6 MVC games Saturday, Nov. 25

[tornado]

but when they recruit good talent & they''re winning, the ISU fans don't care - winning is the only thing that matters
We saw it at IU when they knowingly hired cheater Kelvin Sampson, then at Auburn with Bruce Pearl...
But I think Muller just wants to jump to the next level - so putting wins on the board gets the talk going of being hired somewhere else..

[pfcmsh]

Well, you're right. I never thought of that.

[tornado]

... he's not the only one in that mix. We had too many guys with that focus.”...

Muller is obviously not satisfied with the effort multiple of his players are giving...but I guess I have a problem with coaches who get paid HUNDREDS of thousands of dollars - only to toss the blame on the players over and over - especially when Muller has soaked up all this praise about how great he's been recruiting...

The last couple games he tried numerous different combinations of players and eleven different Redbirds got into this game. But who is he trying to blame? Many of his players came with red flags attached. There's a reason these guys landed at ISU and didn't have a whole lot of other offers flying their way...
Yarbrough had numerous arrests before he ever stepped foot on the court -- he's in his 4th year out of high school - it's not like you haven't seen a pattern developing for a while - surely only an ostrich with his head in the sand wouldn't have known what he was getting in to with Yarbrough. Gassman, Litwiller & Bruninga were walk-on/redshirt candidates, N'Diayes been in a walking boot more than he's been out of one, Romine had issues at UTEP, Chastain was a transfer who was going to have to sit out a year, Jerron Martin was on his 4th different college and averaged 1.5 ppg last year, and Matt Hein's a good kid & a great teammate but he's in YEAR-3 and has amassed a career total of just seven made shots so you can't really expect him to become a prolific scorer.
When all those troubled players with DUIs, attitude issues, arrests, and eligibility issues actually win you some games, then Muller takes the credit - but when they behave more like what you expect, he blames them.

He even tried Elijah Clarance for a couple minutes off the bench - his first action of the year - after Jim Benson had just written that Clarance wasn't expected to play until some time later in December...

But obviously Clarance wasn't ready - he came right back out with more unexpected pain & swelling in his foot.

Gassman is getting an incredible opportunity for playing time that I suspect even he never thought would happen his soon.. So is Bruninga.

[mvcfan]

Clarence came back out because of blisters on his feet. Good assumption though.

[YATittle]

Like my forum friend Tornado, I??™ve observed the ISU program for years, going back to the Doug Collins era. I also am friends with the Dad of a current ISU player. Here is my take on the situation......Clarance was supposed to be he starting point guard allowing Evans to be the shooting guard. That hasn??™t happened because of the injury to Clarance. Copeland was recruited as a prolific scorer, bu5 is ineligible b cause of failure to pass a summer course. As fa4 as we know, he will join the team in 2018-2019. Tinsley was to have been an outside scorer at the 3 position. He has not produced. Romine was to provide bench relief and beef at the 4 and 5 positions. He has inexplicably taken a leave of absence. Nldiaye was projected to be a starter, providing defense but marginal scoring. He is out with injury. As a result of the player availability issues, Bruninga is seeing a lot of court time which should benefit him later in this season and beyond. Yarbrough appears to be a problem child but he does have talent. He scored over 2000 points in hig( school and started several games at St. Louis as a freshman. Note that his father Del Yarbrough was a fine player at ISU in the late 70s. I agree that Hein, Litwiiler, and Jerron Martin will likely have minimal impact but the other narrative above is factual. I can??™t predict how their season will go but I find it sad that because of injuries, academic issues, and a key player apparent attitude problem an otherwise competitive Valley program is forced to play walk ons and the current leading scorer is forced to play out of position. As of right now ISU is at a huge disadvantage in player rotation.

[tornado]

but one of the most common debates here on Bradleyfans has been the issue on HOW to go about recruiting & rebuilding...

-some people say if we go after the jucos & transfers we will get there faster..
-some say we should take a few of the top talented kids even if they have issues or prior arrests..
-some say the opposite - that slow & steady, recruiting four year kids with clean backgrounds and stay away from jucos

I think what you see in the contrast between Bradley & Dan Muller is the example of what you get with each of those two polar opposite plans...

Muller takes the kids with arrests & issues if they have plenty of talent - and sometimes they pay off. And he reaches into the juco and transfer pool commonly.
I can count almost 20 (!!) kids on the roster since 2015 who either spent at least one year ineligible coming in or who were transfers from other colleges. (Akoon-Purcell, Banyard, Hawkins, Jones, Knight, McCloud, McIntosh, Ransom, Brewer, Clayton, Fayne, Romine, Yarbrough, Copeland, Tinsley, Martin, Chastain)
(and way more than that showed regularly in the arrest databases)

Some of them paid off for Muller, but I doubt Coach Wardle would have offered any of them just because he is going about the process completely differently - despite some pleas that we ought to go get more jucos & transfers. I am happy with our progress and one more thing...

