Final: SIU 75 Bradley 64

[bigjimmy]

Wash, rinse, repeat. Keep waiting for it to get better. We see bits and pieces here and there but not nearly enough to be a winning team. To have virtually no production from your center position while trying 4 different guys is pathetic. And does anybody move their feet on defense? It's on Geno and his staff to get better players. It just seems like we have a staff that are poor evaluators of talent. Maybe we need to get better talent on the staff.

[lefty]

PJ Star article-
Foul trouble dooms Bradley at SIU

http://www.pjstar.com/article/20140218/SPORTS/140219051

Really? Foul trouble was what caused the loss? How about bad shooting, bad rebounding, turnovers, and weak defense against the couple players we knew could beat us. Also poor production again from everyone but Walt, Tyshon, Barnes, and Grier.

At first I thought this meant that was the heading…..did the heading change?

Fouls were certainly part of the problem…but I agree poor defense and rebounding were the biggest keys….many of those fouls come when giving up an offensive rebound or slow rotation in help defense

It did seem like SIU got some calls in the paint that BU didn't but that's the way it is sometimes..we gave up second and third chance points way too often last night..

Bell and Grier 5-18……..TP,WL,XT,AB went 16-29….

[tornado]

Barry has done a good job at SIU.

in a way - time will tell............but his best players - the only two who do anything and carry them game after game are guys he didn't recruit...
He lucked into Jackson who is gone after this season and Beane just came along with his assistant coach hire.
Trust me, if we had Barry Hinson - people would be pointing out that he finished no higher than 4th and had a losing MVC record and would want him canned.
BTW - ten years ago - when JL was in his 2nd season - he finished around .500 and had the same number of MVC wins and had showed improvement -
actually posting a better season than Barry is doing down the stretch.....beating ISU, winning BracketBusters, and winning 7 of our final ten games...
and yet that's when KW openly admits he "soured on JL and began the drumbeat" to get him fired.
Elements of our vocal fan base and admin are not conducive to landing a good coach and keeping him...they are fickle and shortsighted.
The large bulk of true BU fans watch this side show go on and on.

[lefty]

in a way - time will tell............but his best players - the only two who do anything and carry them game after game are guys he didn't recruit...
He lucked into Jackson who is gone after this season and Beane just came along with his assistant coach hire.

I think Hinson is a good coach though??¦.

[Da Coach]

Dave's full game article- the title and the theme of the article has changed and doesn't focus just on the "foul trouble"-
Bradley collapses at SIU in 75-64 loss

http://www.pjstar.com/article/20140218/SPORTS/140219051

Interesting quote:

“I was probably more frustrated in our team today than I have been in a while,” said BU coach Geno Ford. “When there’s only two guys you’re worried about (guards Anthony Beane and Desmar Jackson) and they go for 27 and 15 (points, respectively), it’s inexcusable.
“Give those two credit. They’re really, really good. But we devised a whole game plan toward stopping them. We’ve gotta do a better job. We just couldn’t stop them.”

I also notice Dave gives our backcourt a "D", even though Lemon and Grier were the top 2 scorers (17 & 14), and the guards scored 39 of 64 points. The frontcourt also was given a "D", which I agree with.

[bravetime33]

The administration did in 2010 even after 102 wins over 5 seasons. But the reasons then were not related to winning/losing.

The admin probably also looked at the long term record of 9 years without producing a championship, below .500 conference record, and winning 6 out of 16 conference tournament games

[Da Coach]

So does the fact that Bradley got rid of the last coach make the anti-JL people (who are exclusively the ones who keep bringing him up to change the subject of how bad this team is) feel better about the awful state we are now find ourselves in? This team is really bad, and it appears to be getting worse, and we are about to lose our best 2 players. Our game plans seem inadequate, we repeatedly get beat by teams with lesser talent, and our players don't seem to get better or stop making the same mistakes every game. We were already dead last in offense pre-conference (despite the promise of a high-powered, fast paced offense) but in the MVC, the scoring keeps dropping even lower. But at least we've increased something- turnovers and losses are up. We have lost about 1/3 of our season ticket buyers and fans, and next year will be worse.

But hey! None of that matters, 'cause Jim Les got fired and we're gonna have a new mascot!
Plus, we get one more chance to play a near-300 RPI team (Loyola)!

