TOP TEN Bradley Basketball News Stories of 2013

[tornado]

Here's my take on the ten biggest stories for Bradley basketball fans in the calendar year 2013 - admitting it's not over yet - so there could still be a surprise..

it wasn't actually intended but as I weighed the stories - it just turned out that #1 thru #5 are all positive & upbeat, while #6-10 are a little less so....

#10 - ticket price hike, reshuffling the seating, etc... starting off the 2013-14 season with unpopular changes - but one popular thing - we got Chet Walker back for a game
#9 - Gargoyle picked as mascot - maybe this should be higher but where'd this story go? So far it's a story that died as soon as we started discussing it.
#8 - The 2013 recruiting class & personnel issues - missing out on Tucker, Delaney, Jalen/Shayok leaving & the touted new guys not matching the hype & promise, losing consecutive home games to the likes of IUPUI, IPFW
#7 - the big time attendance decline - again, maybe should be higher on the list but I am hoping we see some turnaround
#6 - The incident that actually happened on New Year's Eve 2012 but resulted in a 2013 story & suspension - this story got the most discussion of any topic on BradleyFans in 2013
#5 - 2013 seniors Jake, Will, Dyricus (Defensive POY!!), & Milos - plus WALT (Preseason 1st Team) nearing Top 10 in career scoring - all good guys, gave us some excitement, carried us thru some down years
#4 - We beat ISU 83-77 on 1/29/13 - LINK
#3 - 2014 recruiting class - this might yet change but so far I really like it - Tramique, Donte, Macari, some very unique names and I hope very uniquely talented kids PLUS Mike Shaw
#2 - Improvement - BU won 18 games - a definite improvement on 2012 - hopefully keep it up..
#1 - Post-season play - not the big time but still we got to play in a 2013 post-season tournament, we went 2-1 in the CIT

Anyone with other thoughts???
The stories about the schedule, the TV package, the lawsuit, the weird media coverage, the logo, the Bahamas trip & Creighton leaving the MVC were real stories, but have little to do with the team & the players so I think those are lesser stories.

[tornado]

Prediction - there's yet another story emerging that will make this list -

[bradleyfan124]

Hope so T I hope so. Something needs to happen for change to be made

[tornado]

I will add story #11 but there might yet be one more...

#11 - Bradley closes out 2014 with lackluster games - although they did use the word "pathetic" in that same article

[LittleBrave]

Here's my take on the ten biggest stories for Bradley basketball fans in the calendar year 2013 - admitting it's not over yet - so there could still be a surprise..

it wasn't actually intended but as I weighed the stories - it just turned out that #1 thru #5 are all positive & upbeat, while #6-10 are a little less so....

#10 - ticket price hike, reshuffling the seating, etc... starting off the 2013-14 season with unpopular changes - but one popular thing - we got Chet Walker back for a game
#9 - Gargoyle picked as mascot - maybe this should be higher but where'd this story go? So far it's a story that died as soon as we started discussing it.
#8 - The 2013 recruiting class & personnel issues - missing out on Tucker, Delaney, Jalen/Shayok leaving & the touted new guys not matching the hype & promise, losing consecutive home games to the likes of IUPUI, IPFW
#7 - the big time attendance decline - again, maybe should be higher on the list but I am hoping we see some turnaround
#6 - The incident that actually happened on New Year's Eve 2012 but resulted in a 2013 story & suspension - this story got the most discussion of any topic on BradleyFans in 2013
#5 - 2013 seniors Jake, Will, Dyricus (Defensive POY!!), & Milos - plus WALT (Preseason 1st Team) nearing Top 10 in career scoring - all good guys, gave us some excitement, carried us thru some down years
#4 - We beat ISU 83-77 on 1/29/13 - LINK
#3 - 2014 recruiting class - this might yet change but so far I really like it - Tramique, Donte, Macari, some very unique names and I hope very uniquely talented kids PLUS Mike Shaw
#2 - Improvement - BU won 18 games - a definite improvement on 2012 - hopefully keep it up..
#1 - Post-season play - not the big time but still we got to play in a 2013 post-season tournament, we went 2-1 in the CIT

Anyone with other thoughts???
The stories about the schedule, the TV package, the lawsuit, the weird media coverage, the logo, the Bahamas trip & Creighton leaving the MVC were real stories, but have little to do with the team & the players so I think those are lesser stories.

T, I am actually starting to see you on a positive beat amidst all the struggles we're having...it's kinda refreshing!

