Watching Videos...

[wizard1]

t....I have watched CB on videos. Unfortunately IMO, most videos are highlights only and show open shots, little defense, and some jumping ability but not much more. Its sort of like watching golf highlights on TV. They show great shots, tons of made putts, but don't show many bad shots or short putts that are missed. Every golfer looks like Jack Nicklaus in his prime! How much have our coaches actually watched CB in games. Are we talking to him because our spring recruiting is striking out in many cases? I hope I am wrong
but time will tell.
Wiz

[tornado]

...Are we talking to him because our spring recruiting is striking out in many cases? I hope I am wrong
but time will tell.
Wiz

well wiz, it is what it is....of course we all feel the same that we want top talent and we want it now....
We might be striking out with some recruits, but that's part of the game and we gotta work on getting the next one...
You-know-who left this entire program in a hell-hole and we are even now still experiencing the fallout as Bradley was turned into
a horrible destination in the eyes of recruits and their advisors by the senseless, stupid and catastrophic things our former staff did
- including cozying up to certain AAU kingpins that come with a built-in self-destruct button that we are now experiencing.

BUT- we are sitting on open scholarships in April, and just like always, it is hard to get any kid interested in playing in Central IL

We are not alone, as very few MVC team and few midmajors are the Manchester Uniteds of DI recruiting ...
we can't just pick who we want, sign them & hand them a jersey...
Heck - at least we have them interested and coming for visits!! Look at Drake and Evansville - they have 6-7 open scholarships and can't even get anyone to text them back except a couple of Eastern Kentucky transfers.

BUT - there are still some fine players available...that's why they gotta get them in here and check them out carefully
We have seen an increase in talent every year despite the recruiting difficulties.

here is just a little history but as they say on the E-Trade commercials, past success is no guarantee of future performance...

-Will Franklin committed to Bradley on May 7
-Philip Fayne committed to ISU on April 15
-Kavion Pippen committed to SIU on April 12
-DLO committed April 26

Darrell Brown, Jayden Hodgson, Thik Bol, Milik Yarbrough, Akoon-Purcell, Loyola's Marques Townes & Aundre Jackson, Evansville's Ryan Taylor, Loyola's CLAYTON CUSTER ..and MANY MORE were spring commits & additions.

[bradleyfan124]

Give the coaches time. The signing period just started and these kids are trying to decide where to go. The coaches are in a waiting period. Nerve racking waiting on these 18yr olds to decide what they are going to do. Just because they have not signed a bunch right off does not mean they will not sign a quality player

[wizard1]

Recruiting in Centerl Illinois

t....I just cannot agree with your comments about how difficult it is to recruit in Central Illinois. First of all....Versace recruited great players into central Illinois, Molinari also did pretty well. In todays world, No. Iowa has done great this year, ISU does OK, and even though its the big 10, The Illinois coach seems to have struck gold with his recent recruits. Wichita and Creighton do very well as have several other big 10 schools who are in smaller communities. I just don't buy the Central Illinois excuse. In my opinion,great recruiting requires very good SALESMANSHIP. The ability to enthuse and persuade. The very good recruiters seem to have this, the bad ones do not, and the vast majority of coaches seem to be somewhere in between these.
Wiz

[tornado]

Well, I think Bradley's situation is different........I don't really want to debate old detail or who wants better recruiting the most but...

Bradley, since the 1990's - has had local high school coach(es) that have dedicated their careers to bad-mouthing Bradley out of jealousy, to hurt recruiting...
Multiple times I have been told that a certain local coaching staff even proudly proclaimed that they will do anything and everything they can to prevent Bradley from ever getting any talent out of the Peoria area.
That pretty much was the way it turned out all the way thru the 90's and into the 2000's...

