PJS Letter

[tornado]

The last two processes of hiring a HC were flawed..

but nothing before ever resulted in a complete devastation of the program or the fan base as has happened since 2011
Not even when we sunk really low with Albeck - as we bounced back right away and really never lost our loyal long time fans..
that's what we've lost now... can't keep denying it...

[lefty]

but nothing before ever resulted in a complete devastation of the program or the fan base as has happened since 2011
Not even when we sunk really low with Albeck - as we bounced back right away and really never lost our loyal long time fans..
that's what we've lost now... can't keep denying it...

I'm sure there are some that won't ever come back??¦.not much you can do about that now??¦??¦.get the best AD you can now and and the best coach you can and go from there

[tornado]

well, there's where we disagree - there IS a sense of urgency now...
I am not saying we panic and make more ill-advised moves but this current plan from what's been made public is like letting someone bleed to death while waiting for surgery...

I see it, the guy who wrote the letter in the paper this morning sees it - we just want the timetable moved up......

but Bradley is moving molasses-slow...
they kinda knew they were going to have to make moves a year ago - but pressure on a few board members to leave left the rest of them more favorable to extending the President and giving it more time...

then more pressure with all the bad losses, the miserable results in other sports, the financial losses earlier this fall...and still NO ACTION...

Now - an announcement that the President is leaving end of May and MAYBE we'll have someone else by summer??
Wow - like someone else said - good luck trying to be successful in hiring a new AD or coach in summer then recruiting a team for next year..
That's horrible if we are going to wait that long - it needs to get done faster.

The Board should have called emergency meetings already instead of waiting 'til February
And we should already have a committee looking for replacements - instead of just planning a get-together to sort thru names...
The longer we wait the more THE BLEEDING continues....we are in a coma now...

[wizard1]

PJS Letter

Coach & Lefty......Both of you are 100% correct! We must locate and hire a new AD who is a dynamic, strong, highly experienced guy and give him the reigns to the Athletic Department. This must be done quickly without delay! The new
Guy should then be allowed to locate and hire a new BB coach without politically correct committees, or multiple levels of approval that only serve to delay and confuse the process. The trustees should get off their collective a..es, get their heads out of the sand and MOVE,
wiz

[tornado]

so you don't want to wait til June either, I take it...

[Chico]

P O'Brian, didn't say it was ok for fans to act the way you said they did. Where did I say I wanted to lose Josh? Great talent and seems like a good kid and someone to build a program around. I said good riddance to Granger, not Abel and it was plain to see that's what I was implying. Sure he was good at NM, but he couldn't take a little discipline for being late for a team bus and allowed himself to be tampered with by NM. So I will always say good riddance to someone like him and his beliefs. I don't need you to tell me about a real world scenario. I do know we were drawing 9000-10000 fans before the firing and fund raising was at or close to an all time high. Enough to be able to build the coliseum, where we might soon be playing due to the change.

[tornado]

There's another letter from a season ticket holder on the editorial page.
I do not know him, but I surely honor his right to view the situation as he wishes, but some of his statements are worthy of a closer look.
It is from a Mr. Griffin who argues that Bradley basketball fans should be much more patient.
That we are just in the early years of a rebuild that is going to take far more time.

He takes the point of view I have never seen before - he blames the decline of Bradley basketball on Dick Versace and thus argues
if we've been declining since Versace then it's going to take a very long time to rebuild - "it cannot be completed overnight".

Here are a few lines from his letter:

"a basketball program is not rebuilt to prominence overnight"
"..people state that Coach Ford has killed the Bradley tradition. Wrong. ..Coach Versace ... began the decline in performance."
"The first few years (that Geno Ford was here) were used to stop the drastic decline.
Now the coach has started the ground work for a solid rebuild with two very good freshmen and one good sophomore."
"..everything does not happen at the time we want. God has things happen in His time."

http://www.pjstar.com/article/20150206/OPINION/150209367

I honor his full right to feel as he wants, but let me address a couple points...


#1- is he really saying that the decline of Bradley basketball started in 1985 -86 with Dick Versace and that we've never had the quantity and quality of fans since then.
Wow - is that untrue -
The season ticket base remained fairly stable for almost 30 years from 1982 thru 2010, and we've had historically great crowds of 10,000 to 11,400 many, many times up thru 2010 then it plummetted to where we're drawing only sparse crowds announced around 5000 but really only half of that.
We were setting ATTENDANCE RECORDS as recently as FIVE to SIX years ago.
This release FROM Bradley in March of 2010 (when Dr. Cross was AD) states we were at record high attendance levels as recently as five years ago-
"Traditionally rank among the nation’s top 50 in home attendance
51 sellout crowds and 113 games with at least 10,000
Averaged 10,019 fans per game during the 2008-09 regular season."

http://www.bradleybraves.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=3400&ATCLID=187398

and this statement right from Bradley University in 2008:
"Bradley has attracted more than 9,000 fans per game for a Missouri Valley Conference best 13 consecutive seasons
and the Braves drew an arena-record 165,376 fans to their 17 home games in 2006-07, including a single-game record
11,444 fans for the 88-67 rout of rival Illinois State Jan. 24, 2007."

http://www.bradleybraves.com/ViewArticle.dbml?ATCLID=130273

#2- Coach Ford proved he could rebuild a program at Kent State? Really- how was it they even needed to "rebuild"?
He took over a program whose PREVIOUS THREE coaches were all hired away because it was so good! He was handed a solid winning program whose roster was loaded with good players and nothing needed to be rebuilt.
(We kinda know now he also took over a program here with solid DI players then when they all finished and left - we cannot compete against anyone now)

In the ten years preceding Geno Ford at Kent State, they went to the NCAA Tournament FIVE TIMES and won an average of 24 games per year.
Geno won 23 games per year and never went to the NCAA.

