TOP TEN Bradley Basketball News Stories of 2013

[Da Coach]

Maybe true intially, Chico, but fairly 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.

I know some people here hate this, but IMO it's always fun to read some of these old columns. here is just one of many such over-the-top positive columns by KW while covering the miserable 4 years of Geno-
Wessler: Opener ushers in long-awaited hope

http://www.pjstar.com/article/20121110/NEWS/311109953

KW writes a long, glorious, rose-colored-glasses column praising Geno and his team for winning their home opener against a woefully bad Eastern Illinois team (ended season with 281 RPI). He isn't satisfied with the overblown giddiness of watching Geno's team win easily over a cupcake, but as usual, he has to take shots at Jim Les with comments like:

Goodness, it has been a long time since we saw a Bradley Braves basketball team open a season like this, handle an opponent like this, seem to enjoy playing like this — and be fun to watch like this.

How long has it been since we could expect the Braves to manhandle an opening-night opponent? Shoot. How long has it been since the fans could show up and feel comfortable about the Braves’ chances to win?

It was only two seasons ago that Eastern came in here and grabbed a seven-point victory. That Bradley team went on to finish 12-20, tie for last in the Missouri Valley Conference and end Jim Les’s tenure as head coach. (notice no mention of the reason the Braves, picked for 4th place, finished so low- season-ending injury to Sam M., and the season-long heart issue for Taylor Brown)

Where was the reason to believe this season would be much different?
There wasn’t one. But now there is.

But hope is here. Real hope. For the most part, the Braves on Friday looked like a real team, played like a real team, acted like a real team. (apparently he was the only fan who imagined this)

And it was genuinely fun to watch them

How long has it been since BU opened this way? (actually, not that long- see below)

How long since Bradley manhandled a nonconference opponent? (again, a very short memory- see below)


Never mind that it was almost entirely Jim Les' players that he was praising, Kirk's giddiness had to have dropped off quickly, as that team went on to another disappointing Thursday play-in game (and a blowout play-in loss to #9 seeded Drake) at the MVC Tournament. That season also featured multiple 30+ point blowout losses (something that never happened during the Jim Les era despite far tougher schedules). Plus, they managed to set a record likely to never be broken with a 339th ranked (out of 341 D1 schools) non-conference Strength of Schedule.

Meanwhile, despite Kirk's implication that Jim Les' teams didn't win home openers, didn't win enough at home, or didn't beat good teams, he is simply wrong.
In 9 seasons at Bradley, Jim Les never once lost a home opener, he averaged more home wins per year than Geno Ford, or Jim Molinari, or Stan Albeck!, and he beat more D1 opponents from the top 6 conferences than any of his coaching peers in the Valley during the same time frame!
Several home opener wins were against good teams like Iowa State (by 9 points), DePaul (a 20 point blowout, which Kirk must have forgotten!), and Pepperdine. Plus, he also had an impressive blowout win in a season opening game AT DePaul playing without POB and Will Franklin! But maybe all those the wins were harder for Kirk to remember? Here is one other stat to put things into perspective- no Bradley coach had ever lost more than 67 games in any 4 year stretch, but Geno lost 86 games in his only 4 seasons!
Or this interesting fact- in all of Bradley's 60+ year history as a member of the Missouri Valley Conference, they never finished dead last in the MVC a single time, until the Geno Ford era, when they did it twice in 4 seasons, including Geno's 4th year when Bradley set a school all time low for worst MVC record of 3-15!

Jim Les' home win/loss record was vastly better than Geno's ever was, and everything about the JL era (with the exception of the final injury-plagued season for which he was fired) was far better than any of Geno's 4 seasons (that's not just my opinion, look at attendance!). So it is ironic and funny now to go back and read these old columns. As I said, though some have been purged from the PJS archives, there are still many of these pie-in-the-sky columns available, and are really quite funny to read now that we have the perspective of time. And they seem to show pretty clearly that Geno was "their guy", and JL was not.