We overcame that by hiring one of the best local high school guys, Buescher - and for a while we recruited much better in Illinois (Ruffin, Cellus, Dyricus, etc.....) -- but ...
JUST as we were on a roll and starting to land better guys regularly from Illinois (DSE, Prosser, Lemon, Dunson, Maniscalco...) ...
then Glasser, who hated Les & Buesch, wanted them to fail-- ran him & his son out of here...she wanted to torpedo anything Les did so she could have reason to fire him.
we are only now recovering from that fallout.

then like I said, Geno & Chin cozied up to some AAU bosses that are more likely to backfire than help and BINGO - it did just that...
all we got was one year from one talented kid (Cunningham) but not enough to put any wins on the board, but all the rest from Jermaine Morgan to Xzavier Taylor were busts....
do you want to go back to that kind of crapshoot?? I don't.


And if you want to go further back - one of the main reasons everyone wanted Molinari fired was his lack of success recruiting Illinois- so obviously I remember that different than you.

going back to Versace is irrelevant since things have changed so much - back then the big money from shoe companies and AAU bosses did NOT control recruiting like it does to a tremendous degree now- so very few kids will ever land where the AAU/Nike money doesn't send them and since we don't cheat we don't get those kids.

Northern Iowa does have trouble recruiting but have done OK with local Iowa & Minnesota kids - but now they are hitting a down-cycle..

ISU has gotten some talent but many of the kids they recruit would never have the academics to play at Bradley - but they can at ISU because of different standards and different credits allowed in transfer from jucos. plus a bunch of them are thugs, felons and troublemakers and they have no loyalty to ISU and end up leaving and transferring. I don't think you want that either.

I want top notch recruiting as badly as anyone, but there are reasons we are having trouble right not and 90% of those reasons are a direct result of the damage done since 2007 by Joanne Glasser.

[tornado]

one more thing...
our recruiting IS on an upswing - better than it has been since Glasser started firing our AD & assistant coaches back in 2009!

....we have finally turned the corner a little bit after the better part of a decade of being one of the worst teams in DI

we won 20 games, we've had guys on the All Freshman teams 3 years in a row
We actually had 2 guys on the All Conference Teams for the first time in forever
we ARE recruiting better and bringing in talented kids - Childs was mentioned in every discussion about the league's best Freshman...
we will be one of the best teams in the MVC next year...

we are not at a low point wiz.... I am optimistic about next year, I think we will compete to win the Valley

[Da Coach]

IMO, there is nothing wrong with the fans expecting above-average recruits, and occasionally the 1st team All MVC player or even an occasional POY candidate. A lot of Bradley fans spend a lot of their hard-earned money on tickets and donations to support Bradley, I think they have earned the right to comment about things like recruiting, scheduling, etc.

By the way, who was the last 1st team All MVC player Bradley had?

Considering there are 5 or 6 1st teamers every year, every school should average about one player on the 1st team every other year. Right?

But the last 1st team player Bradley had was Andrew Warren in 2011! That means even if we have a 1st team player next year, it will have been 8 years! And personally, I don't see any certain 1st team players on this roster next year. I hope I am wrong.

In fact, Bradley did not even have a single All MVC player (1st, 2nd, or 3rd team or Honorable Mention) in 2014-15, 2015-16, or 2016-17. This past season (2017-1 we finally had Donte Thomas (2nd team) and Darrell Brown (3rd team), but they were the first Bradley All MVC players in 4 years!
Compare that with the fact that the last season prior to this recent stretch that Bradley did not have an All MVC player was 1975!
And in the 65 years since Bradley jointed the MVC in 1948-49 until the 2013-14 season, only twice (1970 & 1975) did Bradley fail to have a player voted All MVC (usually it was multiple players). Yet it happened 3 straight years until this season!

Bradley has had 6 MVC Player of the Year awards, including 4 straight in the 1980's. (1977 Roger Phegley, 1986 Jim Les, 1987 & 1988 Hersey Hawkins, 1989 Anthony Manuel, and 1996 Anthony Parker).
We haven't had one since 1996.

