Dave Reynolds recruiting article

[Da Coach]

Dave Reynolds: Hitting the road hard for recruits

http://www.pjstar.com/sports/sportscolumns/x208445731/Hitting-the-road-hard-for-recruits

Dave has some new recruit names along with several already known-
2014 recruits-
5-foot-10 Jarvis Garrett of Milwaukee

http://www.ny2lasports.com/article_one.aspx?articleid=1264

6-4 Kurt Hall of North Chicago

http://ilprepbullseye.com/Hall_Player_Watch.html

6-4 Marcus Bartley of Decatur MacArthur

http://www.bradleyfans.com/vb/showthread.php?t=21575

6-2 Riley LaChance of Brookfield, Wis.

http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/basketball/recruiting/player-Riley-LaChance-132476

6-2 Lamonte Bearden of Germantown, Wis.

http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/basketball/recruiting/player-Lamonte-Bearden-137402

6-6 wing Malik Yarborough of Zion-Benton

http://ny2lasports.com/player_details.aspx?playerid=1322

6-6 wing Darius Austin of Cahokia

http://www.bradleyfans.com/vb/showthread.php?t=19296

6-7 Josh Cunningham of Class 3A state champion Morgan Park

http://www.bradleyfans.com/vb/showthread.php?t=22011

2015 recruits-
6-7 Obediah Church of Springfield High

http://www.bradleyfans.com/vb/showthread.php?t=22877

6-4 Christian Williams of Decatur St. Teresa

http://www.bradleyfans.com/vb/showthread.php?t=22878

Another is a junior college guard — Rasham Suarez of Puerto Rico of Central Florida Community College

http://rivals.yahoo.com/basketballrecruiting/basketball/recruiting/player-Rasham-Suarez-145377

[Da Coach]

Dave Reynolds has another article today-

Peoria Irish a bit unlucky at the next level

http://www.pjstar.com/sports/sportscolumns/x853688221/Reynolds-Peoria-Irish-a-bit-unlucky-at-the-next-level#axzz2Ynj9EYMC

Good article about the Peoria Irish AAU program.

But there is one part of Dave's article on page 2 that boasts this about the academic success of the Bradley men's basketball program-

Making the grade: While Geno Ford and his staff are making good progress turning around the Bradley basketball program on the court, they??™ve also done an excellent job on the academic side.
Prior to the staff??™s arrival at BU in spring, 2011, the men??™s basketball program had never averaged a 3.0 grade-point average in any one semester. But in the four semesters under Ford, the team has averaged 3.0 or better in all four periods.

It is great to see the Bradley players maintaining academic success, and great credit goes to the coaches, academic support people and others in the athletic department.
However, this trend did not just start recently. It has been going on for the last several years. I hope the remaining players can keep up the successes that the graduating players and past players have had.

I am not sure how Dave concluded that this current staff is the first to have a team achieve a GPA of 3.0 or better, since prior articles clearly state that it has been done before!
Bradley men's teams appear to have had record setting academic performances going back years before the changeover in staff, including GPA's over 3.0, contrary to Dave's claim.

Maybe someone can clarify this discrepancy, but this article from the Bradley website from May, 2010 ( 3+ years ago), appears to state that in the spring semester of 2010, the Bradley men's team had "a program-record 3.10 team GPA"-

http://www.bradleybraves.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=3400&ATCLID=204950712

And this article from May of 2009 (4+ years ago) boasts of a two record-setting academic semesters in a row for the men's basketball team, though an exact GPA figure is not stated-

http://www.bradleybraves.com/ViewArticle.dbml?SPSID=25965&SPID=1498&DB_OEM_ID=3400&ATCLID=3740712

And another article from July, 2009 that doesn't mention overall team GPA, but does boast of record academic successes by the men's basketball team and many of the individual players -

http://www.bubraves.com/ViewArticle.dbml?SPSID=25965&SPID=1498&DB_OEM_ID=3400&ATCLID=204758846

[Chico]

Maybe his boss is influencing him.

[Da Coach]

Mention of Bradley coaches recruiting at the 2013 Peach Jam in South Carolina-

https://twitter.com/prepbullseye/status/356120210106880000

Patrick McCaw-

https://www.bradleyfans.com/vb/showthread.php?t=22175

Bradley is following a number of the kids on Meanstreets and Mac Irvin Fire teams. Mac Irvin finished 3-2 in pool play and missed out on the playoffs. Meanstreets advanced to the playoffs starting Saturday night, despite losing one of their top players Paul White, who broke his left forearm.

[AZ BU Fan]

Another year of improvement in the MVC will seriously help Geno and BU land some more of the players he recruits and gives offers to!

