Watch Tramique Sutherland live - Hill College vs. Western Texas

[tornado]

Hill College wins to advance to Hutchinson, KS for the 24-team NJCAA Nationals (LINK)
They have been unranked and overlooked all season but knocked off nationally #5 ranked South Plains
Teams will be seeded for the NATIONAL TOURNEY and because Hill was unranked, they'll get a raw deal in the seeding - Link

Score:
Hill 86 - South Plains 69

Tramique 26 pts on 6-13 plus 14-16 on FTs, 9 rebs, 8 assists


ICC won today 82-70 over Parkland and play tomorrow for their regional Title and a trip to Nationals

[Da Coach]

This is great for Tramique and his teammates. However, it may not be so great for Bradley. There are usually as many as 100 Division 1 coaches in attendance at the Juco Nationals in Hutchinson, Kansas, including many high major coaches looking to fill a last scholarship or two.
Thank goodness Tramique has signed a NLI. But as we have seen before, that doesn't stop some coaches from recruiting players who have already signed NLI's.

[tornado]

http://lubbockonline.com/sports-small-college/2014-03-08/hill-college-upsets-south-plains-region-v-semifinal-86-69#.UxuO9fldVng

wow - one of the two best big men on Hill College are signed by Lennox Forrester and will be at SIUE!!

[Da Coach]

Tramique Sutherland was named the Most Valuable Player of the Region 5 tournament as Hill College advanced to the Hutchinson juco national tournament.

[Big Mike]

Tramique Sutherland was named the Most Valuable Player of the Region 5 tournament as Hill College advanced to the Hutchinson juco national tournament.

Nice....can't wait to get TS in a Braves uni!

[LongTimeFan]

He should make the team better than it is now. Now if we can just put the pieces besides him.

[tornado]

right now - decent 3-pt shooters and an aircraft carrier are what we need the most...I have yet to see any names of such on the horizon & none of the players noted by DR were what we need the most, IMO.

[wily coyote]

right now - decent 3-pt shooters and an aircraft carrier are what we need the most...I have yet to see any names of such on the horizon & none of the players noted by DR were what we need the most, IMO.

Does that mean we aren't recruiting any bigs? Maybe just maybe they don't want you or I to know everyone we're recruiting. We know this staff may not be your favorite but it has been in print that we are recruiting bigs and if they tell me that I believe them. The question is will we see any of them in a BU uniform. For Geno's sake/job I sure hope so. At this point XT is far from being a productive big. He needs to bring someone in who jumps right into the starting lineup and I know that's easier said than done.

[Toyota12]

Does that mean we aren't recruiting any bigs? Maybe just maybe they don't want you or I to know everyone we're recruiting. We know this staff may not be your favorite but it has been in print that we are recruiting bigs and if they tell me that I believe them. The question is will we see any of them in a BU uniform. For Geno's sake/job I sure hope so. At this point XT is far from being a productive big. He needs to bring someone in who jumps right into the starting lineup and I know that's easier said than done.

I agree with everything you are saying! Let me ask this board this. How do you recruit great talent to Peoria? What do we have to offer? Program is down! We have a great facilities, great education, great tradition maybe. What else do we have? If you think about this question doesn't everyone have all this to offer? I really don't think kids will then look at Peoria and say WOW! I want to live there! So why come play at Bradley? That is what GF and JL was up against. so what do you do?

[tornado]

well - there's no single answer - but I have talked many times with kids that are involved in the recruiting process, and what I hear the most is what almost everyone already knows....

The single largest factor a recruit looks at and considers is the opportunity for playing time -- and more precisely - playing time right away!
The kids are usually bright enough to know they have to work hard & earn it but they are also bright enough to see what their opportunities are and what the track record is of freshmen getting a chance...
Like it or not - if you look at Donivine Stewart - he's a perfect example of a kid who wasted a year before finding a place where he got to play a ton and succeed.


Note this...
-only ONE of our freshmen got any significant playing time (14.8 mpg), and he was 7th on the team in mpg

-extremely UNPRODUCTIVE seniors who averaged 1-3 ppg accounted for 31 mpg

-no other freshman got more than even 1/7th of that

-and even in the face of severe manpower shortage - no other freshman in the past 3 years has gotten much of a chance either.

-in the last 3 years four other incoming freshman have been run out after just a year or two - and it is quite possible that number is about to grow

again - like it or not, kids probably look at this and other schools use this against us in recruiting - by contrast almost every other MVC school gives some freshmen tons of playing time..
ISU, SIU, Missouri State, and so on - all used freshman playing 20 & even 30 mpg and even the most senior-heavy teams in the MVC like Wichita gave freshmen like Van Vleet & Baker
a chance at a lot of playing time...
if we're gonna land them then they have to believe they have a shot and get it! -- BUT - also have patience if they take a year or two and not keep running them out.

