Drake makes Tom Davis coach for life

[tornado]

Jim Les was building an obvious winning program

Show me how this was 'obvious' after 3 seasons. .....

Obvious certainly is in the eye of the beholder.
But what I can "show" you is that I thought it was obvious Jim Les was and is building a winning program.

It was obvious to me, and I can prove it.
I just don't want to waste your time and mine digging out all the proof, as I have posted hundreds of times on the following:

---BU would win a whole lot more in 05-06 than they did the year before

http://www.bradleyfans.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=8807#8807

---BU would not only make it to the post season but would be a force to reckon with

http://www.bradleyfans.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=7006#7006

---POB would be a star and play SOON in the NBA

http://www.bradleyfans.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=11959#11959

http://www.bradleyfans.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=6200#6200

---continued push to get top notch recruits

http://www.bradleyfans.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=9124#9124

[BradleyBrave]

Jim Les was building an obvious winning program

Show me how this was 'obvious' after 3 seasons. .....

Obvious certainly is in the eye of the beholder.

I will agree with that.

No one will question your stance or loyalty Tornado, don't worry.

However, there was a time when many were calling for a change at the top, and you agreed with what was being said in other threads calling for such changes, in a thread titled 'Loss to Wichita State'. You weren't completely off the bandwagon yet, but you were on your way. So I don't think that it was as 'obvious' as you say. Here's your quote -

"I agree with much of what has been said.
BU played a terrible first half, in fact, and absolutely "100-year worst" first 10 minutes.
There is still time to build a winning streak, and we are only a couple weeks removed from great games against UNI & Creighton, so i know the kids can play.
I think it's a mental thing now, and they just need to get prepared.

A nice showing on Saturday can be a good first step.
We have four fine seniors who don't want to go out this way.

We know from the Bowling Green game that Jeremy Crouch can provide a good spark and scoring off the bench, so he should play more.
DA can also give some energy, but his shooting is so inconsistent.
After 6 pts at Southern Miss. and 8 against Creighton, Danny Adams has gone 1 for 11 in the last three games.
The guy who shot for pizza in the halftime promotion can do better!"

http://www.bradleyfans.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=12498#12498

[DUBulldog]

[quote="BU fan"]

At Drake he is landing 1 star recruits, and mostlt the hard-nosed gritty Iowa kids who are good role players, but never stars. ..... There just aren't enough Iowa kids to go around.

Overall, your post is good, but I should point out that Dr Tom has only signed 1 Iowa kid since he's been at Drake, and that player will be a freshman next season.

[DUBulldog]

Don't you remember the preseason predictions last fall by many, many posters who were claiming Drake was the most improved team in the Valley and could even contend for the title this past season??

You lost me here.....most people were predicting Drake towards the bottom, if not at the bottom of the MVC. When you lose the top 3 scorers off a 13-16 team, that's where people will pick you. I was one of the lone dissenters on this board, pointing out that I thought Drake would be better than the previous year, despite the losses. But, I in no way picked them to contend for the title; I'm pretty sure I picked them for 6th or 7th. And, despite the record, I think they were better than the previous season. Unfortunately, the MVC as a whole was a lot better, so the record did not reflect that.

Do you think he's poised to finally turn it around?
His top incoming new recruit got more baseball recruiting interest than basketball, and Drake was the only D-I school to offer!!

You're talking about Keith Worner, and he is certainly not Drake's top incoming recruit (despite the fact that the Bulldogs have only two recruits coming in). And, I have it from a very reliable source (his parents), that he had more than 1 D-1 offer.

Drake will be better next season, I have very little doubt in my mind about that. The two seniors who leave will not be missed appreciably. Even a 50% healthy Klayton Korver will more than replace those losses.

For those comparing Jim Les' first three seasons to Tom Davis'....Davis inherited a cesspool. The previous season, Drake finished 8-20 and they lost the top 3 players from that team. There was not much talent returning, and unfortunately for Davis, no scholarships available either (KK had used them all in the fall period). It was a minor miracle that he coaxed 12 victories from that team.

This past season, even though most of the players were Davis' own recruits, all the experienced players, the guys who are typically your leaders, were still leftovers from the previous regime.

I give Davis an "incomplete" at this time, we've yet to see what he can do when it is truly "his" team out there. We will find out this coming season.

[Big Mike]

DUB.......what's your perspective as a DU fan about the announcement? You know........how do you feel about looking someone else in after the lifetime contract?

[BU fan]

Show me how this was 'obvious' after 3 seasons. Come on! We all wanted him to be successful and BU to win, but give me a break. Even his biggest backers were questioning him when we were 8-6 and just lost 3 in a row to start the MVC season. The only thing that was 'obvious' was that we were talented but underachieving yet again.