[tornado]

#9 - Gargoyle picked as mascot - maybe this should be higher but where'd this story go? So far it's a story that died as soon as we started discussing it.
...

Has anyone heard a thing?
..do we know anything of it's design?
..didn't we have a contest back in November to name the gargoyle....is there going to be some word of whether a name was picked - why wait until spring when the basketball season is over?

[Da Coach]

From what I have heard, the costume has been designed and commissioned, and is being produced, if it hasn't already been. It will be revealed, along with the Gargoyle name soon. Probably they will reveal it at one of the upcoming conference games, maybe the ISU game? I think they should announce ahead of the game, so it might actually draw some fans to a game.

[tornado]

Well, I thought about the Top Ten Bradley stories of 2014....

but since a lot of them would be negative, then I thought's I cut it down to 5 and still tried to put some positives at the top and combine the negatives

1- BU wins women's XC conference championship (kinda only piece of good news)
2- Bradley lands Top 100 recruit Josh Cunningham
3- Serious financial problems most stemming from athletic department overspending/BU drops Men's Tennis
4- Walt Lemon finishes BU career in #7 spot in career scoring -LINK
5- BU finishes on Thursday nite in St. Louis in 2014/attendances at historic lows

Hon. Mention - Gargoyle unveiled as new mascot


anyone else have a thought?

[tornado]

well, I guess we're already off to a quick start with what's going to be the #1 story in 2015..

[tornado]

Well, I thought about the Top Ten Bradley stories of 2014....

but since a lot of them would be negative, then I thought's I cut it down to 5 and still tried to put some positives at the top and combine the negatives

1- BU wins women's XC conference championship (kinda only piece of good news)
2- Bradley lands Top 100 recruit Josh Cunningham
3- Serious financial problems most stemming from athletic department overspending/BU drops Men's Tennis
4- Walt Lemon finishes BU career in #7 spot in career scoring -LINK
5- BU finishes on Thursday nite in St. Louis in 2014/attendances at historic lows

Hon. Mention - Gargoyle unveiled as new mascot....

Since we didn't do a Top Ten Stories in 2014 - how about we get an early start for 2015.....
There's lots of news to choose from AND still plenty of time left in 2015 to make some really big headlines and have some great stories

But here's what I think are the 10 BIGGEST stories in 2015 thus far...

#1- Brian Wardle hired as NEW head basketball coach. Just a little hard to settle on #1 but this story sets the stage for the next several years to come.

#2- Geno Ford fired - didn't come as a big surprise but the admin & media sure tried to shore up his image and blame everything bad on someone else.
But the fans are not that stupid, they could see how bad we really were despite the hype and spin coming endlessly saying otherwise.

#3- Dr. Chris Reynolds hired. Nuff said- this could have been #1 but the basketball changes come first. I hope BU pays him MORE than they once paid Glasser & Cross for leading us nearly to DIII, and locks him in for a long, long time.

#4- Dr. Glasser & Dr. Cross fired- this is what makes the housecleaning so newsworthy. Doubt any DI has ever fired so many at once but then we were really bad under those guys. Won't harp on it but if this was the ONLY one of the TOP TEN that had happened, I'd still be giddy with excitement.

#5- Ten new players- a pretty impressive & talented recruiting class given the amount of time available.

#6- one more bad story - but it was UNPRECEDENTED. Fans abandoned the Braves in numbers never before seen. Attendance plummeted to under 5000 and even then - half those seats were empty. We may never see those kinds of abysmal home crowds again as the home crowds shrunk to levels not seen since before the move from the Armory. (But even the Armory crowds were better since that place was packed.)

#7- Massive player departures. Really no surprise but again, I don't think anything like this has ever happened at Bradley and perhaps not anywhere in DI as the whole team minus two juniors & a freshman packed up and left. Some shed tears over the loss of Josh Cunningham- but they have little sense of how Bradley had to mortgage their future in order to land the guy and how his 7.9 pt scoring average & 23% outside shooting pct despite leading the team in minutes - WAS PART OF THE PROBLEM NOT THE SOLUTION

#8- BU lands two top incoming recruits for 2016. After a couple years of being totally unable to land solid high school recruits and instead relying on grabbing whatever leftover juco kids there were each summer...we finally are back to building a team the way the most successful programs always have done it.

#9- The Tradition banquet. Once again, nobody's ever seen anything like it- more of the unprecedented stuff I hope we keep seeing - add in the return of the Itoo Supper, the record Auction turnout, and the enormous boost in fan interest & enthusiasm - even tho they are getting minimal help from the media who are still in a funk about their guy Geno being fired.