[Da Coach]

I agree with everything you are saying! Let me ask this board this. How do you recruit great talent to Peoria? What do we have to offer? Program is down! We have a great facilities, great education, great tradition maybe. What else do we have? If you think about this question doesn't everyone have all this to offer? I really don't think kids will then look at Peoria and say WOW! I want to live there! So why come play at Bradley? That is what GF and JL was up against. so what do you do?

Gregg Marshall has built a national power at Wichita State, and none of the kids he got were highly rated recruits. Some were so obscure, like Scott Baker, that nobody, including the lowest D1's even had him on their radar. And as he is quoted as saying, Wichita State beat out Northern Illinois and Kent State for Fred Van Vleet. Those schools are below Bradley and the MVC. He got Cleanthony Early out of an obscure Division III junior college in New York that few other schools bothered to look into.
And if you check sites like JucoJunction.com, you'll find that no other school recruits as aggressively and offers more juco kids than Wichita State.
JucoJunction's (a Rivals site) recruit list for Wichita State for 2014 includes 53 names, while Bradley's has less than a dozen.
How do they do it? They are not allowed any more coaches than we are, and they abide by the same NCAA recruiting rules and calendar, yet they clearly are more aggressive and see and offer way more kids, and find the good players others have overlooked.

As far as I can tell, not a single one of Marshall's players had many offers much better than Bradley.
The second place team in the league, Indiana State also has found kids who were under the radar, and not of any interest to higher level schools. Odum, one of the best players in the MVC for the last 3-4 years was a walk-on with not a single D1 offer! Do you honestly think Indiana State and Terre Haute have more to offer than Bradley? They just work harder and develop players that other schools passed on.
Illinois State has not been to the NCAA in longer than any school in the MVC, yet somehow Dan Muller restocked a completely void roster in one recruiting year, and made them respectable, and better than Bradley. Paul Lusk has done the same thing at Missouri State- they were a worse team than Bradley last year, and suddenly this year they are a winning team and going to play in the post season. And I believe we'll soon be saying the same thing about Drake, Evansville, and Loyola.

So it can be done. There are those capable of doing it, and there are those who sit back and make excuses like "it's just hard..." (fill in the blank- scheduling, winning, recruiting, etc).
It was even done here in Peoria back in 2003-2006, and I believe it will be done again by the right coach who is a successful recruiter.

[Toyota12]

Recruiting

I agree with everything you say about kids and the process. I also think it is real easy for other teams to beat us out for a recruit with the current situation we are in. The administration is the laughing stock of the valley and put GF and JL in a bad spot the other teams just tell the kids and families about us and creates just enough doubt to send them looking else where, and I know it has happened. There is no reason for the President to meet with a recruit until they are signed if you know what I mean!! That is ridiculous. Let people do their jobs!

[bradleyfan124]

I agree with everything you say about kids and the process. I also think it is real easy for other teams to beat us out for a recruit with the current situation we are in. The administration is the laughing stock of the valley and put GF and JL in a bad spot the other teams just tell the kids and families about us and creates just enough doubt to send them looking else where, and I know it has happened. There is no reason for the President to meet with a recruit until they are signed if you know what I mean!! That is ridiculous. Let people do their jobs!

I agree with this. Other schools know what is going on and are using it against us. What recruit wants to get into the turmoil that is going on at Bradley. It is bad enough to compete against the other schools for recruits in the normal process but throw this in with it. Not good..We are imploding from within..destroying ourselves

[Da Coach]

There is truth in what you say, but the bottom line is other schools that have a lot less going for them than BU get it done, and there is simply no excuse that is acceptable for failure.

[tornado]

The Nationals start today...
Tramique's Hill College never got even a single vote for the national rankings - and yet they won one of the toughest Regionals and now enjoy a #6 seed out of 24 teams at the Nationals...

as a #6 seed, Hill gets a bye in the first round which starts today - and Hill does not play until Wednesday evening.

Here's the bracket - Hill is #6 on the right side of the bracket
The schedule is at the bottom

http://www.njcaabbtrny.org/pdfs/bracket_2014.pdf

http://www.njcaabbtrny.org/home1024/schedule.htm

Here's a clearer list of the seeding - note that one of the highly ranked teams (#6 ranked - and currently #9 seeded) is South Plains, who Hill defeated in their own Regional - but South Plains got an at-large slot at the Nationals.


Previously this tourney was a double elimination format but they are now, as of 2013, a single elimination with no consolation bracket...but the field is expanded from 16 to 24 teams with the addition of the at-large teams
the D-II NJCAA Tourney is still double elimination - LINK