Go get em Geno

[tornado]

pretty good AAU article from Indiana - lots of mentions of kids BU has been recruiting plus other mentions of Marty Simmons, Billy Wright, and some other MVC connections

http://www.indystar.com/article/20130712/SPORTS02/307120030/Recruiting-Central-Day-3-updates-from-Adidas-Invitational

one site has several pics of Jonathon Wilkins - still playing with his La Lumiere etammates - so I guess he's not leaving LLA as rumored


also at an elite AAU tourney the Mac Irvin Fire got knocked out of contention -

[tornado]

Just ran across this - it's a bit dated but it is the Top 500 kids in Class of 2013...
and I sure can't vouch for their accuracy...and I even looked for some of the kids who were spring verbals..

Here's how many each Valley school has from this list..

Creighton (I know they are gone from the MVC) - one, Toby Hegner
Drake - none
Evansville - three, Jaylon Brown, Blake Simmons, Duane Gibson
Illinois State - two, Paris Lee, Tony Wills
Indiana State - one, Brenton Scott
MSU - one, Tyler McCullough
UNI - two, Jeremy Morgan, Robert Knar
WSU - one, Rian Holland
Loyola - two, Pickett, Payne but Payne has decommitted
BU -

http://www.hoopscooponline.com/members/classof2013-seniors-winter2013.asp

[tornado]

Dave Reynolds with a few more comments on Bradley recruiting

http://blogs.pjstar.com/pressrow/2013/07/15/more-bradley-offers/

[tornado]

Dave Reynolds: Hitting the road hard for recruits

http://www.pjstar.com/sports/sportscolumns/x208445731/Hitting-the-road-hard-for-recruits

6-2 Lamonte Bearden of Germantown, Wis.

http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/basketball/recruiting/player-Lamonte-Bearden-137402

...

one fewer to have to follow....
Bearden verbals to.... Buffalo!

http://www.ubbullrun.com/2013/9/10/4717752/lamonte-bearden-verbals-to-buffalo

[bradleyfan124]

I hope Bearden no longer was being recruited by Bradley as a reason he went to Buffalo. I hate to think he chose them over us

[tornado]

Bearden is an enigma...see what you can figure....

first - just look at the list of schools pursuing him...NOT very impressive.....he had well documented offers from only Wisconsin-Milwaukee, North Dakota State, Green Bay...then Buffalo - LINK

but there are occasional mentions of much bigger schools "looking at him" but not actually offering (USC, Virginia, Purdue, Iowa, Butler, Creighton..)
Then there's the occasional recruiting service that doesn't have the kid rated anywhere even more than average...

And it is pretty apparent that Bradley was NOT following him recently & likely never offered...

BUT -- many of the major, highly respected recruiting serviced have the kid rated REMARKABLY HIGH - such as the link above that has him as 4-STAR and rated Top 100 NATIONALLY.
PLUS - he's a point guard - a position every school in existence wants a extra depth at...and would extend offers to get one so highly rated...and he plays for a TEAM that's one of the highest rated teams IN THE NATION - and has recruiters watching him & his team all the time.

Add to that many individual articles really praised the kid including that article by Dave Reynolds - who seems to have been more impressed with Bearden than just about anyone else at that HUGE AAU event.

http://www.pjstar.com/sports/sportscolumns/x208445731/Hitting-the-road-hard-for-recruits

so...one can only speculate why there's such a discrepancy between how highly the kid is rated and how the big name schools are after him - yet some don't think much of the kid and he ends up at BUFFALO, and no other better offers!

Gotta wonder if he's borderline or unlikely to qualify and many schools simply don't want to risk a scholarship offer on a kid they think won't be on the roster.

btw- North Dakota State offered most of Bearden's team's starting five a scholarship-

http://www.thedickinsonpress.com/event/article/id/60016/

[Da Coach]

Dave Reynolds: Hitting the road hard for recruits

http://www.pjstar.com/sports/sportscolumns/x208445731/Hitting-the-road-hard-for-recruits

Dave has some new recruit names along with several already known-
2014 recruits...

6-2 Riley LaChance of Brookfield, Wis.
http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/basketb...aChance-132476...

One-time Bradley recruit, shooting guard Riley LaChance of Wisconsin, who blew up and had many BCS-level offers, including a couple Big Ten and a couple Big East offers, committed to Vanderbilt last night.

[tornado]

this is a good get by Stallings at Vandy...
some had talked hot seat and cited Vandy's 16-17 record last year, 8-10 conference record, occasional poor play, way too many turnovers,
unexpected loss of several top scorers, key players & starters and "superstar assistant coaches", multiple different starting lineups, and
recent weak recruiting that has left them this season with only NINE scholarship players on the roster and predictions that this will be another rebuilding year...

[Da Coach]

I first heard Riley LaChance's name over a year ago when I found out UC Davis and Jim Les were recruiting him. Jim thought he had a good chance to land him, but then he had a tremendous summer and suddenly was getting attention from numerous high major schools.

[tornado]

hard to believe with the successes they have had there - but to show how there's always people who see greener grass on the other side....
..the Butler message board has a 25 page thread about Riley LaChance that mostly degenerates into a coach-bashing thread for missing this kid and others (like McIntosh) and losing recruits to the likes of Big Ten schools, and Xavier..