Could Cal Davis be the next Florida Gulf Coast?

[Da Coach]

In other words, everything JL wasn't at BU...

Sorry DC, but facts are facts.... One magical NCAA run from a 4th place team. After his disaster in 2010-11...

Please. You aren't going to play the 2010-11 card, are you?
That team was picked to finish 4th in the MVC that year, and would have had a successful season, except for the misfortune of having his top 2 players out for virtually the entire year, something that was completely out of Jim's hands.
He still won 12 games (as many as Geno won last year with a complete and healthy roster in his 3rd season, and more than he'll win this season in his 4th year), and he won a game in the MVC Tournament to reward the fans who made the trip to St. Louis, something we haven't had since Jim left.

5 winning seasons in a row with an average of 20 wins. AZ, you and I are not likely to see that again in our lifetime. That's what we traded for the absolute worst 4 year stretch in the 112 year history of Bradley basketball.
What a blunder to throw that away for what we got instead. Jim has proven he can recruit, coach, and be successful at UCD. IMO, he would have rebuilt and been successful here.

People are free to believe he had to go, but please don't justify it with that 2010-11 season. Right now we would have Remy Abell and Corey Hawkins in our backcourt, along with other recruits that would be far better than what we have had for the last 4 seasons (since there is no way they could be worse).

[houstonbrave]

Ok-I admit I am a Jim Les supporter, but I agree we were not always as good as I hoped but I also think lots of folks are getting pretty revisionist in their view of his history.

Jims records were as follows:

2005-6 22-11 T5
2006-7 22-13 4 (W/O NBA Lotter Pick Patrick)
2007-8 21-17 T5
2008-9 21-15 4
2009-10 16-15 T5
2010-11 12-20 T9 (w/o 2 all conference players due to injury)

While I agree we would all like to see conference titles I really don't agree with what the Bradley Record book states as 4 seasons of a downward trend. Yes 2010/11 was disappointing. We are never happy with that sort of result, but as a mid-major you just cannot handle losing 2 all conference players for the season. It will result in a struggle period.
Lots of folks said he could not coach and it was all Chuck in the early years. While I think highly of Chuck I think he has proven he can coach and remarkably his team can shoot. So, yes I think it was a STUPID decision and yes, if I could have him back I would take him. In a second.

[tornado]

5 winning seasons in a row with an average of 20 wins...

plus...when that was accomplished, we regularly played a TOP 100 Strength of Schedule and had RPI's as high as in the 30's.

[MacabreMob]

Not quite a $10 million dollar coach like Coach K, but he has likely earned himself a nice raise if he stays at UC Davis. If you've watched any of their games, UCD is an exceptionally well-coached, good passing, great shooting, unselfish team, and they excel in every aspect of the game. Other than Corey Hawkins, they don't have a single other player that a school like Bradley would even bother recruiting, yet they'd beat Bradley 10 out of 10 times.
I suspect there may even be more than a couple bigger schools willing to throw some big bucks at JL to try to lure him away.
It wouldn't be the worst move Bradley could make to go after him, though I don't see any chance that will happen.
Of all the blunders the BU President has made, and with all the failures in the hiring of every other losing coach, the firing of Jim Les will be remembered as the biggest mistake she ever made, and the single event that launched Bradley from a solid competitive D1 into obscurity and perpetual failure.

I watched most of the 2nd half last night online on ESPN3. Corey is lights out like his dad and with that same ability to quickly catch, turn and shoot with a defender in his face and drain a 3. And the passing. The PASSING. I noticed it right away. Such great passing... and bounce passes. Loved it. And they have other players that can score and rebound. They were fun to watch last night.

I understand they were playing Long Beach St and not Kentucky.... but they honestly looked like a decent polished team that is playing very well together right now.

I like them.

[lefty]

I really don't know if JL is a good coach or not. This is one great year for him at UCD??¦??¦we'll see how it goes the next few years??¦??¦He set himself up for a good year this year which many coaches would do too??¦??¦...

[Da Coach]

UC Davis won again Saturday night over Hawaii 74-67. They move to 21-4, and 11-1 in the Big West.
Hawaii is the only Big West team to have beaten UCD, and it looked like the'd have a good chance to beat them again tonight. 2nd leading scorer Josh Ritchart went out of the game in the first few minutes with what looked like a knee injury, and was scoreless. Leading scorer Corey Hawkins was plagued by foul trouble all night, and was double teamed much of the time he was playing. He missed his first 7 shots, and finished just 1-8 and a total of just 6 points. But Coach Les inserted Tyler Les midway through the first half, and he hit 5 of 6 from three before halftime, and finished the night 9-13 for 28 points to lead UC Davis.
Wouldn't it be nice if Bradley had a perimeter shooter like that!?
As a team, UCD shot 46.4% from the field, and 50% (10-20) from three to improve their top 3-point shooting percentage in the country to 46.3%.

http://scores.espn.go.com/ncb/boxscore?gameId=400595999

[AZ BU Fan]

Please. You aren't going to play the 2010-11 card, are you?
That team was picked to finish 4th in the MVC that year, and would have had a successful season, except for the misfortune of having his top 2 players out for virtually the entire year, something that was completely out of Jim's hands.

