Brian Wardle's Place in Bradley History

[bubraves82]

Bradley will be entering it's 119th season and Brian Wardle his 8th as the 14th Head Coach. Stumbling on the linked website, took me down the rabbit hole of considering where he fits in Bradley history. This task is complicated by the fact that he's still the coach, and that he took over from a regime that was a disaster from any perspective.

Among the 14 coaches, Wardle is: 8th in wins with 110. Within the next two seasons, it seems safe to say he'll pass Fordy Anderson, and perhaps Dick Versace and Jim Les to jump to 5th all time. He needs 88 wins (4 seasons?) to pass Jim Molinari, Chuck Osborn, and Joe Stowell to jump to 2nd all time, and 2 more wins after that he'd join Alfred Robertson as the only BU coaches with 200 wins. That's pretty heady stuff, and I wonder if it's something he considers.(he's only 43).

Similarly, he's about to join Dick Versace at tied for 7th with 8 seasons, and again 2-4 more seasons place him among the all-time leaders in that category.

Winning percentage: he's only 10th of the 14 all-time (.487, 6 games under .500) and everyone above him is over .500, everyone below him was a short-timer. A couple of thoughts here: 1) with the current season we're hoping/expecting he should jump over .500 and 2) as I mentioned earlier, he succeeded one of the darkest eras in BU hoops history, we should give him credit for having pushed BU out of that. Take away year one and his winning percentage is .565 (a more respectable 7th all time), take away the first two years and he's been .584 since (5th all time). All the usual rules about cherry-picking data apply.

Conference: Two tales here (5 coaches have won regular-season Valley titles, Versace (3), Osborn, Anderson, Molinari, Albeck). But Wardle is the only coach with multiple MVC tourney titles (Versace/Albeck).

NCAA: Anderson/Versace are the only coaches to have taken the Braves to multiple big dances, but as I'm sure you've already surmised, Wardle would also be in that category if not for the COVID-cancelled tourney.

Summary: the fun will be in the comments, but I think that Wardle is poised to be one of the all-time great BU coaches, but isn't there yet. He needs to 1) coach a few more years with success, 2) win a valley regular season crown or more, and 3) return to the NCAA. Every year is big, but it seems this coming year might be key in that regard.

[Da Coach]

I believe Brian has done a good job overall, and his hiring was a success, considering how bad things were in 2015 with an abysmal, dead last place team (3 games worse than the 9th place team), poor quality of talent (no All-MVC players for the first time in 40 years), and a hopeless future (not a single future commitment from a recruit). So, IMO, it's not reasonable to blame Wardle for his losing record his first and second seasons. For Bradley to turn around and win 20 or more games his 3rd, 4th, and 5th seasons, and win the MVC tournament in years 4 & 5 is quite remarkable.
But, I'd like to see Wardle win the regular season, and have some post-season NCAA Tournament success to move up to the next level with Versace, Anderson. and Orsborn.

[bubraves82]

Thanks Coach, I'm a frequent reader, but infrequent poster here and I was interested in what you might say. As my handle indicates, I graduated from Bradley in '82 and so my four years coincided with the Versace/Anderson/Thirdkill glory days which may be why I remain such a big fan.

I hope we are faced with this dilemma, but I sometimes wonder, if the current trend continues and Wardle continues to bring a level of success, would he want to stay at Bradley and be on the Mount Rushmore of BU coaches, or would he want to jump to a Power Conference and try to get to a Final Four more realistically. I don't know the man, I can't say, but that's a problem for another day I suppose.

[LittleBrave]

I would agree with DC - he has done a good job - not great (with exception of 2 MVC Tourney titles).
I think that Covid really bit us, which is partly to blame for why we were not able to keep rising after beating Valpo in 2020.

Wardle has done outstanding at home IMO - really can't do much better.
He needs to prove that he can lead the guys to victory on the road, something that Bradley has struggled to do for about as long as I've followed them heavy in 1993.
Something has to be said for turning the season around in 2018-19 where we started the league at 0-5 and somehow managed to win Arch Madness! That was epic, and I will never forget that.

He's done a super job recruiting - we have the talent, but we've underachieved the last few seasons. Maybe I set that bar kinda high, but until a coach can finish in the Top 3 in the league, there's disappointment.

[Da Coach]

Thanks Coach, I'm a frequent reader, but infrequent poster here and I was interested in what you might say. As my handle indicates, I graduated from Bradley in '82 and so my four years coincided with the Versace/Anderson/Thirdkill glory days which may be why I remain such a big fan.
I hope we are faced with this dilemma, but I sometimes wonder, if the current trend continues and Wardle continues to bring a level of success, would he want to stay at Bradley and be on the Mount Rushmore of BU coaches, or would he want to jump to a Power Conference and try to get to a Final Four more realistically. I don't know the man, I can't say, but that's a problem for another day I suppose.

Always good to hear from you, bubraves82. I agree that we can't worry about losing Wardle to another school. That is something every mid-major with any sustained success has to deal with.
IMO, Wardle would certainly take a Power Conference offer if it involved a big boost in pay.

