Help on the way?

[Tomahawk]

Yes we are witnessing subpar guard play right now. Was hoping Jaquon Johnson signed his NLI. With the numbers he is putting up we sure can use some of that production. Hoping other coaches are not taking notice of his production since he has not signed his NLI. When he arrives next year we have to be realistic that as a freshman he will not put up that kind of production. Anywhere from 8-10 pts. a game would be great. Just wish he could be here now to help out.

[tomahawk chop]

Yes we are witnessing subpar guard play right now. Was hoping Jaquon Johnson signed his NLI. With the numbers he is putting up we sure can use some of that production. Hoping other coaches are not taking notice of his production since he has not signed his NLI. When he arrives next year we have to be realistic that as a freshman he will not put up that kind of production. Anywhere from 8-10 pts. a game would be great. Just wish he could be here now to help out.

You must be joking, we should have gotten immediate help for this season if only we could recruit better transfers.We are struggling now because of the injury to Hickman which shows how little guard depth we have on this team. It sure is great to have 3 players on the end of our bench that are 6-8 and above that never get their warmups off during the game. Very disappointing about how we recruit transfer players compared to other schools. We need a change in recruiting personnel.

[houstonbrave]

I do wonder how much the loss of Drew Adams has impacted recruiting- my perception was that he was our lead recruiter and left late before last season after recruiting was done.

[Stryker]

I love all the men on this team, but honestly Duke, Christian, and the other guards not named Hickman are marginal D1 talents imo. They just don't have what it takes to excel in the MVC. We need to get and keep more guys like East, Roberts, and Montgomery.

[houstonbrave]

I get frustration and everyone is entitled to their opinion but calling Duke a marginal D1 talent is a real stretch in my opinion. He was all newcomer team last year and 3rd team preseason all conference this year. Is he struggling shooting -yes but certainly a D1 talent. I also feel Christian is really a 3 not a guard in my opinion for what it is worth.

[Old Coach]

I get frustration and everyone is entitled to their opinion but calling Duke a marginal D1 talent is a real stretch in my opinion. He was all newcomer team last year and 3rd team preseason all conference this year. Is he struggling shooting -yes but certainly a D1 talent. I also feel Christian is really a 3 not a guard in my opinion for what it is worth.

I think the issue is roster construction. As you state, Davis really isn't a guard, so in actuality, there are only 4 guards on the roster; one of which is a true freshman, and another that hadn't played basketball in 18 months due to injury. The Pettigrew miss was significant, but he would still have only been your 5th guard. In the MVC (a guard league), I think you need 6 or 7 guards to provide depth and development.

[Da Coach]

It's easy to be a "Monday morning quarterback" regarding recruiting, but I mostly agree with the posts in this thread about recruiting and the roster. Especially when nobody really knows all the facts about what goes on with recruiting, and how difficult it can be. But, how many other MVC teams have landed a consensus junior college "Player of the Year", or an MVC Defensive POY (Malevy Leons)? Or a 1st team All-MVC center and Big Ten caliber big man (Rienk Mast)? There have been numerous other quality recruits over the last few years (Connor, Zek, Terry Roberts, Elijah Childs, and others, including this year's freshman class). The recruiting has helped Bradley become one of the top 2 MVC teams over the last 4-5 seasons.

The problem this season was contributed to by the late departures by Mast, Montgomery, and Tahvanainen, which were not determined until after last season ended. That caused the coaches to hold those scholarships open until late in the recruiting cycle. Bradley has been hurt by the transfer portal as much as any MVC team, losing their top players each of the last 2 years. The need to fill those scholarships late lead to having to take leftover portal transfers. Coach Wardle has said he does not prefer to rely on the portal, but last spring he had no choice, and a couple of haven't worked out

And, yes, losing Coach Drew Adams was a big setback. But if anyone has listened to Pat Althoff or Mike Black talk on pregame shows, they are terrific basketball guys who, with the other coaches, will get the job done. The 2 commitments this year are already good signs.
Bradley fans are understandably disappointed with the last 4 games. But as I posted several weeks ago when we were 6-0, this team was not going to go undefeated. And most of the wins were close wins that could have gone the other way. Likewise, 3 of the 4 losses were close, and Bradley was in contention until the final minute or two, and couldn't finish. The schedule still has a lot of tough games ahead, so lets hope the team can get healthy and stay that way.