[Da Coach]

By the way, Bradley's RPI apparently took a hit with last night's loss.
It is now 250-

http://warrennolan.com/basketball/2014/conference/Missouri%20Valley

For comparison, the worse year-end RPI under JL was 227 in 2011, the year he lost 2 All-MVC starters. No other season was worse than 199.

We are at 250 this season, last year was 191, and 2011-12 was 266.

Here is a site that lists the last 35 years of Bradley's records. Clearly we are in the worst 3-4 year stretch in BU history.

http://www.bbstate.com/teams/BRAD/history

[tornado]

.. Clearly we are in the worst 3-4 year stretch in BU history.

well this is beyond question or debate - even though there was some flat-earthers who still claim we're better off than we were before 2011....gotta wonder what those people are thinking..sadly - with our top two players gone & a likely complete reload this spring - not many people see us being much better next year - we'll almost certainly be the preseason picks for bottom of the MVC.

It's like watching a train barrelling full speed towards the cliff and there's people standing on the sidelines cheering and saying - just give 'em more time - given where they started at they've come a long way and are doing light years better...
...all the while the more reasonable, intelligent and rational people have been shouting warnings for three years that this is where we're headed...
THIS and THIS have become distant memories and we're seeing more of THIS
..the PJS people need to man up and admit to a little responsibility in this - their guys even admitted they "beat the drum" and "drove the topic", contrived issues to shine a poor light on BU basketball and pushed for all of this to happen. We literally are where we are thanks to them and their rallying buds.

[peoriaspitfire]

DRABLEY Basketball.

[panther12thman]

Dave's full game article- the title and the theme of the article has changed and doesn't focus just on the "foul trouble"-
Bradley collapses at SIU in 75-64 loss

http://www.pjstar.com/article/20140218/SPORTS/140219051

Interesting quote:

“I was probably more frustrated in our team today than I have been in a while,” said BU coach Geno Ford. “When there’s only two guys you’re worried about (guards Anthony Beane and Desmar Jackson) and they go for 27 and 15 (points, respectively), it’s inexcusable.
“Give those two credit. They’re really, really good. But we devised a whole game plan toward stopping them. We’ve gotta do a better job. We just couldn’t stop them.”

I also notice Dave gives our backcourt a "D", even though Lemon and Grier were the top 2 scorers (17 & 14), and the guards scored 39 of 64 points. The frontcourt also was given a "D", which I agree with.

I could care less how Reynolds grades us. He knows virtually nothing about the game of basketball. The Bradley beat of Max Seibel and Dick Lien has been turned over to this.

[tornado]

I see elsewhere some people claiming that Bell, Barnes, & Grier all had great games --
seriously???
..Bell was just 2-7, 1 asst, his man Beane totally killed us
..Barnes was in foul trouble all night, couldn't defend, helped send the Salukis to the FT line 32 times, and finished with just 9 pts, zero asst
..Grier was just 3-11, didn't play much defense and didn't contribute much else

if these were our best performers, it's pretty clear why we can't beat anyone

[BU212121]

Barry Hinson had a 105 - 75 (.583) record in MVC play.

Had 4 of his 9 seasons he finished in the top 3 and 7 of his 9 seasons finished in the top half of the league. Had he not been screwed by the ncaa selection crew a couple times his tenure at missouri state would have lasted longer im sure.

I think he is a real good coach

[lefty]

I see elsewhere some people claiming that Bell, Barnes, & Grier all had great games --
seriously???
..Bell was just 2-7, 1 asst, his man Beane totally killed us
..Barnes was in foul trouble all night, couldn't defend, helped send the Salukis to the FT line 32 times, and finished with just 9 pts, zero asst
..Grier was just 3-11, didn't play much defense and didn't contribute much else

if these were our best performers, it's pretty clear why we can't beat anyone

Barnes shot well though.....actually other than Bell and OG we shot well as a team last night

[tornado]

passing the ball, finding open teammates, and assisting others to score are responsibilities of ALL players, not just the PG...

here's where we show one of our worst traits...

There's room to blame both the players and the game plan - but we have vastly FEWER assists than the opponents we have played (276 to 352), and we are dead last by a mile in our conference in assists as a team and A/T Ratio.

Nationally we also rank among the worst teams...
Our 9.9 assists per game ranks 340th in Division I!! Our team Asst/Turnover Ratio is also really bad - ranking 315th.
Our 3-pt shooting pct. ranks 290th...but we attempt more than SIU & Evansville.