PJ Star articles after BU-ISU game

[Da Coach]

Dave Reynolds-
Illinois State wins three-for-all with Bradley, 82-72

http://www.pjstar.com/article/20150117/SPORTS/150119282/12701/SPORTS

As I expected, the "moral victory" line was used again. I believe Bradley leads the league in moral victories.

While the outcome was never much in doubt, Bradley was able to cut the margin to eight points in the final minute after a Ka’Darryl Bell rebound basket and a Sutherland transition bucket.As moral victories go, this was a good one for BU following its sorry performance at home vs. UNI and given the fact that top subs Omari Grier and Xzavier Taylor stayed home because of illness. Not to mention Ford battling through the flu that’s kept him away from practice the last two days.

Kirk Wessler-
Wessler: Better ‘O’still results in an ‘L’

http://www.pjstar.com/article/20150117/SPORTS/150119281/12701/SPORTS

So, chalk up another one for Bradley being outmanned, outgunned and outplayed. This one was just a different verse of the same old song.

Another column with nothing but a recap of what everyone saw and knew already, plus a couple shots at the players, but not one comment again about the in-game adjustments, play calling, preparation, defensive assignments, switching to a zone when ISU was killing BU with their three point shooting, or anything else related to the coaching.
Same old song.....

[LongTimeFan]

DC, I thought he switched to the zone to limit the foul problems that Bradley was having. Some players were in foul difficulties.

[tornado]

A couple things from this morning's reports stood out...

"As moral victories go, this was a good one for BU"
..and multiple paragraphs hailing our great shooting & scoring...

but here's what I saw....Yes - we did hit more shots than usual... but this is fools gold - as we know we are not a good outside shooting team, and now we think we are?

..but we trailed from wire to wire - from the opening tip, I never felt we were in the game, we had a 1st half dry spell of almost 10 minutes (from just under 12 min 'til 2:43) - where we scored only ONE basket, we defended poorly, didn't guard wide open shooters, we chose to go zone precisely when they were nailing threes - a really bad choice, we also let them get right smack into the middle of our zone and right under the basket for open shots & dunks, and we fouled a ton -

[Da Coach]

DC, I thought he switched to the zone to limit the foul problems that Bradley was having. Some players were in foul difficulties.

Yes, LTF, that was the justification given. And it is a coaches decision. When your starting big men get 2 fouls early, I guess there are about 4 things a coach can do-
>Coach your players to be more cautious and defend without fouling
>Go to your bench, since this is supposed to be the deepest team we have had for many years with big men
>go to a 3 or 4 guard lineup and sit your big men; this might have helped Bradley guard the perimeter better
>Or switch to a zone, right when the other team is shooting the lights out on threes


Here is the box score. It is easy to see which of ISU's players hurt Bradley. It was their guards, and not their inside big men,

http://www.bradleybraves.com/pdf9/3114735.pdf?ATCLID=209854471&SPSID=25965&SPID=1498&DB_LANG=C&DB_OEM_ID=3400

I think switching to a zone gave their outside shooters more room, and lead to a further barrage of threes. In the end, that early big lead may have been what made any comeback by Bradley futile.

[PistolP]

Does anyone think that not having Grier and Taylor hurt us in any way? Both are horrible defenders. Does it matter if any of our bigs foul out? Who do we need to protect? I don't watch all of the games, but I have seen enough to know that the combination of minutes that I have seen with looking at the stats reveals the following- Taylor= bad (rather than improving from last season, he appears to have gotten worse and really can't see anything to believe that he will improve while on our roster), Morgan= bad, Shaw= bad. Again, look at the stats and watch them on both ends during games. If Morgan and Shaw return next year, they will not be any better. There is a reason we added these guys late in the recruiting game after nobody else wanted them. My point regarding Wells is that he is also bad. However, if we have 4 bigs on the roster who are all bad basketball players, why not allow the one who is actually going to play hard and is 7'1" play as much as the other 3? Let Taylor foul out in his 12 minutes. Let Shaw and Morgan fail to deny the post, fail to rotate, fail to get a body on a guy and get a defensive board, and fail to hit the offensive glass and create and complete easy putbacks. I agree with others who have suggested that we sign high school players who can improve (and want to improve) while on our roster for 4 years and surround them with a coach who is capable of developing their game.

[Vent]

Does anyone think that not having Grier and Taylor hurt us in any way? Both are horrible defenders. Does it matter if any of our bigs foul out? Who do we need to protect? I don't watch all of the games, but I have seen enough to know that the combination of minutes that I have seen with looking at the stats reveals the following- Taylor= bad (rather than improving from last season, he appears to have gotten worse and really can't see anything to believe that he will improve while on our roster), Morgan= bad, Shaw= bad. Again, look at the stats and watch them on both ends during games. If Morgan and Shaw return next year, they will not be any better. There is a reason we added these guys late in the recruiting game after nobody else wanted them. My point regarding Wells is that he is also bad. However, if we have 4 bigs on the roster who are all bad basketball players, why not allow the one who is actually going to play hard and is 7'1" play as much as the other 3? Let Taylor foul out in his 12 minutes. Let Shaw and Morgan fail to deny the post, fail to rotate, fail to get a body on a guy and get a defensive board, and fail to hit the offensive glass and create and complete easy putbacks. I agree with others who have suggested that we sign high school players who can improve (and want to improve) while on our roster for 4 years and surround them with a coach who is capable of developing their game.

I am going to stay above trashing the players on this team but I am also not going to say they are great players. It is what it is and everybody knows that. Taylor was recruited late because it was feared he would not qualify academically. Shaw transferred here from Illinois due to lack of playing time and was not recruited by the current BU staff. Most people thought he would be a decent Valley player. Morgan was a junior college transfer and signed late with BU after the coach at the school he committed to was fired. Wells was recruited by Les and BU was the only D-I school to offer him a scholarship. He did have an offer from Quincy College. Not playing the players that had been sick only hurt from the standpoint of not being able to rest the players on the court. Although, with all the media timeouts (every 4 minutes), I don't understand why players get tired so easily. Several years ago when there weren't media timeouts, nobody talked about players getting tired. I think it has more to do with the player rotation systems, all coaches at the collegiate level are hung up on.

This team is not very good and it is not going to be very good until there is a coaching change. A coaching change should not be made until the President of the University and the athletic director are gone. Until then, we are in for more of the same.

[tornado]

Does anyone think that not having Grier and Taylor hurt us in any way? ....

the loss of any player is a factor - that's why I do not think it's reasonable to argue that you can't cite injuries...
but note they were without one of their starters and best players, and at least two others were coming off injury/illness and one was hampered with fouls all day.