The previous ten seasons also saw 13.2 conference wins per year - then Geno took over and won 11.7 conference games per year.
The argument that Geno either had to rebuild anything at Kent State or did rebuild is really wrong and ridiculous.


#3 The "two very good freshmen and one good sophomore" he refers to
(Cunningham, Taylor, and Thomas) average 8.0, 2.9, and 2.4 ppg, only one ranks anywhere close to being among the best in the MVC among respective freshmen & sophomores. Cunningham has shown really good potential but it's stretch to point at the group of three as proof we will be at the top of the MVC soon.
I sure hope so but Mr. Griffin is in the small minority in thinking so.


#4- "let Coach Ford do his job the correct way"...
I have heard this so many times -- what the heck is the guy referring to as the "correct way"?
-Slowly until the fan base is under 1000?
-Exactly the way our local press has said multiple times is the WRONG WAY - with jucos, transfers, and reloading every spring with 6-8 new players?
-with more arrests and jailed basketball players in 3 1/2 seasons than we have had in the last 50 years?
-with such impotent offense that we are about the lead the MVC for the 4th straight season under Geno in worst offense and fewest points?

[Vent]

Dick Versace was the man that put Bradley basketball back on the map. In the roughly 30 years since Dick has been gone, nobody has come close to the success he had with the BU program. Whether you like Versace or not, it doesn't take 30 years to rebuild a program. Ford has taken a program that was generally a fourth place program, in the MVC, and turned it into an annual 10th place team.

[tornado]

Versace, Molinari, even JL - all had success here, played in front of sellouts & huge crowds and have gone on after their BU years to prove they are good coaches and are successful elsewhere..
Time will tell if Geno can do the same but wake me when we have the next sellout & in the only other job he had in DI, he was handed an outstanding program with a stable full of good players and he didn't have to rebuild anything.

But if there's an overriding, major flaw in the logic used in that letter - it is in just discussing Geno, because the problem at Bradley goes way, way deeper - and Mr. Griffin never mentions that or doesn't seem to notice that almost every other BU athletic program is in the basement and doing poorly.
Geno and likely even the next head choice won't win until the atmosphere from the top down is sufficient for that to happen.

[Da Coach]

I just read that letter- http://www.pjstar.com/article/201502.../10971/OPINION

IMO, he makes some interesting points, but everything he bases his conclusions on are wrong. And he is clearly in the tiny minority and isn't going to convince anyone of his side.
Just where does he see even the slightest signs that the program is rebuilding? We are headed for arguably the worst season in the history of Bradley basketball this year! Just how much longer do we head down this path, when it is clearly headed for the cliff, and pretend we are heading toward a brighter future?

And this statememt-
The first few years were used to stop the drastic decline. Now the coach has started the ground work for a solid rebuild with two very good freshmen and one good sophomore. .

Say what? The coach is just now starting the groundwork for the rebuilding process? And he says the coach has recruited 3 whole "good" players in 4 years? Yet only 1 of those "good" players seems good enough to even see any significant playing time on a rebuilding team? Unbelievable. Does this fan not realize we are fart worse off now than we were at any time in my lifetime? We are headed for another 20-loss season, the 3rd in the last 4. Even if the season ended now, we have lost more games under Geno, than any coach ever lost in any 4 year stretch, and it is not even close - 79 losses and counting. No previous coach ever lost more than 67 games in any 4 year stretch.
Just what could ever make this fan believe things aren't working?

Clearly Bradley's better days are in the past
Bradley, as recently as 2009 was averaging over 10,000 fans per game-

http://www.bradleybraves.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=3400&ATCLID=187398

Just as recently as 4 or 5 years ago, Bradley was boasting about all-time record high revenues brought in by the basketball program-

http://www.bradleybraves.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=3400&ATCLID=1597812

And the last coach took Bradley to national prominence that had not been seen since the mid-1950's.

http://www.bradleybraves.com/ViewArticle.dbml?ATCLID=122838

[lefty]

I love the guy's optimism but I'm pretty sure he's in the minority about making a change......

[lefty]

so you don't want to wait til June either, I take it...

I don't think anyone wants to wait until June...but the Prez hire can wait IMO.....


We need a strong AD asap so he can begin the coaching search by FF time




We don't need a permanent President to make this happen

[Local Brave Fan]

Local Brave Fan

Is he a new season ticket holder? Has he been around the last 30 years watching the Braves? The program is at an ALL TIME low and going nowhere. I wonder who decided to print his letter. It must be the only letter to the editor that they could find with this opinion. GO BRAVES.

[Da Coach]

He says he has been a season ticket holder since 1978, so I respect his opinion, though I don't agree.
I have not talked to anyone this season who thinks we need to give it more time to rebuild.

[lefty]

He says he has been a season ticket holder since 1978, so I respect his opinion, though I don't agree.
I have not talked to anyone this season who thinks we need to give it more time to rebuild.

Me neither