Wessler excuse extravaganza

[Da Coach]

This just keeps getting funnier each column, and this one is really good for a laugh.
After 2 1/2 years of telling us we were a "light year or two" better, and heaping over-the-top praise on everything from the stellar recruiting classes that rank up there with the best ever to the unprecedented depth and talent this team had, now our esteemed expert tells us he was just pulling our leg and he never really expected much in year three and that we need to be patient because it will take years more to rebuild.

http://www.pjstar.com/article/20140108/SPORTS/140109246/10963/SPORTS

Will they ever get tired of creating excuses and trying to put lipstick on pig?
What we are seeing is the massive fallout that was created by people like Kirk Wessler, and his demands 3 years ago to change coaches, then trust a whole group of people who have never had the experience nor shown the ability in the past or now to build a successful sports program of any kind.

So at least we agree on one thing: by the end of year three, we will be no better off than we were 3 years ago (just exactly as I predicted 3 years ago!). And now he says we will need to trust the same people who failed to rebuild the last 3 years and have never shown any ability to build a winner, to begin the rebuilding process all over again. Unfortunately, there will be few fans left if or when it ever happens.

[lefty]

Do you want him to demand to change coaches now?

[panther12thman]

It is typical Wessler. He talks about recruiting mistakes, when he and Reynolds both lauded how wonderful these recruits were. Never does he mention that maybe these coaches weren't what he and DR cracked them up to be. He is such a joke. Wish he would just go away.

[MacabreMob]

Seriously.... almost nobody actually reads the PJ Star anymore. KW's articles are insignificant.

[tornado]

I actually don't think that column was written by KW - I think someone hijacked or hacked his computer and wrote it for him because
there are a couple comments in that column that so totally differ from what he's been telling us for nearly 3 years that it just can't be him or if it is he's been taken over by mind control from what's been on this board the past 2 years..

"I did not expect .. season 3 .. (to have any) glimmers of hope"
"(this team) has lost at an epic pace"
"chaos...not enough .. basketball savvy"
"not a single difference-maker (on this team)"
"recruiting misses .. not enough instinctive basketball..."
"..it's going to take a while"
(several more years - obviously so if KW soured on Jl and turned on him and wanted hoim gone in just year-two because of these very same issues - then is KW saying he's going to support giving Geno several more years extension to get it done way, way into the future?

[lefty]

Seriously.... almost nobody actually reads the PJ Star anymore. KW's articles are insignificant.

seems like some here think they are quite significant

[Da Coach]

Do you want him to demand to change coaches now?

Not at all, I have never advocated that. Just would like some objectivity and consistency. He has become very creative with generating excuses for Bradley's under-performing. I thought it was all because of poor leadership, but now it has become a lack of time to rebuild!
How can we have improved so much in year 1 & 2 as Kirk has claimed (by a light year or two), had such "stellar" recruiting classes, brought in transfers who were "impact players", and developed such incredible depth and a talent-laden roster (see HOOPS articles the last 2 years) and yet still be in need of a total rebuild? As Kirk says, by the middle of year three we should be seeing this team start to compete for the upper part of the conference. Yet even against a terrible non-conference slate, and in a severely watered down MVC, we are nowhere near competitive.

This team has way more flaws in it than the team that was inherited in 2011- no point guard, poor ball handling, poor shooting, poor passing, negligible post play and minimal scoring inside. We have recruited poorly, we can't seem to run a simple play that Coach Ford says we have run constantly "at every practice", and we get outcoached and out-recruited by coaches making a fraction of what we are paying our coaching staff.
Even Kirk admits this:
And perhaps most important, not a single difference-maker to take the heat off Lemon.
All of this indicates recruiting misses.

But then he says we just need to give it more years.

To suggest that it is all because we haven't given it enough time for the rebuilding process is an insult to the intelligence of all Bradley fans. It is a weak and irrational attempt to try to shift blame to the previous coaches.

Do you believe we simply need to give it more time? We were promised teams that would compete for championships and defend our home court. Being 6-10 after the weak schedule we have played is unacceptable to fans. No wonder they are bailing faster than at any time in Bradley's history. Touting a new mascot won't help if there is nobody left to care.

Kirk once wrote:
“If we play a game and we (stink), and you write that we (stink),” Ford said at one point, “I’ll probably be the first person to tell you, ‘You’re right, we (stink).”

Just stop being the BU house boy and manufacturing all these excuses, and be objective.

[stevebu91]

Give him more years and you will be able to hear the pigeons flapping their wings and the hiss of a busted water pipe during future games in the REN COL. Won't even need the Peoria CC. Not worth turning on the heat.
Maybe a way to cut staff at the BU ticket office?

What a tragedy. As an alum and supporter of some of their successful athletic programs, I am ashamed the university'ss BB is at this persistent low level. This is not what the President, AD, alumni, and supporters were after.

[lefty]

DC---I didn't read it that it was lack of time....but because of recruiting misses it will take more time...that's Geno's fault IMO...

As bad as we looked at times offensively....we lost last night because of poor defense

At the end of the day....wins or losses..it's on Geno....

what KW writes is his opinion....it's irrelevant in reality

[bu fan 9]

I want change!!! Why wait? I don't see anything getting better.

[tornado]

lefty - you know KW somewhat takes credit for running JL out of town...I recently linked to his post where he talks about how he turned on Les in year two - BEFORE JL had even had a chance to get his own players in,
he decided JL had to go and began the drumbeat to get-r-done...then unloads on guys like Crouch, Ruffin, Cellus, POB, Bennett, etc...calling them an utter lack of defense and fundamentals and labelling them a meltdown, and
saying "I found it unacceptable" - ..failing to mention those were the players who then produced several 20-win seasons and a Sweet Sixteen.
He brags that at that point..."I dropped a critical hammer on Les and his program"
But - I actually think he didn't even wait 'til year two - he started the drumbeat even before JL coached a game...he was biased right from the start, taking on the Phil Theobald mantle of JL-hatred...

