Letter of Intent signing date

[Da Coach]

Now that the Bradley basketball season is over, fans can look forward to the next important event- the National Letter of Intent signing period.
It starts Wednesday, April 12 and runs for 5 weeks through Wednesday, May 17, 2017. Recruits can still commit to a school after that period, but cannot sign a NLI.

As of now, we know of no recruits who are likely to sign with Bradley. Bradley's 2 commitments for 2017 (Ryan Stipanovich & Elijah Childs) have already signed a NLI in the early signing period last November.

But it is expected that Coach Wardle could sign one or two additional recruits.

As I have said before, I'd like to see Bradley sign a junior college forward.

Here is the MVC 2016-17 All-Newcomer team that was announced last week-
All-Newcomer Team
Phil Fayne, Illinois State So. F 6-9 Elk Grove (Calif.) Franklin High, Western Nebraska Community College
Aundre Jackson, Loyola Jr. F 6-5 Kennedale (Texas) High, McClennan Community College (TX)
Alize Johnson, Missouri St. Jr. F 6-9 Williamsport (Pa.) St. John Neumann High, Frank Phillips College (TX)
Landry Shamet, Wichita St. Fr. G 6-4 Kansas City (Mo.) Park Hill High
Darral Willis Jr., Wichita St. Jr. F 6-9 Madison (Wis.) Memorial, Pearl River Community College (MS)

Anyone notice the trend? 4 of the 5 members of the All-Newcomer team were junior college big men, and they had tremendous success and were key players on their their teams. And about 1/3 of the top rebounders in the conference were junior college transfers.


Anyone else have thoughts about what type of players should Bradley sign?

[Jim]

Any thoughts on when next season's returning players will be announced? What would happen if at least two of our current players do not volunteer to leave the Bradley program?

[Da Coach]

Likely, this has already been decided and agreed on, as is the case with Alex Foster.
Scholarships are handed out 1 year at a time, and the coach is the final decision-maker which ones are renewed. So if a player's scholarship is not renewed, he'd have to pay his own way, and still wouldn't be guaranteed a spot on the team. So if a player realizes he won't get playing time, they will usually leave voluntarily, as happened last season.

[wizard1]

Letter of intent signing day

No doubt about it! We need help inside if the BB program is to improve the way we want. Clearly this means the recruiting of 2 J.C. Power forwards who can bang fearlessly inside and score.
No more 6'-5 12 - 15 ppg high school boys! This is a MUST if the BB program is going to move ahead.
Wiz

[Bradleyfan1]

2 JuCO bigs with Child's .... I'm drooling.

[tornado]

only two of those players (Jackson, Fayne) were still available and signed in the spring...

to be fair, the majority of the late signees and even plenty of the early ones made little or no impact at all and some are already gone...
Chastian, Adheke, de Souza, Halfon, Girardi, Treyvon Andres, Postell, Claycomb, Deady, Williams, Hall, Hainna, Wiley, Traore, Cook, Granic, Romine, Townes, Solomon, Satterwaite, Merritt, Thomas, Eaves, Gassman, Baughman, Ojinnaka, Franklin, Gooch, Roscoe, even Rousseau, & Hunter Rhodes - played some but were not big impacts on the final standings
not saying any of those might yet still develop...but if the point is signing them now for immediate help, then the hits are way, way fewer than the misses so if we're signing someone for 2-3 years into the future - I'd just as soon go for the 4-year guys.

BTW- desperately digging for whatever leftover jucos there were each spring was exactly what doomed us under Geno - it didn't work ...so I just want our guys to be careful.
Especially if we are only now getting on kids that we really never saw play all year...
some guy who has a good 2 week run might look deceptively good, but that's what we got when we landed Chris Blake and Jermaine Morgan.

[ihatetea]

I think childs will be very good and we won't need a fifth big. I'd rather have a 6'3"-6'7" perimeter guy that can really score.

Brown and hogdson are good point guards; DLo and Pittman are good depth as combo guards; Van bree, thomas, bar and hopefully childs form a competent big rotation; kennel is a very good wing and jojo is okay if streaky. Getting a player similar to Theron Wilson who would push kennel to shooting guard would be ideal imo

[tornado]

Now that the Bradley basketball season is over, fans can look forward to the next important event-
the National Letter of Intent signing period....

