Kirk Wessler column 3/7

[Da Coach]

Kirk Wessler with another column ripping the players-
Lack of leadership, talent derailed Braves

http://www.pjstar.com/article/20140307/SPORTS/140309149/10962/SPORTS

He rips the players for their lack of passing skills, lack of shooting skills, lack of point guard skills, and lack of chemistry and leadership. Ultimately all the problems seem to lie with the players, according to Kirk.

[lefty]

yeah??¦I don't really see the purpose of this article??¦.

[tornado]

He is getting a bit closer to the real problem as I have noted...he almost lifts a few lines right from the message boards..

"Bradley has been without a true point guard since Daniel Ruffin graduated in 2008. They need one.
The Braves haven’t had a game-worthy pure shooter since Andrew Warren in 2011. They need several.
More strong rebounders are required.
Without significant upgrades on all these fronts, Bradley is destined to languish longer in the bottom half of the MVC."

...wow -- three years into this rebuild that KW has been hyping as light years better - he finally realizes we don't have any of the THREE key parts of every basketball team...
..and also that we haven't successfully landed even one of those three parts in THREE YEARS!
POINT GUARD PLAY, SHOOTING, LOW POST PLAY...
....GEEZ....wonder where and how he figured that out??

[bu fan 9]

We had a point guard and sent him to SIUE. He never got a chance. Why do we keep giving Geno and his bad staff more chances?

[tornado]

9 - the articles this morning REPEATEDLY say...

'we're in on the right guys - just gotta finish'
'we're close..'
'We're only a couple pieces away...'

our media would have you believe we are RIGHT on the doorstep - just give it more time...

I disagree - I think the only two pieces of this years team that were decent were ...
-one wing scorer who was being forced to play PG
-one PF who was a commendable rebounder and scorer with a "high motor"

...however BOTH graduate and I see nothing on the horizon to replace either...
we could indeed be WAY worse unless we find a way to replace the guys who gave us 49 of our 72 points (almost 70%) Thursday.
we do have a good PG prospect coming in - I hope he brings a few of his teammates....

[Da Coach]

"Bradley has been without a true point guard since Daniel Ruffin graduated in 2008. They need one.

We also had a point guard named Sam Maniscalco from 2008-2011, who Kirk amazingly has completely forgotten about (or ignored) when he proclaims "Bradley has been without a true point guard since Daniel Ruffin graduated in 2008." What is Kirk smoking? He has now lost all shred of credibility!
The fact is the previous coaching staff, perhaps unlike these last 3 seasons, considered true point guards to be a high priority and always had good point guards to run the offense.

Sam was an outstanding point guard who started for 3+ seasons for Bradley from 2008-2011, and who had well over 100 assists every year at Bradley. He was named 2nd team All MVC his junior year (the only other All MVC players Bradley has had since then are Andrew Warren and Walt Lemon), as well as second-team NABC All-District 16 accolades, and he was 1st team All MVC on the 2010-11 preseason poll . He also was named to the All Freshman and All Newcomer teams as a freshman, something Bradley also has not exactly had a lot of recently. Sam also was named to the All MVC Tournament team (the last such Bradley player to be named to the All MVC Tournament team) in 2010, when he scored his career high 31 points to help Bradley upset Creighton in the 2010 quarterfinals.

http://www.bradleybraves.com/ViewArticle.dbml?ATCLID=1279832

[tornado]

yea....I hafta think there's one reason he completely forgets about Sam Maniscalco..

[Biff]

This is getting funnier all the time. When we fired the last coach and hired Geno, the expectations were that we'd see improvement every year, and by year 3 or 4 we would be competing for championships and getting NCAA bids.
How things have changed! Now we are talking about going into year 4 just looking just to get out of Thursday nights, maybe winning a game in St. Louis, and having to start the rebuilding process over and over. And now we have sportswriters blaming the players, instead of the coaching staff that recruited nearly all of them, coached them, and chose to bench many, run some off, and play them out of position.
Whatever happened to the promises of championships, NCAA appearances, and improvement? Whatever happened to Dr. Cross' expectations of seeing improvement each year and getting the program into the top 4 in the league? Isn't that what the last coach was fired for? How do they rationalize finishing in 7th place again, same as last year, but only because the MVC lost one of the best teams, and replaced it with a team that was worse than any MVC team in many years (Loyola RPI 292).
What will it take to fix this? Another 7th or 8th place finish next year? Because all we have to do is sit back and wait 12 more months and that is what we will see. This mess won't be turned around with more marginal juco combo guards. In the mean time, we will lose another couple thousand fans. But apparently our sportswriters don't notice, and the administration doesn't care.

