Final: USF 61 Bradley 57

[peoriaspitfire]

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[Chico]

And this is the championship experience we were promised?

Let's hope it's the MVC championship. Go Braves.

[Buesch N Chips]

why do the fans who are trying to point out how badly we are barrelling down the wrong path and in the wrong direction...are the ones that get attacked...

I'll bet some people banned from this site a few years ago asked the same question.....

[tornado]

can you give me an example of any such fans being "attacked" or threatened, I have never seen it..
and if the fans were so unhappy a few years ago - why were 10,000-11,000 still showing up regularly to every game - twice what we're seeing now.

What's happening now is so totally unprecedented that there's nothing whatsoever to compare to.

As noted before, in the history of BU playing in the Civic Center - we've never had games with attendance of just 6000, but now that number and LESS are common occurrences...
Even from the 1940's thru the early 80's the crowds at the Fieldhouse were never in the 5000's - but again - we're now seeing some home crowds of just 2,000 and less up at Ren-Col.

It doesn't help that the media and some fans keep trying to minimalize how bad things are for BU basketball and where we're headed...and keep trying to fool fans into thinking this is the right direction. that this is just the bad economy or that it's because the students had classes or exams - LOL
By this time next year - the crowds will be 4000. When they are - guess who they'll blame - probably me for saying so and of course they'll try to blame all the people who have been fired.

Hey, I got a challenge - does anyone remember Feb. 1, 2011 - that was the historic "Snow Game" - because of a blizzard, the game was moved up several hours and virtually NOBODY was there - maybe a total of just a few hundred people...thus the walkup crowd was non-existent....
and yet guess what the attendance was???? It was OVER 8000!! (as Bradley beat Creighton & Doug McDermott - LINK
EIGHT THOUSAND - that meant nearly 8000 seats were already sold well before game time with an estimate 7,500 of those being SEASON TICKET HOLDERS' SEATS.
Even as recently as 2011-12, Kirk Wessler conceded BU's season ticket base was 7,500 - but now it is probably under 5500 - a loss of almost 30% in just TWO years.

In fact - check this out - note how incredibly negative Kirk Wessler was and how brutally critical he was in a season that we still won and drew almost 8500 to our worst games. -
...a season where we lost our two best players & LEADERS (imagine losing Walt & Tyshon) - and we still won as many in that season as Geno is averaging over the past three years - and we did it against a SOS that was way better than any of the past three seasons! LINK

[Da Coach]

I'll bet some people banned from this site a few years ago asked the same question.....

Sorry, Buesch, it was 180?° the other way around back then. In that case it was the messengers attacking those who didn't agree with them. The only people banned were for repeated violations of the rules, and they were warned many times. Nobody is forced to post here, but we expect those who do to follow a few simple rules.

I think most of us fans would be happy to continue being patient if we could see the pieces coming together, like most of the fans could see in 2004 & 2005. But I'd ike to hear from anyone who believes that is happening?
Even our own staff must not believe it, since they keep running off their own recruits every year, and even now they are preparing more of that by actively recruiting more 2014 recruits when we are apparently out of scholarships. Most fans would be OK with that if it was working, but the performance of this team has shown significant regression.
And can anyone give any examples from the history of our admins here, or prior to coming here that shows we have anyone with a history of building championship programs in the past? Just saying....fans aren't dumb.

[tornado]

btw - Creighton's home attendance is up 30% from 2010,
Indiana State's is up 40%, SIU's is up, and even Chicago State's is up by over 100%
...this misinformation about how everyone is down is poppycock - folks will readily pay for good basketball - or even just improvement.

[KMart]

I really want to see JS, OG, and WL on the floor at the same time. This gives Walt 2 three point threats which should give him a little more space to operate. It seems like there is no flow to the offense anymore, and until Bradley can figure out that swinging the ball and constant movement will create open shots, we are going to keep losing. USF seemed uninterested in taking any three point shots last night because they had plenty of open looks. I hope they don't let UNI get any air on the arc.
This may just be me, but this year it seems like Walt will take a play off or two and just not hustle at all. Against USF the ball was knocked into the back-court and Walt should have gotten there, yet he jogged back while two USF players hustled down the court to try to get the ball. I'm not saying he is the only one who does it, but his are the most memorable to me. Ford needs to bench him after those kinds of plays if he doesn't want to play every possession. I'm sure a lot of guys on the bench would play ever possession to their highest abilities and your best player shouldn't be an exception to that. By letting your senior leader get away with things like this sets a bad example for the younger guys on the team.
I think it's about time to start playing guys like SZ, AF, NW and JS extended minutes and see if someone can step up and become another scoring option. I would really like to see one of those guys get a lot more shot attempts.

[Dub]

[QUOTE=

NW gave you more than AB in 12 mins![/QUOTE]

I have been a Wells fan for a while now. There are things he does that don't show up in stats, hear me out. Nate was absolutely unmovable when guarding their 2 beasts in the post. They were really frustrated while he was in the game, and as soon as he was replaced, their bigs began to score again. In addition, Nate has leadership qualities and you can see the players were energized with him in there.

Everyone seems to agree Nate gets better with more game experience. How good would be be right now if he'd gotten minutes last season? That was a BIG mistake in my opinion.

[Old Coach]

I have been a Wells fan for a while now. There are things he does that don't show up in stats, hear me out. Nate was absolutely unmovable when guarding their 2 beasts in the post. They were really frustrated while he was in the game, and as soon as he was replaced, their bigs began to score again. In addition, Nate has leadership qualities and you can see the players were energized with him in there.

Everyone seems to agree Nate gets better with more game experience. How good would be be right now if he'd gotten minutes last season? That was a BIG mistake in my opinion.

I think that it's simply a case of opinions differing.

I think Nate is neutral at best. He doesn't hurt anything by being in the game, but doesn't really do much either. I remember 2 occasions where Chris Perry used Nate as a turnstile, and a 3rd where he had to foul to keep from allowing another easy bucket. That said, his +/- for the game was zero, so give him 8-10 mpg and see what happens.

[Big Mike]

I think that it's simply a case of opinions differing.

I think Nate is neutral at best. He doesn't hurt anything by being in the game, but doesn't really do much either. I remember 2 occasions where Chris Perry used Nate as a turnstile, and a 3rd where he had to foul to keep from allowing another easy bucket. That said, his +/- for the game was zero, so give him 8-10 mpg and see what happens.

How about giving him some minutes to build confidence before we close the books on him before his career ever starts? The statement you make can be made about any other player on the court at any given time....he gives a definite spark that's needed and hustles every minute in the game......you have a 5th year Sr five that gives you nether and still gets minutes? I can live with a guy giving me his all....cannot live with guys who really do not seem to care!

[Old Coach]

How about giving him some minutes to build confidence before we close the books on him before his career ever starts?

I just said give him 8-10 mpg and see what happens.

[tornado]

USF looked terrible against Memphis..maybe we wore them out....
In just 10 minutes they were behind by double digits, and never really were a threat from there on out...
By halftime Memphis was up 16, and they pulled away in the 2nd half to as much as a 27 point margin - cruising from there using a lot of subs...so that the final margin was much closer than the game actually was.

[Da Coach]

USF looked terrible against Memphis..maybe we wore them out....
In just 10 minutes they were behind by double digits, and never really were a threat from there on out...
By halftime Memphis was up 16, and they pulled away in the 2nd half to as much as a 27 point margin - cruising from there using a lot of subs...so that the final margin was much closer than the game actually was.

They have been playing without the player their coach Stan Heath calls their "best player", Anthony Collins, their point guard. He has missed the last 5 games due to a knee injury. He did not play at all in their game against Bradley.