What intrigues me about this upcoming SPRING signing period is that right now...
I don't know of even one single player that is expected to sign for ANY MVC schools.

Here's what has been made public as to the expected Fall 2017 recruiting classes & commits for the ten MVC schools.

http://bradleyfans.com/vb/showpost.php?p=825126816&postcount=76

Unless I am missing someone - I think that every single commit in the MVC for 2017 is already signed.
Does anyone know of any others NOT YET SIGNED?

So - as of right now - it could be a very slow spring signing period for MVC schools.

BUT......I think things will definitely change...
Some Valley schools have open scholarships, plus I expect several players will leave MVC schools opening even more...
and then we should see some news about NEW commits that will sign this year.

Currently Bradley, Drake, Indiana State, Loyola, Missouri State & Wichita have NO open scholarships unless someone leaves.
Evansville, ISU, UNI & SIU do have open scholarships right now.

Anyone hearing anything?? I kinda have....
PM me if you think if you know something and want to keep it off the board.

[Da Coach]

...
to be fair, the majority of the late signees and even plenty of the early ones made little or no impact at all and some are already gone......I'd just as soon go for the 4-year guys.

BTW- desperately digging for whatever leftover jucos there were each spring was exactly what doomed us under Geno - it didn't work ....

First- using Geno Ford's ability to judge talent and recruit as an argument against jucos is ridiculous and not valid to this argument. Geno's record recruiting was abysmal, regardless what type of player. A coach with decent ability to evaluate talent can certainly do far better with late-signees.

So you would rather sign a couple late high school recruits? I could list all the late high school recruits that failed to produce, and the list would be many times as long as your juco list. If a coach is left with a couple open scholarships in March or April, he is much better off looking at jucos than grabbing leftover high school recruits- Davante Cooper, Joel Okafor, Scottie James, Callum Barker, Ronie Suggs- all late signees failed to help Bradley and were either gone quickly or rarely got off the bench.
There are innumerable other examples from Bradley's past, but I won't name them all here. It is uncommon for late signed high school recruits to pan out.
And often if the late-signed freshmen ever do develop, it takes 2 or 3 years of using up the scholarship before they contribute significantly to a program winning, if at all.

In addition to getting players who may be able to help right away, with a juco, the coach isn't stuck with the player for 4 years or forced to run him off as has happened here a lot.

Here are a few juco players Jim Les signed in the late signing period that contributed significantly to past teams-
Will Franklin
Matt Salley
Theron Wilson
Dodie Dunson
Taylor Brown
Lawrence Wright
David Collins
Zach Andrews
Tony Bennett

[tornado]

nope- here's where I disagree...

First - Geno did have problems recruiting here but he was actually VERY successful with juco recruits..
Chris Evans (16 ppg, 879 pts scored in 2 years), Carlton Guyton (726 pts/2 yrs), Michael Porrini (658 pts/2 yrs), Tyree Evans (620 pts/2yrs), as well as Anthony Simpson, Justin Manns...
All were KEY players in Geno's successful KSU teams and they helped him win COY!!!

So to say he never landed any good jucos isn't fully true...I think he proved it can be done

Second- I just don't mind bringing in someone in the spring if we've evaluated them thoroughly and have been watching, tracking, and recruiting them..
but I am against landing some guy who just showed up on the radar screen because he's had a few good weeks. And that's kinda what we have now - with the only name that's surfaces so far - being Vance Johnson (see that thread) and he's another Chris Blake - a guy who has virtually zero offers from anyone & barely averaging double digits in juco and somehow we're led to think he's gonna light it up in the MVC?
If you got a list of names of top juco kids we oughta offer, please feel free to cite one or two.
I just think we oughta leave it to the coach to get the BEST players available and not tag the request with **must be a juco

Third- your list of spring signees are largely guys that JL tracked for some time and they were putting up pretty decent numbers (guys like Zach & Boogie - we had an inside lane on and knew about them well in advance)
I'm OK if there are such players and we've been on them for a while and they are ready to help us right away...
But again - I ask - who are they, where are they?? We haven't heard of a single one and none to our knowledge have visited.
We knew about Zach and tracked his numbers all season before he signed..
Same with Boogie, Collins, Dodie and TB...

really only one or two on your list were guys that emerged as options late and were signed in the spring - maybe just Will
If those kind of late emerging and late signing guys are one a decade then we better be careful cuz 10:1 they're a Chris Blake instead.