[Tomahawk]

We can debate recruiting until we are blue in the face. Truth of the matter is yes we can always do better in that regard. But you play who you have and try to improve with the current roster we have. Have no doubt we will turn things back around. Hopefully sooner than later. Really bullish on Burch and Atlason. They are going to be big contributors going forward. Adding Jaquan Johnson will be a major plus.

[bradleyfan124]

We can debate recruiting until we are blue in the face. Truth of the matter is yes we can always do better in that regard. But you play who you have and try to improve with the current roster we have. Have no doubt we will turn things back around. Hopefully sooner than later. Really bullish on Burch and Atlason. They are going to be big contributors going forward. Adding Jaquan Johnson will be a major plus.

I agree with you on Burch and Atlason. I think they are going to be really good players.

[BUfan14]

I think the issue is roster construction. As you state, Davis really isn't a guard, so in actuality, there are only 4 guards on the roster; one of which is a true freshman, and another that hadn't played basketball in 18 months due to injury. The Pettigrew miss was significant, but he would still have only been your 5th guard. In the MVC (a guard league), I think you need 6 or 7 guards to provide depth and development.

Yes, construction is the issue. I’ve said this since the offseason. These players aren’t bad together, but they’re in the wrong roles.

I also would disagree that Davis and Deen are not D1, they just are being expected to do more than they should on a good D1 team. I think Deen would be a great bench spark plug ala Ben Gordon on the 2000s Bulls. Davis is a do a little of it all 5th/6th man kind of player. But they’re expected to lead this team, especially in Deen’s case.

Let’s look at optimum position versus actual for this year’s team:

Hannah - a more traditional inside four man, not a five. He mainly plays the five. He doesn’t have the beef for that, even in the MVC.

Leons - a stretch four. He plays the three a lot.

Jonovic - a traditional five man. These guys don’t exist a ton in the MVC. Whereas Hannah is too thin to be a five in the MVC, Jonovic is too far the other way. He’s not athletic enough, yet at least.

Davis - a traditional small forward, which doesn’t really exist anymore in college. The stretch four is probably where he’d be best in the Valley. He’d be an awesome bench weapon. He plays the 3 guard for us. So now we already have three 4 men in Leons, Hannah, and Davis. Different styles for sure and all good players, but all best used as fours, maybe occasionally a 3 in Davis’s case.

Deen - I like him as a player, but he’s overmatched my a lot of taller players, it’s just what it is. He has to play the point by default a lot, but he has turnover problems. Being a sixth man would limit his weaknesses while leaning into his strengths I think.

Hickman - a two guard. He’s smart but not super quick and has turnover problems against quicker guards in the clutch. The two guard is his best spot. He has to play point for us a lot.

Burch - a slasher two guard. He’s playing point a lot. I see good passing ability at times, but he’s not consistent enough yet to run point.

Atlason - a four man is his best spot (now I’ve listed four of those in eight players). He’s playing the five man a lot and sometimes the three spot. I love his future, but he really isn’t ready to be a three or five yet.

Ellis - I’m undecided on this, but I don’t think he’s a point either and he’s playing there out of necessity at times. He seems like a two guard to me.

So of the 9 guys who play almost all of them are positional limited yet still playing out of position often or are put in poor positional matchups. Then the three bench players are all apparently unplayable post players, leaving us nowhere to turn for our point and two guard minutes, probably the most important spots in the Valley. At least 7 of these guys playing are pretty talented to me, but when roster construction throws off the strengths, it hurts. We needed more perimeter shooters and a bigger point guards on this roster and really needed to land a starter quality guard to be really successful this year. Hopefully players like Burch, Atlason, Ellis keep growing.