turn down the volume, turn on WMBD and use the "pause live TV" feature on my DVR until the WMBD play by play syncs up with the action on my screen. That way I don't have to listen to the horrible announcers who know nothing about Bradley B-Ball past or present, or are so biased towards the other team that it is unbearable.

[BradleyJD]

Did anyone else listen to Coach Ford's postgame radio show? He seemed overly preoccupied with some bits of confetti that fell when the PA system was blasting loud music. I saw that but didn't think much about it during the game, but it sure seemed to bother the coach.

Didn't catch post game, but I do know the refs stopped or delayed the game multiple times due to the dangerous playing conditions. Passion Pit was in the building Friday and left the confetti

[tornado]

... we do have enough talent to at least be competitive and to win over half our games this year. ..

half-full, half-empty???

I see that we DO have the talent to play right with everyone in this league...if we didn't then we wouldn't even be able to keep with them for a half...

But the severe lack of depth and short bench is the main factor - there are others - that cause us at times to get out-played badly for considerable stretches....

Remember - UICis a team that hasn't played well in the entire past two months - they were just coming off two consecutive losses to the absolute bottom-dwellers in the Horizon!

then we started right from the tip-off feeding the low post and going right at their major weakness - their defense in the paint - and it worked
we quickly picked up a couple buckets down low to take our biggest lead in the first 4 minutes!

Then our offense switched for several minutes to just shooting threes and UIC not only got right back into the game - they ran out to a 12-pt lead until we finally tried to get it down low again..
Then we scored on several of the next possessions.

No matter what people think about our post play - we are still a better team in the long run if we try every possession to get the ball into the paint instead of shooting 5 seconds into the possession from a bodylength beyond the arc - ......we are not a team that's going to win consistently with our 3-pt shooting.

...pass it, dribble it, or whatever - we need to get into the paint..
If you add our "Points in the paint" to our FT's which all come from getting to the paint - then we scored 49 of 62 in the paint

[lefty]

T- I agree the ball needs to go into the post....but our post players haven't been very consistent with the ball inside. I love it when we shoot the 3 from inside out too.....I have no idea what our % is when we do that but I would guess it's better...I wish the bigs would pass back out when doubled and reset in the post to get the ball back..

Talent wise, and I've said this all season...our starting 5 except for JE IMO can play with most teams in the Valley but they have to play fairly well. We don't have any dominant players that compensate for our lack of inside production or 3 point shooting......and that's why we have to play nearly perfect to compete....we haven't been able to count on the bench when a starter has an off night or injury...Bell and Crawford have shown some flashes but really haven't been consistent either.

Many think Grier and Fields have helped DSE and WL from a practice perspective and now we need the same competition inside.......

[Bravesfan]

When ever a BU game is on television, I turn down the volume, turn on WMBD and use the "pause live TV" feature on my DVR until the WMBD play by play syncs up with the action on my screen. That way I don't have to listen to the horrible announcers who know nothing about Bradley B-Ball past or present, or are so biased towards the other team that it is unbearable.

Well in all fairness, the announcers are Chicago guys, so it would stand to reason they would root for UIC over Bradley. And I don't know if they are the normal announcers for UIC as most of their games are not shown on Comcast Sportsnet. The Horizon League shows most of their games for free on their website, but since I don't watch these games regularly, I have no clue as to who their regular announcers are. This may have been a one shot game shown being the Bracketbuster game.

That said, I do however expect them to get their basic information correct, irregardless of whom they are rooting for. That unfortunately was not taken care before yesterday's game, and they sounded clueless at times.

[Bravesfan]

half-full, half-empty???

I see that we DO have the talent to play right with everyone in this league...if we didn't then we wouldn't even be able to keep with them for a half...

But the severe lack of depth and short bench is the main factor - there are others - that cause us at times to get out-played badly for considerable stretches....

Remember - UICis a team that hasn't played well in the entire past two months - they were just coming off two consecutive losses to the absolute bottom-dwellers in the Horizon!

then we started right from the tip-off feeding the low post and going right at their major weakness - their defense in the paint - and it worked
we quickly picked up a couple buckets down low to take our biggest lead in the first 4 minutes!

Then our offense switched for several minutes to just shooting threes and UIC not only got right back into the game - they ran out to a 12-pt lead until we finally tried to get it down low again..
Then we scored on several of the next possessions.

No matter what people think about our post play - we are still a better team in the long run if we try every possession to get the ball into the paint instead of shooting 5 seconds into the possession from a bodylength beyond the arc - ......we are not a team that's going to win consistently with our 3-pt shooting.

...pass it, dribble it, or whatever - we need to get into the paint..
If you add our "Points in the paint" to our FT's which all come from getting to the paint - then we scored 49 of 62 in the paint

Half-empty or half-full? I don't know. We'll see how our incoming players step in next year to replace the seniors we lose. But agreed we have a very short bench, otherwise we would be competing for a championship this year, and beating UIC by 15 points. But unfortunately we can't because of that. However, the talent we do have has done very well considering this.

Regarding the points in the paint, do you see this as bad coaching decisions, or continual rushing of shots by our players? Personally, I don't believe Geno is telling his players to take quick three's at any time unless they feel they have an open chance. And sometimes our inside shots don't go in either. I just think we have a few players who think they are Kyle Korver or John Paxon with a 50+% three point shooting percentage sometimes. I understand we do shoot three's well in spurts, but we are too inconsistent to be doing this all the time. We are not Creighton or Butler with gaudy three point shooters. That's why I have a hard time believing Geno is changing up the offense during the game to forego easy points in the paint. I know maybe he wants to switch things up once in awhile in order to keep the other team's defense on their toes, but I can't believe he would say just shoot 3's for 30 minutes before going back to pounding the ball in the paint the last five minutes.

[JMM28]

Wait...you're telling me a coach made adjustments within the game away from something that doesn't work?!? Unheard of!!


My opinion is any road win is a good win.

[BradleyJD]

Wait...you're telling me a coach made adjustments within the game away from something that doesn't work?!? Unheard of!!


My opinion is any road win is a good win.

Dan Dakich just said on the Illinois-Michigan game that Michigan may have the best offensive coach in America. But he just let his guard, Burke, just have 2 straight possessions where he ran no sets and just let him dribble and create for 35 seconds.

If it works, it works