[Da Coach]

Don't be silly. Geno had other assistants recruiting for him at Kent State who landed those guys you list. It is silly to include the recruits he had at Kent State in this discussion. If you are going to do that, why not go back and include the recruits he landed at Muskingum and Shawnee State?

Obviously I was referring to the recruits he landed at Bradley, since those are the only ones relevant to this discussion, and they were nearly all disasters, not just the juco ones.

And Will was not the only one recruited and signed late by Jim Les as you claim- Taylor Brown was signed in mid-July. Matt Salley was not recruited until other options like Anthony Slack fell through because Bradley was playing in the Sweet 16 and unable to recruit until late March of 2006. And there were others (click on the hyperlink embedded in each juco player's name to see documentation when they were signed).
And trying to disqualify some of them because they were spotted and recruited a little earlier than the actual spring signing period is irrelevant. You don't think Coach Wardle and their staff haven't been out recruiting and evaluatiing juco kids for the past 2 full years? Of course they have, just like Jim Les and his staff did. That is what most coaches do.

You still haven't named one single late high school recruit that committed for the first time this late in the recruiting cycle that made a significant impact in their first or second year. On the other hand, I have deflated your argument by naming numerous jucos who did, and just at Bradley in the last decade or so.

[tornado]

because those were solid DI recruits that carried his team,
but what's silly is listing guys we recruited 6 months ahead of signing them in the spring when we do not have 6 months to do that now - or listing Matt Salley or David Collins - neither of whom's numbers were any better than Jordan Prosser's freshman or sophomore years

[Da Coach]

because those were solid DI recruits that carried his team,
but what's silly is listing guys we recruited 6 months ahead of signing them in the spring when we do not have 6 months to do that now - or listing Matt Salley or David Collins - neither of whom's numbers were any better than Jordan Prosser's freshman or sophomore years

First-
You have got to be kidding. You would take Jordan Prosser over Matt Salley? Does anyone else feel that is a losing argument?
Here are Jordan Prosser's stats- He averaged 3.0 ppg and 2.9 rpg as a senior. He would not even have been an upgrade to what we had last year, and that was Barker/Cooper-

http://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/player/_/id/45769/jordan-prosser

Matt Salley was tougher and better than anyone we have had playing the post in the last 6 years, including Jordan Prosser. I'd take a Matt Salley on this current team any day. Even David Collins would be a major upgrade over our current crop of backup centers.

But our current coaches are not just getting out of bed today to begin recruiting, like you seem to suggest they are. They have been recruiting for 2 full years. The fact remains that late-spring recruits are far more likely to contribute right away and be successful if they come from a juco compared to late-spring leftover HS recruits.

You still haven't given a single example of a high school recruit who committed for the first time this late in the recruiting cycle, and who contributed right away or even in their first couple seasons.

[tornado]

You still haven't given a single example of a high school recruit signed this late who contributed right away or even in their first couple seasons.

I've not said it HAS to be a HS recruit - but I don't think it HAS TO BE a juco either..
It should be BEST AVAILABLE PLAYER without preconditions...
Maybe a very good transfer will become available...
some like UNI's Paul Jesperson, Milton Doyle, Ryan Taylor, Clayton Custer, Desmar Jackson, Greg Echenique, Champ Oguchi, Malcolm Armstead, Nick Banyard, Anton Grady, Conner Frankamp....

Recent late signee freshmen - and this is just the past 2 years.....
-Austin Reaves signed late last spring with Wichita and was a key player for them this season shooting 51% from the 3-pt arc
-Luuk van Bree
-DLO
-Antoine Pittman
-Walt Lemon verbaled to BU in late March

[Vent]

I agree with DaCoach. We need to bring in a frontline JUCO for next year if possible. Next year is a critical season in the process. We finished with nice wins down the stretch but beating teams that were all that good. I would be very disappointed if the coaching staff wasn't looking at JUCO kids during this past season. A JUCO frontline player doesn't have to be great to help the frontline. And as DaCiach said, you only have them for two seasons.