He still won 12 games (as many as Geno won last year with a complete and healthy roster in his 3rd season, and more than he'll win this season in his 4th year), and he won a game in the MVC Tournament to reward the fans who made the trip to St. Louis, something we haven't had since Jim left.

5 winning seasons in a row with an average of 20 wins. AZ, you and I are not likely to see that again in our lifetime. That's what we traded for the absolute worst 4 year stretch in the 112 year history of Bradley basketball.
What a blunder to throw that away for what we got instead. Jim has proven he can recruit, coach, and be successful at UCD. IMO, he would have rebuilt and been successful here.

People are free to believe he had to go, but please don't justify it with that 2010-11 season. Right now we would have Remy Abell and Corey Hawkins in our backcourt, along with other recruits that would be far better than what we have had for the last 4 seasons (since there is no way they could be worse).

Corey Hawkins at BU? That's rich DC. Don't remember there was any talk about that during JL's time at BU.... Didn't he end up at UCD with JL cause ASU had other underclass guards who played ahead of him as a frosh? If he loved JL so much, why didn't he commit to BU as a HS jr when Les was still firmly entrenched at BU and needed that kind of commitment to help him stay?

You speculate they would both be at BU today, I speculate that RA would have bailed on BU when he had the chance to go bigger. He and his posse/family had GRANGER written all over them.

You must skip over my posts, I was happy to let Les go because he never finished higher than 4th in the MVC, never won a MVC Tourney, and couldn't recruit a big man/men who made a difference in the post/paint since NCAA team/NIT.
None of his teams after the NIT shot particularly well, none defended particularly well, rebounding? JL hung his hat on lots of stuff that never panned out.

I could care less about 20 wins if they came from a constant mid pack (or worse) team beating 3-4 totally inferior teams in EIEIO post season tourneys.

Who cares whether JL is or isn't better than GF now. JL had his chance. GF had a better resume than JL when they were hired and was given his chance and it didn't work out. I support BU moving on.

JL has had exactly one team with a top record in 14 seasons as a head coach, his 2014-15 UCD Team. Impressive.

Get over the NCAA miracle run by a 4th place team. Take that away, and what do you have with JL at BU.... Mediocrity... Some will sell out and be happy with that and dream of the would of, could of, should of that will some day happen....just wait.

Sorry, not me.

Time for BU to now find someone better than JL & GF and move on.

Do you still have some of that JL Kool Aid left DC? I got to get me some of that. Powerful stuff. :-)

[tornado]

Well I understand there are people who did not want JL - but we have gone so far from what we had to worse it just isn't funny.
Our housecleaning has to go down in Wikipedia as one of the worst moves ever in college sports - and in fact one of the worst in all of history.
The fact remains and cannot be disputed, that the people who gladly hired Bradley's castoffs are loving every minute of it.
Barring a total collapse - Jim Les will win Coach of the Year there, while Ken Kavanagh has already garnered one national AD of the Year award there.
And everyone knows those two guys were NOT fired for their performance - they were fired because one person simply had a personality problem with them, and that one person chose to satisfy her own ego at the expense of not just the entire University's Athletic success - but indeed the well-being of the entire University itself once the financial meltdown hit.
Oh - and btw- BOTH UC-Davis & FGCU are rolling in RECORD REVENUES while Bradley is practically headed towards the poor house. - LINK - and this is remarkable given that the entire UC system is horribly run and in debt but UC-Davis is in excellent shape with outstanding revenues - drawing in $3.6 BILLION (with a "B")! LINK

UC-Davis 21-4 and 12-0 at home - 11-1 in league - but even more, they play an exciting brand of basketball, pass well, shoot exceptionally well and always compete - even their four losses were all single digits - no 34-point blowouts and embarrassments.
Watch the laughable claims start once again that Jim Les "caught lightning in a bottle" AGAIN!
By definition if you keep catching lightning in a bottle over & over then it is no fluke.

FGCU 21-7, 12-1 at home & 11-1 in league plus a Sweet 16 - and they have tripled their average home attendance in the past 5 years - TRIPLED.
(They AVERAGED 1429 in 2007 & 1566 in 2010 - now they're averaging 4400!)

[Tommy]

Sad to think that we could have seen another Hawkins-Les combo here at BU if Jimmy would have stuck around. How do you think that would have been received by the fanbase?

[Da Coach]

Corey Hawkins at BU? That's rich DC. Don't remember there was any talk about that during JL's time at BU.... Didn't he end up at UCD with JL cause ASU had other underclass guards who played ahead of him as a frosh? If he loved JL so much, why didn't he commit to BU as a HS jr when Les was still firmly entrenched at BU and needed that kind of commitment to help him stay?

You speculate they would both be at BU today, I speculate that RA would have bailed on BU when he had the chance to go bigger. He and his posse/family had GRANGER written all over them.

You must skip over my posts, I was happy to let Les go because he never finished higher than 4th in the MVC, never won a MVC Tourney, and couldn't recruit a big man/men who made a difference in the post/paint since NCAA team/NIT.
None of his teams after the NIT shot particularly well, none defended particularly well, rebounding? JL hung his hat on lots of stuff that never panned out.

