BU women's basketball

[Da Coach]

Just for comparison- Paula Buscher and SIUE are having a bit better season. They have the best overall record in the Ohio Valley Conference, and they are 3-1 in the conference, the second best conference record in the OVC, and are 1/2 game behind the conference leader.
Also, their leading scorer is former Bradley player Shronda Butts.

[ollienanyes]

Just for comparison- Paula Buscher and SIUE are having a bit better season. They have the best overall record in the Ohio Valley Conference, and they are 3-1 in the conference, the second best conference record in the OVC, and are 1/2 game behind the conference leader.
Also, their leading scorer is former Bradley player Shronda Butts.

I liked watching Butts play, but my understanding is that Bradley had to let her go due to a domestic violence incident. I am glad that she is succeeding.

[Da Coach]

I liked watching Butts play, but my understanding is that Bradley had to let her go due to a domestic violence incident. I am glad that she is succeeding.

Yes, that is true. But that points out a bit of a discrepancy in the way Bradley has handled these kinds of issues.

Auston Barnes was arrested in the early hours of August 10, 2014, and ultimately charged with domestic violence, the identical accusation against Butts. The PJ Star did not report this Barnes arrest until the afternoon of August 11, and it did not appear in print until the Aug. 12 issue, after it had been revealed and discussed for over 2 days on message boards. Then for the next couple months Bradley tried to ignore it and hope the attention would go away. We kept hearing lines like, "we are waiting for all the evidence" or "we are waiting to see how this all plays out", as Barnes was allowed to continue normal team workouts, practices, meetings, etc, with absolutely no discipline.
Finally, on October 3, 2014, almost 8 full weeks after the incident, and after mounting criticism, Bradley announced a meager 3-game suspension for Barnes- one exhibition game, and 2 meaningless early season games. "Barnes continued to work out with the team", and was not suspended from practice or other team activities.

As we now know, he was not dismissed from the team, and he continues to start every game and play more minutes than anyone else on the team. In fact, now many more months have passed, several delays in his hearings, and we all know he will end up playing out his career at Bradley, this issue will not be brought up again by Bradley, and Barnes will never be disciplined further.

By comparison-
Shronda Butts was charged with domestic violence on August 6, 2013, and on August 8, 2013, just 2 days later, she was dismissed from the team. Somehow, within just 2 short days, Bradley was able to "gather all the evidence" and did not wait to "see how things played out", and they made an incredibly quick decision (2 days) to dismiss Butts, even though the charges were eventually dropped. There was no suspension, no quick re-instatement, and no allowing her to play while the legal process played out.

I am in favor of consistent strong discipline. But there seems to be a stark difference in how these 2 cases were handled. Maybe someone can explain how discipline of 2 different basketball players charged with the exact same offense could be so vastly different?

[ollienanyes]

I don't know

There could be many factors including the severity of the charge, whether not a BU student made the charge, if the alleged victim was injured, threatened with further injury, etc.

Domestic violence can be anything from "flying plates" to a beating.

But in these two cases: I know nothing about the facts and cannot say if there was inconsistency here or not.

[Da Coach]

The BU women's team played Wichita State tonight in the Renaissance Coliseum. Wichita State never trailed, and won the game 61-45.
Bradley drops to 1-14, and 0-4 in the MVC.
The stats show the same pattern- poor shooting (27.3%, and 14.3% from three) and lots of turnovers (24 T/O), and only 7 assists on 55 shot attempts-

http://stats.statbroadcast.com/broadcast/?a=1&vislive=mvc&id=70295

[Braves2006]

The BU women's team played Wichita State tonight in the Renaissance Coliseum. Wichita State never trailed, and won the game 61-45.
Bradley drops to 1-14, and 0-4 in the MVC.
The stats show the same pattern- poor shooting (27.3%, and 14.3% from three) and lots of turnovers (24 T/O), and only 7 assists on 55 shot attempts-
http://stats.statbroadcast.com/broad...e=mvc&id=70295

Actually DC, I believe they are 1-15 and 0-5 in the Valley.

[Da Coach]

Yes, you are right. Sorry, I had checked the stats page before it had been updated.

[Braves2006]

Either way...it's bad. Really bad.

[ollienanyes]

WSU game

BU actually played a decent first 26 minutes; they defense was lock-down and they did get to 30-29.

But WSU made some adjustment (I couldn't figure out what it was) and bam...8 minutes to go in the game it was a 20 point lead.