[tornado]

the fans pay a price but BU is paying the biggest price - lost fans, empty seats, bad press on a national basis

[TNel]

We also had a point guard named Sam Maniscalco from 2008-2011, who Kirk amazingly has completely forgotten about (or ignored) when he proclaims "Bradley has been without a true point guard since Daniel Ruffin graduated in 2008." What is Kirk smoking? He has now lost all shred of credibility!
The fact is the previous coaching staff, perhaps unlike these last 3 seasons, considered true point guards to be a high priority and always had good point guards to run the offense.

Sam was an outstanding point guard who started for 3+ seasons for Bradley from 2008-2011, and who had well over 100 assists every year at Bradley. He was named 2nd team All MVC his junior year (the only other All MVC players Bradley has had since then are Andrew Warren and Walt Lemon), as well as second-team NABC All-District 16 accolades, and he was 1st team All MVC on the 2010-11 preseason poll. He also was named to the All Freshman and All Newcomer teams as a freshman, something Bradley also has not exactly had a lot of recently. Sam also was named to the All MVC Tournament team (the last such Bradley player to be named to the All MVC Tournament team) in 2010, when he scored his career high 31 points to help Bradley upset Creighton in the 2010 quarterfinals.
http://www.bradleybraves.com/ViewArt...ATCLID=1279832

Sam's omission is so obvious and ridiculous I'm thinking KW is merely pulling the chains of certain members of this board.

[bula-bloom]

interesting article but consider this

I think there's too much blame on the players and not enough blame for the coach in this article. just consider this- compare our players to Southern Illinois or Illinois State, individually. both teams finished above us in the standings and their players don't compare with ours very well. At the very least, the individual players are about the same. But as a team they were better than us. I think you can say the same about mo state. I'm sure some will disagree with me but anyone would take lemon and pickett. Og and ab are also good role players. Xt makes freshman mistakes but has potential. Watch southern today and tell me that these for wouldn't play substantial minutes for siu?

A very talented team overcomes coaching at some Level.wsu would be a top 3 team in the Conf if I coached them! but a avg talented team needs the offense and defense set to set them apart.

as far as the assist statistic, it says more about a lack of a really good offense than it says about a really good passer. our offense scheme this year has been non-existent. if the offense doesn't expose players that can get the ball you can't throw the ball to them.

As far as leadership, it starts with the coach...admit when you are wrong and be a role model.

[wily coyote]

Kirk Wessler with another column ripping the players-
Lack of leadership, talent derailed Braves

http://www.pjstar.com/article/20140307/SPORTS/140309149/10962/SPORTS

He rips the players for their lack of passing skills, lack of shooting skills, lack of point guard skills, and lack of chemistry and leadership. Ultimately all the problems seem to lie with the players, according to Kirk.

Hello what am I missing here. Did Kirk need to point out the obvious? Probably not but sure didn't see anything in his article I'd debate with him. Do you?

[Da Coach]

Hello what am I missing here. Did Kirk need to point out the obvious? Probably not but sure didn't see anything in his article I'd debate with him. Do you?

Without being redundant, yes, I don't believe anyone with much knowledge of college basketball would say, as Kirk does, the entire blame lies with the players and lack of leadership.
See here-

https://www.bradleyfans.com/vb/showthread.php?p=293085#post293085

[bula-bloom]

dunking in warmups

One other thing that I forgot about that's reflective of both players and coaches...at the wsu game, I saw Bradley take about 20-30 dunks in warmups...what does that do for them and Why would a coach put up with it? Players like to do it but at this level, dunking is neither a warmup or intimidating...maybe in high school.

I've haven't seen another quality program do that.

[tornado]

Hello what am I missing here. Did Kirk need to point out the obvious? Probably not but sure didn't see anything in his article I'd debate with him. Do you?

so you think Loyola won because they have better talent??
..Drake has better talent? We had TWO GUYS that the MVC thought worthy of giving PRESEASON All Conference recognition (10 players given recognized)
Nobody had more!
We had talent - I guess I am missing the argument that we had no talent...everyone except our media saw it, but unlike other teams, our talent did not get "coached up".