Jim Les had either 1st or 2nd team All MVC players every year he was here. He had 6 first team All MVC players and 8 of his players were second team All MVC players. But we haven't had a 1st teamer since Warren in 2011, and we haven't had a 2nd teamer since Walt Lemon in 2014.

So it is easy to understand why Bradley fans want to see better talent, and want to see Bradley finish higher than 5th, and actually win something.
2006 was the last time Bradley made the NCAA. That is 12 years and counting, the longest interval in over 40 years. And we need better talent to get there.

[tornado]

is there an echo in here...

this is exactly what was posted a year ago....

some did not want Elijah Childs and thought it was a mistake going after him because he was NOT a prolific high school scorer - LINK

and one other spring target, James Batemon, also got the same kind of talk - LINK

but now I suspect we all wish we'd have gotten him since he went to LMU and scored 18 ppg, hitting 39% from 3-pt and almost 5 assists per game - and was 2nd team All Conference (in the conference dominated by Gonzaga guys)

[Bradleyfan1]

Amen Tornado. Amen. #Themovement.

I ain??™t gonna lie I miss Jim Les more than probably anyone .

Wardle and Co are alright by me tho. I feel like we are in good hands. Next few years will tell the story.

[Da Coach]

I don't see what any of that has to do with the points I and others are making. This is about the caliber of recruits we are now zeroing in on, and they are clearly a cut below what we had in those past discussions. Childs was a consensus 3-star recruit. And both Childs and Stipanovich were clearly our priority targets, and we got them to commit early. And I don't know what you are bringing up Batemon for, we whiffed on him.
The situation is now completely different. We appear to be scrambling at the latest point possible in the 2018 recruiting cycle to find and sign someone with our available scholarships. The names now are clearly not our initial top targets. One of the kids visiting didn't have any offers until this week, and now he has 1 from the lowest of the low D1's. Anyone who thinks we are going to replace Donte Thomas' production is not being realistic.
You are welcome to disagree, but my track record is pretty good. I have been right about pretty much everything that has happened over the past several years, and I just don't see where the improvement is going to come from next year. Are we satisfied with 5th place?

[Bradleyfan1]

No, 5th place is unacceptable in any of the next 3 yrs.

I havnt given up on LVB picking up the slack left by DT. Or the development of Bar these next two years. I think Wardle can coach. I am sure Between Childs and the for mentioned players the frontline is going to be ok. IMO the back court is NK AP and DBJ. DLO poised to be 6th man of the year. Lundy??™s solid to have in the back pocket. I think ABrum is the real deal. Double Duece!!!!! IMO I am not against finding the Biggest guy we can and the most athletic guy we can and sitting on the other. We have 3 spots right ? Is that plus or including Boya??

Boya hopefully is the real deal and winds up here.

You as always make valid points.

[Da Coach]

As fans, we are happy with the improvement these last couple years. But we always want to see the team get better.

[wizard1]

Recruiting

t.... While I do not believe that Central Illinois is a significant recruiting problem for BU, I do agree with you on a couple of other things that may be hurting us.
First, you are correct in that the Glasser/ Mike Cross era was a complete disaster. Hopefully, we are just now beginning to recover from this.
While some high school coaches are anti-Bradley, there are also some who like us very much and try to help us. Chuck Buescher, the Metamora Coach, and others. High school coaches usually believe that their better kids are much better players than they really may be and therefore push these kids to college coaches. If the college coach isn't really interested in the kid, this can cause some relationship problems. This kind of problem could be helped very much by Chris Reynolds contacting and developing good relationships with high school coaches.
Two areas which are of concern to me are our limited success in recruiting the Chicago area and our ability to accurately evaluate prospective player talent. We seem to have a propensity to offer "ho-hum" players who
can't really help us once they are here. Are we setting our sights too low?
On the other hand, I believe that our recruiting is on the upswing and our program clearly is improving and growing. I am very optimistic The future is very bright if we can do just a few more things right.
Wizard