[bradleyfan124]

I believe Wardle is not just building a team but he is building a program

[BUfan17]

Like others have said I think Wardle has been a good coach, but not an amazing coach (at least yet, he is still quite young). The build up of the program from 2015-2020 was amazing to watch, went from one of the worst seasons ever to back to back tournament champions and NCAA bids.

Now the 2020-2021 season was a step backward for the program, but I think some of the reasons for this were outside of Wardle's control. Last season was somewhat of a recovery but there is still room for improvement.

I think this season and the next will really set the direction for his legacy. For me at least I want to either win the conference in the regular season or make a deep run into the NCAA tournament to prove that 2018-2020 wasn't just some lucky string of events.

That being said, if Bradley did make a deep run into the NCAA tournament in the next year or two there would for sure be some P5 teams calling and offering big money. He is already quite highly paid for the MVC and Bradley could only offer so much. You would hope he could become our version of Ben Jacobson and stick around to succeed for the long haul. But again like others have said, that's a problem to face when/if it is here.

[Nashville Cat]

I believe Wardle is not just building a team but he is building a program

I'm not sure any d1 coach is building a program these days through no fault of their own. Because of the portal it's a year over year rebuild of the team. Coach Wardle has said as much.

[Dub]

I think more highly of Wardle than the average opinion so far. I think he’s very good, and I appreciate the discipline and work ethic he’s brought back to our program. I find he and Dr Chris both men of integrity, which is super important to me. He is getting results in our program. It is fun again to have high expectations.

[algotrader]

As someone briefly mentioned earlier. I tend to give Wardle some extra slack as the pandemic interrupted our back to back winning seasons. That year seemed to take the air out of our sails and I don't blame him. And I think all of us, in all aspects of our lives, are still not back to normalcy.

I dunno, those are my thoughts. Maybe I'm the only one.

[Tommy]

As someone briefly mentioned earlier. I tend to give Wardle some extra slack as the pandemic interrupted our back to back winning seasons. That year seemed to take the air out of our sails and I don't blame him. And I think all of us, in all aspects of our lives, are still not back to normalcy.

I dunno, those are my thoughts. Maybe I'm the only one.

Agreed Algo. Take out Wardle's first year and the COVID year with the Eli scandal that never amounted to anything and he's one of the all-time greats for BU. And Dub nailed it with the comment on integrity for Wardle and Reynolds. We are fortunate to have both of them.

[PhiAlphaBoy]

Agreed Algo. Take out Wardle's first year and the COVID year with the Eli scandal that never amounted to anything and he's one of the all-time greats for BU. And Dub nailed it with the comment on integrity for Wardle and Reynolds. We are fortunate to have both of them.

How Wardle reloads after this season will go a long way to determining his greatness on The Hilltop. It's imperative (IMO) that this team make the NCAA Tournament this year because we're probably going to lose several of our horses after the season. If we Dance and Wardle reloads and finds a way to finish top 3 and go to a postseason tourney the following year then I think he starts entering the conversation of all-time great BU coaches. I also think he needs to win the MVC regular season championship as well.

[LongTimeFan]

I agree. Quality recruits will be important to fill the departing Braves. The portal does make a big difference to the recruiting process. It may be hard to replace Adams' recruiting efforts.

[bubraves82]

Revisiting this post with another largely successful year having passed and with the baseball season over, turning my attention to the Braves.
Here is the source for this information, Bradley Braves Men's Basketball Coaches | College Basketball at Sports-Reference.com.

Brian Wardle now will be entering his 9th season as Bradley's Head Coach. He remains 8th in wins among 14 Braves coaches (135-126) but with 22 wins would pass Fordy Anderson, Jim Les, and Dick Versace to jump to 5th. Versace was the coach and Les a player during my time, so I find this particularly interesting.

He was "punished" by inheriting a deep rebuild, but now is over .500 and passed Stan Albeck since last year, moving from 9th to 8th in winning percentage.

The gaping hole noted last year at this time was the lack of a regular season title, check!

I don't know what the future holds for him, but if it's his desire, and he remains successful, and stays at the HIlltop, his legacy will be one of the all-time greats.

[yoda]

my 2 cents-
I think he has done an incredible job.

-Consider the abysmal depths that our program was in when he took over.
the entire program was in the toilet and the Prez & AD were fired, too. Many here criticized him for not grabbing some quick-fix juco or transfer talent.
I recall some praising how Dan Muller grabbed guys like Zach Lofton, Deontae Hawkins, Milik Yarbrough, etc who gave them some wins but
who were also horrible for team chemistry and wrecked those squads so bad that Muller & the Redbirds tanked despite having way better
talent most of those years than we did. Thankfully Brian stuck with the plan and built from the ground up with quality men who became repeat
champions. He took a lot of losses during the rebuild but he poured his soul into Bradley basketball.

-Then there was the incident in Springfield, MO, that he was hamstrung by "higher-ups" and had to stand by while our best player got thrown under the bus when it turned out he was a victim of a setup and innocent of everything they charged him with (except a curfew violation). That botched handling by the admin saw us lose 12 of our last 15 games and basically tanked the promising 2020-21 season for us and hurt Wardle's image nationally and our recruiting prowess. But again, BW turned it around.

We are very fortunate to have him. He's going to get bigger and better offers (maybe already has) but he's still here.