The 12 games 'til Christmas...

[Chico]

Now that the game against VCU and Maynor is over maybe Daniel and the rest of the team can concentrate on winning the Valley. Maynor was determined to show he was better than he showed in the Bracket Buster and he did.

[TheHeemyMonster]

You do sound like a hopeless pessimist!:-|

Bradley is one injury away from being 8-4 instead of 7-5. IMO Bradley would have kept Eric Maynor in check and won the game against VCU if Daniel Ruffin was able to play. If that had happened, all this discussion would not be happening. This team is better than you portray in your post. The win at Wright State was a good road win against a team that had just beaten Butler, yet you can only concede that it was "decent". The win over Iowa State has turned into a decent home win, since Iowa State RPI is 110 (in the upper 1/3 of Div I). Yet you can only grant that it was a "marginal" win. And Bradley's RPI of 68 is well deserved because of their SOS of 27, yet you say it is "fictional" and "meaningless".
Most fans here would differ with you on all these assessments. IMO, Bradley will be OK if Daniel Ruffin is able to recover.

I am sorry but I dont see us winning this game even if Ruffin doesnt get hurt. I dont think Rufins responsiblity is boxing out the big guys underneath and stopping the back door cuts leadin to dunks either. Sure Maynor has his way in the second half with SM but he is a fabulous player who probably still scores 25 with ruffin on him all game.

There is a huge problem if we can't run an offense or play any D when ruffin isnt on the court. If this is the case then this is no more than a 5th place team in he valley. I agree that losing ruffin hurt our chances of a comeback but one player cant do everything and everyone played bad on Saturday

[Grassman]

Bradley Brave, and ER3, and Heemy, have really nailed it!
Those posters that continue to look through HUGE pairs of rose color glasses. Those posters should not malign every poster that believes, there is a problem! I respect your opinion and you, in turn, should respect other opinions.
This would be a pretty boring board, if everybody agreed. Sometimes I think you realy wish that were the case.
We are not ""hopeless pessimists", we are not arrogantly negative, we have not cashed in the season, we have not paniced, but we are very-very concerned.
We love Bradley Basketball as much as you do, however we are realist and this team is not performing as advertised.
There are problems, some serious. The problems are very eloquently stated by the aforementioned posters, They need to be fixed and we hope they will! The sooner, the better.
Quite frankly, I was not led to believe this was an NIT season. Nor do I want one!
I expect more.

[ER3]

I am sorry but I dont see us winning this game even if Ruffin doesnt get hurt. I dont think Rufins responsiblity is boxing out the big guys underneath and stopping the back door cuts leadin to dunks either. Sure Maynor has his way in the second half with SM but he is a fabulous player who probably still scores 25 with ruffin on him all game.

There is a huge problem if we can't run an offense or play any D when ruffin isnt on the court. If this is the case then this is no more than a 5th place team in he valley. I agree that losing ruffin hurt our chances of a comeback but one player cant do everything and everyone played bad on Saturday

Dude...didn't you get the memo? BU has an RPI of 68, so there are no issues with this team. Nothing to be concerned about. No reason to express a negative opinion that you have constructed based on the way this team appears to be playing...just go home and check the realtime RPI, because that's all that matters. BU has a better RPI than VCU right now, so I guess we are the better team...Ignore the empirical evidence to the contrary you just saw at Carver on Saturday.

[jasonpeoria911]

Just out of curiosity, anyone know what BU's RPI was at this time last season? When conference season was starting. 68 is fairly avg but we were 1 win away from being in the top 40 so I pose it could go up a little. I think I remember it being in the mid 30's at selection time last year.

Jason

[MacabreMob]

Just out of curiosity, anyone know what BU's RPI was at this time last season? When conference season was starting. 68 is fairly avg but we were 1 win away from being in the top 40 so I pose it could go up a little. I think I remember it being in the mid 30's at selection time last year.

Jason

12/24/2006
30

12/24/2005
64

... more to come ...

[MacabreMob]

(rpi in bold)

2006-07 Highlights
12/24 30 (had beaten S Miss recently)
12/30 24 (beat E'Ville)
1/4 42 (lost at WSU)
1/13 26 (won at Indy St)
1/31 50 (lost vs CU)
2/7 50 (lost at SIU)
2/17 30 (won at VCU)
FINISHED 38

2005-06 Highlights
12/24 64 (had won at S Miss recently)
12/28 41 (beat UNI in OT)
1/11 73 (lost at home to WSU)
2/8 70 (lost at Indy St)
2/14 53 (beat SIU)
2/22 41 (won at UNI)
3/3 37 (won vs CU in MVC Trny)
3/4 28 (won vs WSU in MVC Trny)
FINISHED 33

[jasonpeoria911]

Nice job, so were about on par then with our sweet 16 season, here's to a duplicate of then LOL.

Jason

[MacabreMob]

Nice job, so were about on par then with our sweet 16 season, here's to a duplicate of then LOL.

Jason

I hope so.

But....

I think the MVC teams aren't really gonna boost us like they did in the 05-06 season... we are gonna have to do it ourselves... and that means JUST WIN.

[BradleyBrave]

Nice job, so were about on par then with our sweet 16 season, here's to a duplicate of then LOL.

Jason

Like MM said, we won't have all the top 50 opponents this year in-conference to boost the RPI like we had in '05-'06, which is kind of why we screwed ourselves as far as the non-con goes. But, I expect us to win more conference games than we did in '05-'06, which could offset that a bit. As always, it comes down to the conference season. If we can get DR back to full strength (and hopefully get some newcomers to step up), we are the best team in this league. The league is where you prove it, nowhere else.

[real fan]

If anyone believes this team can duplicate what out sweet 16 team did then you are clueless as we have no center that is capable of scoring and blocking shots like Patrick could; also I think everyone is disappointed by our play as most of us kept hearing how good a lot of these players were and so far that has not been the case as Wilson is the only Juco that has been fairly consistent and Maniscalco has played good for a freshman; Collins, Egolf, Cole-Scott and Austin have not gotten better after several games so it does not look good to most of us that this team is going to contend for a title like we thought they would; I agree that we play soft at times and do not finish like we should in the paint, finally it does not do us any good to have all this size when we play 3 to 4 guards at the same time and try to get by with Wilson at the 4 (who is a 3) and Salley at center (who is a 4) ; this makes it easier for opposing teams to defend the 3 point shots as we have no inside game.

[ph]

Non-con of POB's freshman season (04-05), BU started an impressive-looking 7-1.
(Before falling apart in the conference 6-13)
Then you look at the RPI of those teams. This year's team could of done that well against such a weak schedule:

Date Opponent Opp. RPI Rk Results
11-19 SE Missouri St. 11-14 (10-8 ) 178 77-73 W
11-23 Loyola (IL) 12-17 (10-9) 219 64-62 W
11-27 at Bowling Green 17-11 (11-9) 85 65-81 L
12-01 at Northern Illinois 11-17 (7-12) 211 76-74 W
12-04 DePaul 20-11 (11-7) 72 63-53 W
12-07 Butler 11-15 (7-10) 243 75-66 W
12-18 Pepperdine 16-14 (7-9) 126 76-58 W
12-21 Samford 13-13 (10-7) 177 79-59 W