We have not had one single issue since 2015 where one of our players' names in is in the enforcement database or in the headlines, as happens daily at ISU and after a 4-year stretch here where that was commonplace under Geno. I guess I am shocked that our local media never dropped the "renegade" hammer when it truly applied under the JG/MC/GF era.

[YATittle]

I can??™t comment on arrest records because I??™ve never checked and not sure I would know how, but not all of Muller recruits are JUCO recruits or transfers. Last year the MVC player of the year, Paris Lee was a four yea player. So was Tony Wills. This year, BRuninga and Clarance are freshmen. The two recruits for next year will have four years of eligibility, as will Bloomington player Chris Payton when he comes on board. Chastain was recruited heavily by ISU when he was a high school player but originally signed with Loyola. He transferred to ISU and will have three years of eligibility. I agree that several players that you mentioned have had legal issues, but let us not indict the entire program. If memory serves me right, Deon Thurman and Daniel Ruffin, both former Braves, also had issues. If players choose the wrong path that choice is theirs to suffer the due consequences. I am a fan of local college basketball, including Eureka, and wish players would act responsibly, but that is becoming increasingly difficult in this day and age. Witness the UCLA shoplifting debacle in China.

[tornado]

of course Bradley has had players with issues, but if you're going back to Deon Thurman 25 years ago - whoa...

and nobody ever said Muller doesn't recruit 4-year players - but you certainly cannot deny he recruits lots of jucos, transfers, academic messes and kids with arrest records... Just as I said - there was a big reason very few schools offered Zach Copeland and DAP. Those are the kids that maybe helped get Muller a couple good years and an NIT win - but Wardle isn't going that way.

And one more thing- all you gotta do is read the newspaper to know about the arrests -
-L
-I
-N
-K
Their Pantagraph coverage has been mild but the guy who wrote for the Vidette has been a little more to the point on Muller.

[Da Coach]

....If memory serves me right, Deon Thurman and Daniel Ruffin, both former Braves, also had issues...

I feel I have to respond to this. Thurman did not have any legal issues while at Bradley, which was 29 years ago! Even the Ruffin incident was almost 10 years ago!
Dion Thurman played one season for Bradley after transferring from Southeastern Community College. He played for Stan Albeck in the 1988-89 season, and averaged 18.1 ppg, which was 2nd on the team that season. He was dismissed from the team for team rules violations at the end of that season, and he left Bradley and did not return the following year. At no time while he was enrolled at Bradley for the 1988-89 season did he have any legal "issues". The Peoria criminal records search page tracks back well before those years, and a search shows the first time Thurman's name is entered in the database, or was arrested for anything, even a traffic ticket, was September, 1989, many months after he left Bradley. I am not trying to vouch for Thurman's character, since he did have multiple legal issues after he left Bradley. I am only setting the record straight. He did not have any legal issues while at Bradley, and if he did, I believe Coach Albeck would not have tried to sweep them under the rug or downplay, and avoid disciplining them, all of which have happened many times at ISU.

And yes, Daniel Ruffin was arrested for a domestic battery charge in February, 2008, in the final weeks of a 21-win season almost 10 years ago, after his former girlfriend refused to leave his apartment when she appeared there, uninvited after the team's curfew. Ruffin tried to push her out his door and she got angry and resisted. She was coaxed into filing a charge and the claims were greatly exaggerated. There were witnesses in the apartment whose story differed greatly from that of the girl. She later asked for the charge to be dropped, but the state's attorney, who was running for re-election at that time, refused to allow the charge to be dropped.
And, unlike most cases at ISU, Daniel Ruffin was punished severely. He was suspended from the team for multiple games at a crucial point of the season (not for a meaningless exhibition game or two like most ISU suspensions). Ultimately, after an independent review done by the Bradley President, who was well known to be very strict with disciplinary issues, and based on interviews of multiple witnesses, she reinstated Ruffin because she believed he was not guilty of the charge.
However, Ruffin had a chance to play professionally in Germany that following summer, and the only way he would be allowed to leave the country was to settle his pending case. So even though he believed he was innocent and had witnesses who corroborated his side of the story, he agreed to a plea bargain which allowed the case to be closed so he could leave the country. He completed a probationary period, and the charges were expunged from the record. This charge, and this entire incident no longer appears anywhere in the Peoria database or on Daniel Ruffin's record.

[tornado]

.... Yarbrough appears to be a problem child but he does have talent. ...

not too optimistic that he will change, this is what he just tweeted...

"People really need to figure out who they are and what made them who they are and stop trying new things
Why fix what??™s not broken?"

[tornado]

Clarence came back out because of blisters on his feet....

Clarance must have pretty severe blisters...
They said he was all cleared and fully ready to play against Charleston Southern, then came out of the Nov. 25 game within a couple minutes...
Now Muller says he is still unable to play in Wednesday's game (Dec.6 ) because of the blisters - so the earliest he might play would be Dec. 9 -

Could there be more than blisters?