I could care less about 20 wins if they came from a constant mid pack (or worse) team beating 3-4 totally inferior teams in EIEIO post season tourneys.

Who cares whether JL is or isn't better than GF now. JL had his chance. GF had a better resume than JL when they were hired and was given his chance and it didn't work out. I support BU moving on.

JL has had exactly one team with a top record in 14 seasons as a head coach, his 2014-15 UCD Team. Impressive.

Get over the NCAA miracle run by a 4th place team. Take that away, and what do you have with JL at BU.... Mediocrity... Some will sell out and be happy with that and dream of the would of, could of, should of that will some day happen....just wait.

Sorry, not me.

Time for BU to now find someone better than JL & GF and move on.

Do you still have some of that JL Kool Aid left DC? I got to get me some of that. Powerful stuff. :-)

So you are saying we'd be as bad as we are if JL had stayed at Bradley?
Even you don't believe that.
Yes, there is no doubt Corey would be at Bradley. Not only did Coach Les tell me that, it says right here in this article that the "When Corey decided after his freshman season at Arizona State that he wanted to transfer, Hersey Hawkins called longtime friend Jim Les"-

http://www.sfgate.com/collegesports/article/UC-Davis-shoots-its-way-to-top-of-Big-West-6073686.php

And speculating that Remy Abell would have transferred is about as likely as me speculating that Fred Van Vleet would have come to Bradley if Jim had stayed. You are welcome to that speculation, but IMO it's ridiculous.
The bottom line is that Jim Les is having tremendous success at a school that was one of the worst programs in D1 year after year, while Bradley is spinning its wheels with at the bottom of a much-weakened MVC with an RPI around 300. Who would have predicted that Bradley would be so bad?

I guess I did. I am sorry that makes some people mad.

[tornado]

if we had Corey Hawkins, Tyler Les, Tyler Brown and the rest of the players Jim was going to land - then it is quite possible that Remy Abell would have been one of the best guards in the MVC yet would have hated sitting the bench behind them ...who knows - but not a bad problem to have - too many great scoring guards that you can't play them all!

Current 3-PT shooting:
Tyler Les 51%
Corey Hawkins 53%
Tyler Brown 45.4% (first year at ISU)
Remy Abell 41%
The very best we have currently - 33-35%

[lefty]

if we had Corey Hawkins, Tyler Les, Tyler Brown and the rest of the players Jim was going to land - then it is quite possible that Remy Abell would have been one of the best guards in the MVC yet would have hated sitting the bench behind them ...who knows - but not a bad problem to have - too many great scoring guards that you can't play them all!

Current 3-PT shooting:
Tyler Les 51%
Corey Hawkins 53%
Tyler Brown 45.4% (first year at ISU)
Remy Abell 41%
The very best we have currently - 33-35%

that's all speculative though??¦.nobody knows how it would have ended up

[Old Coach]

I'll admit that I bought into the "Jim Les will never make Bradley a better than 4th place team" argument. I'll admit that I was open to going a different direction with hopes that a championship team could be built. Clearly, the opposite has happened. Now if you ask me would I rather have a 4th/5th place team than a last place team, the answer is of course, yes. Whoever the new coach is, my expectation will also be for him to build a championship team, regardless of where he is starting. I'm of the belief that if you aren't efforting a championship program, then you're just going through the motions.

[lefty]

I'll admit that I bought into the "Jim Les will never make Bradley a better than 4th place team" argument. I'll admit that I was open to going a different direction with hopes that a championship team could be built. Clearly, the opposite has happened. Now if you ask me would I rather have a 4th/5th place team than a last place team, the answer is of course, yes. Whoever the new coach is, my expectation will also be for him to build a championship team, regardless of where he is starting. I'm of the belief that if you aren't efforting a championship program, then you're just going through the motions.

exactly

[Da Coach]

That assumes a championship would not have happened if we had kept Coach Les. To quote lefty, "that's all speculative though".

The majority of fans, and, to his credit, the Athletic Director wanted to give Jim another year, and that is what should have happened. The administration has said they did not hold him responsible for the disappointing 2010-11 season. So basically he was fired for his previous 5 seasons, which were all winning seasons averaging 20 wins per year.
Whenever major changes like this are made by individuals with vendettas, and who make the decision purely for personal reasons, the result is almost always bad.
I said in 2011 that I believed Coach Les was as capable of rebuilding the program after that injury year as anyone else, and I still believe he would have with the return of the injured players, the superb recruiting class he had, along with the transfer of Corey Hawkins.
And now he has built a championship team elsewhere out of nothing, while Bradley languishes in last place with the worst RPI in their history. This is all due to irreversible changes made by a President in 2011, and who assumed she had the Midas touch to create a winning program just by hand picking her own new coach, when she actually didn't know what she was doing. The damage was done, and we can't go back now. I know it irks people for me to remind them that I predicted all this would happen with uncanny accuracy, and it will continue unless things are corrected as soon as possible.