Final: Bradley 61 MSU 59

[Da Coach]

Bradley's next game is at home against Missouri State on Saturday night, January 24, at 7:00 PM. The game is available on ESPN3.com.

Bradley is now 6-14, and 1-6 in the MVC, and they have lost 5 MVC games in a row.
Missouri State, which was picked 3rd in the MVC Preseason Poll, has fallen on hard times. They are 8-11 overall, and 2-5 in the MVC, and they have also lost their last 5 games.
Their leading scorer, and a preseason All-MVC pick Marcus Marshall, who was the MVC leading scorer at 19.5 ppg, has quit the team. Nobody else on their team averages more than 8.6 ppg.

Missouri State website-

http://www.missouristatebears.com/sports/m-baskbl/mosu-m-baskbl-body.html

MSU Pregame article-

http://www.missouristatebears.com/sports/m-baskbl/spec-rel/012215aaa.html

Stats-

http://www.missouristatebears.com/sports/m-baskbl/stats/2014-2015/teamcume.html

[Da Coach]

BU game Center

http://www.bradleybraves.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=3400&ATCLID=209861288

[Dub]

This was going to be the first game I ever voluntarily skipped, after how I felt about the last loss. Now with the sunshine out from behind a cloud, I am actually looking forward to going again. Weird.

[Da Coach]

This was going to be the first game I ever voluntarily skipped, after how I felt about the last loss. Now with the sunshine out from behind a cloud, I am actually looking forward to going again. Weird.

It's amazing that is the sentiment of a lot of Bradley fans I have talked to and heard from. I would not be surprised if the attendance is actually higher for Saturday's game just for that reason.

[Vent]

This is one of the three remaining games, I believe BU will win this season.

[Da Coach]

Let's hope. With the great weather- sunny and the high was 41?° with similar weather predicted Saturday, there should be a good crowd.

[tornado]

another recap of how we've had unprecedented injury problems...

this morning's article by Dave Reynolds even has this quote direct from Geno Ford...

"You always want to end the year on a positive note,” BU coach Geno Ford said. ...
...build some momentum as we head to the (Valley) tournament and the off-season"
Read more: http://www.pjstar.com/article/201501...#ixzz3PkckLgVe

Wait a freaking minute... we are only seven games into the Valley regular season then a couple more weeks of potential play
if we can actually beat a Thursday team and advance....
That means we have potentially almost 40% our season ahead of us!!!

WHAT THE HE** are we doing when our head coach is talking like it's already summer and the season is OVER!!!!
"end the year"????
"as we head to the .. OFF SEASON" ???


OMG - are we, the fans, the only ones left rooting for this team and actually thinking we still have a chance to be a major player in how the conference finshes up??
HELLOOOOOO - Geno - we have at least a DOZEN more games left - and hopefully MORE!!!!
Please get your mind off the golf course & casinos and coach this team & get some wins!!

If Geno has more interest in the off season than in coaching in January then he has to go now and put Jaydee Luster in charge

[Da Coach]

Yes, just when every Bradley fan thought they had seen and read enough excuses about injuries, we have today's Dave Reynolds article that repeats all the same injury excuses we have already heard many times before, and even enumerates each and every one of them again and calculates the precise number of "man-games" that have been missed due to injuries! I wonder if that is a new official NCAA statistic?

http://www.pjstar.com/article/20150123/SPORTS/150129563/12701/SPORTS?Start=1

Dave even uses Kendahl Amerson as an excuse, including listing name in the sentence about the man-games that have been missed!

Memo to Dave: Kendahl Amerson is not injured- his redshirt is entirely due to our coaching staff's incredibly bad judgement in recruiting and signing a player who is not even eligible to play D1 basketball! I wonder why that part was skipped over?

BTW, how many man games were missed in the 2010-2011 season when Taylor Brown missed the entire season, Sam Maniscalco missed the entire MVC season, and there were injuries to Dyricus Simms-Edwards and other players? Funny that I don't recall anyone at the PJ Star calculating man-games missed, and constantly using the injury excuses, and those guys were All-MVC players, unlike the players who have been injured this season.
On the contrary, Kirk Wessler blamed Jim Les anyway, demanding that he should be fired because he couldn't win enough with half his scoring out of the lineup.
And we had several other seasons with many more "man-games" missed when we had injuries to Will Egolf (twice), Dodie Dunson, Andrew Warren, Sam Singh, etc.