This year: BU is just playing a LOT of freshman. I don't know; I'd like to see another season to see if this team progresses at all.

There were a lot of kids at this game.

[ollienanyes]

Mo. St. 78 BU 64

Same old story; BU had several chances to take the lead in the second half; they had it tied at least once.

But they kept turning the ball over; it is almost as if they rushed and panicked every time they had a shot to take control.

But BU had a LOT of freshman out there. You can't rush experience, but it is painful at times.

[Da Coach]

Missouri State 78 Bradley 64

The BU women get blown out at home again by a team that is just not very good. Missouri State was 5-10 coming into this game.
Bradley is now 1-16, and 0-6 in the conference.

Ollie, I know the excuse du jour is that the BU team is young. But I am just not buying it. Missouri State is just as young- they have 6 freshmen and 3 sophomores, and only 1 senior on their roster.

I have not had a chance to watch them this season, though I have gone to many of their games every previous season. But of the 6 conference games played so far, they are 0-6, and every game has been a blowout! Even the 4 games played in the Renaissance Coliseum. They have lost by margins of 19, 33, 14, 40, 16, and 14. That is an average margin of loss of 23 points! The average margin of loss at home is 21 points per game!
And during the non-conference games they have had few games they were even close to being in contention in the 2nd half.
And I have noticed many of the teams they have lost to are as "young" as they are.
Today's game was lost because of the usual probelms I predicted before the season started, and have been pointing out after nearly every game. Poor shooting (41.7% and 23.1% from three), and poor ball-handling and passing (31 turnovers). The top 2 scorers were Michelle Young and Fantasia Vine. Both are seniors and are Paula Buscher recruits.
Here are some really ugly stats that make the men's team look good-
Their team 34.9% FG percentage ranks 318th out of 343 teams, and their 22.3% on threes ranks 334th out of 343 teams. In addition, their defense ranks 333rd out of 343 in points allowed. Also, their 21.5 turnovers per game ranks 336th out of 343 teams.

We all want Mike Brooks and the women's team to succeed, but I do not share your optimism for the future.

[ollienanyes]

I've watched most of their home games. Today: it was turnovers; they kept trying to force passes into traffic; in one case a player just dribbled the ball out of bounds with no one around her.

They'd cut it to 1 point and then throw it away several times in a row.

Yes, they've gotten blown out repeatedly but in the last two games, they were close with 10-15 minutes to go and then give up a 15-0 run ...mostly on turn-overs in rapid succession.

note: I am NOT expressing optimism; my remark was more of a "benefit of the doubt".

What has me scratching my head is that they looked their best in their game against one of their better opponents (Missouri, who actually lost to Missouri State, but blew out SEMO and Western Il. (both who beat BU)

[Da Coach]

While Bradley is still spinning it's wheels in a rebuilding mode, and sitting at 1-16 on the season and 0-6 and in last place in the MVC (the MVC is currently the 17th ranked conference RPI), Paula Buscher is another Bradley coach who was replaced who is having pretty good season. SIU-E won tonight for their 6th win in a row, 4 of their last 5 wins have been road wins, and they have improved to 11-9. They have the most wins in the Ohio Valley Conference at 6-1.

[ollienanyes]

I admit that I don't understand why the previous coach left. I didn't follow that closely but I was not under the impression that she was forced out.

[Da Coach]

She was indeed forced out. She was told her contract would not be renewed after the 2011-12 season, and was advised to look elsewhere for another job. She could have stayed and finished out the final year of her contract at Bradley, but that choice can be a career-killer for a coach. It is impossible for a coach to recruit when they won't be there the next year, your best players are looking to transfer, and since she was coming off 3 winning seasons in her last 4 years, it was smart to move when she did. She ended up taking a pay cut to move to SIUE, but she has job security and a much better working environment where she is appreciated.
But the primary reason she left was the termination of her contract because of personal issues that arose between Paula and her superior.

What we really should be looking at is how a coaching search that intended to hire someone with head coaching experience and that started with a large number of highly qualified candidates shrunk quickly and many good coaches were eliminated, and we ended up hiring someone who had never been a Division I head coach before, and had only been a D1 assistant coach for 1 season. In fact, he did not play college basketball, and has as much experience coaching football in his past than D1 basketball. I am not saying he won't become a good coach, or be successful eventually, but none of the fans I know thought Bradley needed to dump the previous coach and rebuild from scratch when they had won more games in the last 4 seasons under Paula's as in any 4-year span under any previous coach in the program's history.