If even KW has the ***** to admit his bias and his part in forcing a coaching change due to bad play, bad team chemistry, and bad recruiting - then why has he changed 110% now, has become SO BIASED AND UN-objective
in the opposite direction, and beats the drum to support Geno and give him several more years beyond year THREE? Even hailing the current recruits as difference makers, game-changers, and way more talented than the "bare cupbord" who, in truth, have been almost exclusively the only D-I caliber players we've seen on the court the past 3 seasons.
It's complete and total hypocrisy. He's certainly enititled to his opinion, but so am I and I will point out his hypocrisy and unreasonable, UN-objective hostility and bias towards JL that's cost us three seasons and running of mediocrity...
..that is even more evident when we see his shameless brown nosing of the current people.

How long we gonna ignore the historically worst attendances in 50, 60, and even 70 years? How long we gonna hype gargoyles instead of quality basketball? How many years before we make changes starting at the top?
..but it is interesting that after years of hyping what we have as being so much better than in the past - now he's writing about about how bad we are..

[bu fan 9]

Geno has done to the basketball program the same thing Elvis did to the baseball program. Why not fire both of them?

[Canton BU fan]

lefty - you know KW somewhat takes credit for running JL out of town...I recently linked to his post where he talks about how he turned on Les in year two - BEFORE JL had even had a chance to get his own players in,
he decided JL had to go and began the drumbeat to get-r-done...then unloads on guys like Crouch, Ruffin, Cellus, POB, Bennett, etc...calling them an utter lack of defense and fundamentals and labelling them a meltdown, and
saying "I found it unacceptable" - ..failing to mention those were the players who then produced several 20-win seasons and a Sweet Sixteen.
He brags that at that point..."I dropped a critical hammer on Les and his program"
But - I actually think he didn't even wait 'til year two - he started the drumbeat even before JL coached a game...he was biased right from the start, taking on the Phil Theobald mantle of JL-hatred...

If even KW has the ***** to admit his bias and his part in forcing a coaching change due to bad play, bad team chemistry, and bad recruiting - then why has he changed 110% now, has become SO BIASED AND UN-objective
in the opposite direction, and beats the drum to support Geno and give him several more years beyond year THREE? Even hailing the current recruits as difference makers, game-changers, and way more talented than the "bare cupbord" who, in truth, have been almost exclusively the only D-I caliber players we've seen on the court the past 3 seasons.
It's complete and total hypocrisy. He's certainly enititled to his opinion, but so am I and I will point out his hypocrisy and unreasonable, UN-objective hostility and bias towards JL that's cost us three seasons and running of mediocrity...
..that is even more evident when we see his shameless brown nosing of the current people.

How long we gonna ignore the historically worst attendances in 50, 60, and even 70 years? How long we gonna hype gargoyles instead of quality basketball? How many years before we make changes starting at the top?
..but it is interesting that after years of hyping what we have as being so much better than in the past - now he's writing about about how bad we are..

Geno has a good contract. Maybe he is "spreading the wealth around".

[bradleyfan124]

Give him more years and you will be able to hear the pigeons flapping their wings and the hiss of a busted water pipe during future games in the REN COL. Won't even need the Peoria CC. Not worth turning on the heat.
Maybe a way to cut staff at the BU ticket office?

What a tragedy. As an alum and supporter of some of their successful athletic programs, I am ashamed the university'ss BB is at this persistent low level. This is not what the President, AD, alumni, and supporters were after.

President! You have got to be kidding?

[tornado]

One thing, tho, that I can appreciate about KW's column is that at least the hits one thing right on the head...

that there is a serious undercurrent of trouble - problems with this current team that is about to cause an implosion....
It took two years for KW to finally see what many here have already known for a long time - this team has major, serious chemistry, coachability, and cerebral problems...what KW calls instincts & savvy...
KW tires to mask it but still, he puts it...
"other problems .. and the evidence was everywhere.." ...
"it’s not like they haven’t practiced what they were supposed to do."
"Why the chaos...not enough .. savvy.... everyone .. lacks the confidence..."
Then he sums it all up as "recruiting misses" - but recall he had cupboard full of kids he didn't have to recruit - they fell into his lap...those players have accounted for virtually every win he's gotten in his 3 years at Bradley!

Then he slips back to this incredibly lame line that shows just how confused KW really is -- "There is more talent on this team than there was on Ford’s previous two Bradley rosters"

You've got to be kidding - I guarantee ya Geno doesn't think so and come year's end we'll see proof of that...

But at least in some sense, finally Kirk has taken off his anything-but-JL blinders and now even he sees it...

He sees that many if not most players on this team are not playing like they were recruited to play, they don't do what the coach tells them to do, and there seems at times like there's utter chaos out there...
They are wrong guys, playing the wrong positions, in the wrong system - but KW blames the players!

And you can read it on Geno's face - clearly he'd love to bench them all and put Will Egolf, Dyricus, Simms-Edwards, Jake Eastman, and even Charonn Woods out there but he doesn't have those guys any more...
He has a bunch of guys that I believe he seriously regrets bringing in here.

Look for ongoing evidence of this chaos -- so far, all we have for this MVC season is a few days of giddiness by easily tickled and naive fans over one single home win against the team picked LAST in the MVC!!
We will see GF desperately using more and more switcheroos to find a lineup - more and more players relegated to the deep bench where Fields has been lately and where Chris Blake now sits...
then come seasons end - a total makeover just like last spring - all new guys and starting over again with the same people in charge who messed this up royally the last three times in 2011, 2012, and 2013...