Does anyone think this team would be competing for a championship or even for a post-season tournament bid if we didn't have those injuries? That of course is preposterous. This is not a good team, even when everyone is healthy. That is what Dave and Kirk should be writing about. Why are Bradley fans subjected to woefully bad teams year after year, teams that are getting worse, not better. Why do they hype every recruit as if they are the next coming of Hersey Hawkins, Anthony Parker, Marcellus Sommerville, or Daniel Ruffin? Only to have them look more like the next coming of Devon Hodges.

[Biff]

I am also so sick of the excuses and the "polishing the turd" articles from the PJS that I finally dropped my subscription. I just couldn't take it any more. I wonder if we'll see a different tone when their idol is finally gone for good May 31st.
Is there any truth to the rumor that Dave and Kirk are preparing a separate full color insert for the PJS sports section to chronicle all the injuries and man-games Bradley has missed this year, and what might have been?

[Vent]

The article in today's paper was horrible. It talked very little about the game or what fan's could expect to see. Dave Reynold's is an awful nice guy, but his articles lately, seem as if he's gotten lazy. All he writes about are injuries or illnesses. Today's article offered very little that people don't already know. As the "beat writer" for Bradley, I thought he was suppose to write informative articles.

[Vent]

I think tonight's crowd will be one of the better one's of the season, with most season ticket holders showing up. The walk up sale won't be much because the product still isn't any good. The season ticket holders will show up because of the announcement of Glasser leaving.

There will be a buzz and smiles we haven't heard or seen in the arena for quite a while tonight. Unfortunately, the buzz won't be about the game, it will be about Glasser no longer being president of the university after May, 31.

Whoever thought, we'd be going to a game, talking about the university president, instead of the game? That show's how bad this program is.

The work is only partially done with the announcement of Glasser leaving. There is a lot of heavy lifting to do yet. Coming up with the money to buy out Ford's contract, should not be a problem, and needs to be on the front burner.

[bula-bloom]

another recap of how we've had unprecedented injury problems...

this morning's article by Dave Reynolds even has this quote direct from Geno Ford...

"You always want to end the year on a positive note,” BU coach Geno Ford said. ...
...build some momentum as we head to the (Valley) tournament and the off-season"
http://www.pjstar.com/article/201501...#ixzz3PkckLgVe

as i said for two years, he lacks the competitive mentality (ie. Hate losing) that it takes at this level. Some disagreed on this board back then But I think we all might agree now.

Get rid of him.

[bula-bloom]

I just went back to a post of mine after the south Florida game in dec, 2013. tell me that if a hack like me can see it that long ago, why can't basketball minds of bradley or journalists see it?
From december, 2013 -What the heck does this mean from the PJStar article today?

"Ford said. "There were a lot of positives today.""

I'm afraid Ford is a good high school coach -- and is showing some fraility at Div I level....I don't think he HATES losing enough -- really at this level it is about W/L. Competitive coaches don't count "moral victories?"

As far as Lemon's performance, he was bottled up on doubles much of the game. Not a lot he can do without teammates and plays from coach.

Regarding him driving wildly in the final minutes, don't you think that is the type of play that Geno has called for the last two years? Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't-- there's not a lot of creativity in it. It appears he has a couple different plays though -- lemon to the right, lemon to the left and lemon down the middle.

I was a bit disappointed with 3-4 seconds to go at the end - that Bradley didn't have enough pride to try to make it closer - they dribbled out the clock. Admittedly, wouldn't have made a difference but that's the competitive spirit I'm looking for and that starts at the coach

[Da Coach]

Missouri State looking bad without Marcus Marshall, and Bradley with a very good half.
BU leads at the half 35-25.

Stats

http://stats.statbroadcast.com/mobile/?id=69153

[Buesch N Chips]

If we win I wonder if anyone is going to use the Missouri State injury as an "excuse".