#10- I'd be remiss if I didn't put the fans in this list. Thanks to the longsuffering, faithful, & loyal Bradley Braves fans who stepped up with letters & messages to the Board and finally got this sinking ship righted and back on course.

[Tommy]

Some shed tears over the loss of Josh Cunningham- but they have little sense of how Bradley had to mortgage their future in order to land the guy and how his 7.9 pt scoring average & 23% outside shooting pct despite leading the team in minutes - WAS PART OF THE PROBLEM NOT THE SOLUTION

I have no doubt that there is good reason he didn't stick around at BU, so I am not sad that he is gone. Let's be fair, though - this kid had serious talent on the boards, and if he had the right coaching that would keep him from tossing up 3's and kept him closer to the boards, he could have been something special for the Braves.

[tornado]

agree-- I would take the kid & his talent if it were committed to Bradley-
but taking his handlers and the strings attached is what helped kill our ability to recruit.
Once we were tied to one certain line of recruiting then we fell dramatically in the eyes of tons of other recruits and ended up having to scrounge for leftovers every spring.

[tornado]

Brian Wardle makes the Top 10 sports stories in two different cities

http://www.greenbaypressgazette.com/story/sports/2015/12/31/top-10-non-prep-non-packers-stories-2015/77961690/

http://www.centralillinoisproud.com/sports/local-sports/top-10-sports-stories-of-2015

http://www.pjstar.com/sports/20151225/no-3-sports-story-of-2015-purge-aims-to-put-bradley-basketball-back-on-track

[Chico]

Geno wasn't necessarily "their guy". Anybody who replaced Jim Les would have been kw's guy.

[Da Coach]

Geno wasn't necessarily "their guy". Anybody who replaced Jim Les would have been kw's guy.

Maybe you could say that initially, when he was named head coach, Chico, but quite quickly KW became too close, and too big of an admirer of Geno personally, and he and DR lost almost all of their objectivity. They were reluctant to write anything critical or negative about the coaching, even though every fan could see significant shortcomings in coaching, recruiting, game plans, and discipline. Geno certainly became "their guy" and they protected him like family.
I think they now know they lost credibility and integrity among a lot of readers because of their blind support for Geno, and their refusal to criiticize when it was called for, as we see them now back off and now take a very different, and distanced approach with his successor.

Incidentally- here is an old column from just a few weeks after Geno was named Bradley's new head coach on March 28, 2011. It is pretty clear to me that the love affair he had with Geno was already in full bloom-
Wessler: Talking up Bradley’s new basketball boss

http://www.pjstar.com/article/20110515/NEWS/305159949

The Journal Star’s longtime Bradley beat reporter, Dave Reynolds, hit it off with the new coach immediately. Media colleagues were unanimous: “You’re gonna love him.”
Now I had come time to see for myself; to get a one-on-one feel for the man....Five minutes in, we were talking like guys who’d known each other for 20 years.

Yes, if Ford is as good a basketball coach as he is fun to talk to, Bradley has itself a terrific coach....he has to deliver a team that regularly competes for championships, is entertaining to watch, graduates its players and represents the university and community with class.
No small task. But I’m cautiously optimistic.

My optimism is based on a number of factors.
One, Ford was wise to retain Willie Scott as an assistant coach....
I don’t know much about new assistant Jaden Uken and basketball operations director Patrick Beilein, but they appear to be solid hires....
More encouraging, I think, is what Ford wants in his top assistant, a position that remains open. He’s looking for an older coach, preferably someone who has been a head man in Division I — and more of a teacher than a recruiter.
That’s smart.
Another thing, Ford is realistic about the hand he has been dealt here. Our meeting was not a formal interview and, therefore, off the record. But I can tell you he’s neither blowing smoke nor underselling the talent on the roster. He has identified what BU needs, and he’s trying to fill those needs....
But I like Ford’s approach.
He wants to build for sustained success. ...
If he can do that, he’ll give this whole town something to talk about, and it will be nothing but fun.


So Kirk saw all these wonderful things in Geno after meeting up with him a few minutes for lunch. He talks freely about how solidly he and Dave Reynolds were smitten by his persona and how he knew "Five minutes in" that he was "gonna love him"! How did all those great things work out? Why was he so generous with his over-the-top praise right from the start?
I ask...Is this a normal relationship for a newspaper columnist to have virtually from the start with a coach he is supposed to objectively critique?