It was obvious to a lot of people, not just me. Even at the worst, Bradley was drawing 8000+ fans to every home game. Compare that with Drake's attendance of 3000, in a city several times the population. At the beginning of his 3rd season, Jim Les had a team with a legitimate 7 foot center, 3 star recruits, forwards who could score, a top 100 player (Cellus), a skilled point guard, and good depth & adequate backups for every position. Maybe that's why some people were so frustrated when they didn't win more, but many of the pieces were in place for a very good team. You can't say any of the same things for Drake. Without sounding like an insult, Drake's roster is a mix of slow guards and marginal Division I players. I think it is a credit to Dr. Tom that he did as well as he did with that group. Yes, Davis' Drake teams beat Les' Bradley teams the first 5 times they played, but the last time they played, after Bradley had finally gelled, Bradley lead 51-20 at the half and beat Drake in every aspect of the game. The talent differential was obvious.

Again, we're not Drake, and they're not BU. About the only thing they have in common is the conference they play in. They're on different levels as far as basketball programs go, and I think we should be comparing ourselves more to the CU's of the conference than the DU's. That is, unless we view ourselves in the same light as DU. I don't.

If I was a Drake fan, I would be a little insulted by the inference that as Drake fans, we shouldn't have the right to expect our team to be as good as Bradley or to aspire to winning the conference or making the NCAA. There is not another school in our league that is more similar to Bradley in size, budget, basketball history, tradition, etc. So I strongly disagree. I think Drake should be capable of the same success that Bradley aspires to attain.

Personally, I am quite happy that there are at least 3 or 4 teams in the MVC that we can count on to be "Thursday night teams".

[DUBulldog]

Without sounding like an insult, Drake's roster is a mix of slow guards and marginal Division I players.

Drake's team has a lot of problems.....but slow guards is definitely not one of them. Al Stewart and Nick Grant might be as quick as any guard combo in the league. Unfortunately, neither one of them can shoot, which is a serious problem. No post-up ability + lousy shooting team = big problem. Forunately, shooting is one skill that anybody can improve drastically with enough practice. The question is how bad do Drake's kids want it.

[DUBulldog]

DUB.......what's your perspective as a DU fan about the announcement? You know........how do you feel about looking someone else in after the lifetime contract?

I'm not real thrilled with it. Keno's a really nice guy, and I'm sure he know his X's and O's, but he has no experience as a head coach (something BU fans can relate to).

I like it from the standpoint that it provides some continuity from a recruiting standpoint. I'm pretty certain that teams recruiting against Drake were pointing out that Dr Tom could retire at any time, and that kids shouldn't go there because they don't know who will end up coaching them. That will no longer be an issue....kids can come to Drake knowing who their coach(es) will be.

[Big Mike]

Thanks DUB.......just wondered what an insider felt about it......I don't know why but I guess I really never heard of Keno before today so it struck me as strange?

[BradleyBrave]

Show me how this was 'obvious' after 3 seasons. Come on! We all wanted him to be successful and BU to win, but give me a break. Even his biggest backers were questioning him when we were 8-6 and just lost 3 in a row to start the MVC season. The only thing that was 'obvious' was that we were talented but underachieving yet again.

It was obvious to a lot of people, not just me. Even at the worst, Bradley was drawing 8000+ fans to every home game. Compare that with Drake's attendance of 3000, in a city several times the population. At the beginning of his 3rd season, Jim Les had a team with a legitimate 7 foot center, 3 star recruits, forwards who could score, a top 100 player (Cellus), a skilled point guard, and good depth & adequate backups for every position. Maybe that's why some people were so frustrated when they didn't win more, but many of the pieces were in place for a very good team. You can't say any of the same things for Drake. Without sounding like an insult, Drake's roster is a mix of slow guards and marginal Division I players. I think it is a credit to Dr. Tom that he did as well as he did with that group. Yes, Davis' Drake teams beat Les' Bradley teams the first 5 times they played, but the last time they played, after Bradley had finally gelled, Bradley lead 51-20 at the half and beat Drake in every aspect of the game. The talent differential was obvious.

So, the dwindling attendance and 3 straight losing campaigns coming into this year made it 'obvious' to you that we were building a winner? Having at least one all-conference player every season, yet never having a winning year nor winning a game in the conference tournament made it 'obvious'? The 40-49 record over the past 3 years made it 'obvious'? Please. Don't insult people's intelligence. I guarantee you weren't saying these things in January or even February, and neither was anyone else. I guess it's easy to say now, huh?

DU is getting ripped by some on here for keeping a guy who's an established winner and has gotten Drake back to a level of respectabilty. I don't really get it. They've owned us for the better part of 3 seasons, yet are getting ripped for keeping their coach around. I don't get the inferiority complex by some on here.

I think BU should be comparing themselves to the CU's and SIU's of the MVC, not the DU's. But that's because I think BU has the resources to be an upper-echelon program, and should be on a yearly basis. They haven't been for a long time. This year they took a step back towards that. And since DU under Dr. Tom has achieved borderline dominance over a program that could be on the cusp of returning to the upper-echelon of the MVC (we still haven't finished higher than 5th in this regime), I would say that it's progress for a perennial bottom-feeding program. But, they're getting ripped for keeping their coach by some on here. Go figure.

[BU fan]

Wow, you don't pay much attention to what posters say. I have always been positive about this team and previous teams, and always been positive about Jim Les. And you must hang around a lot of pessimists. The people I know have always been positive about Jim Les' ability to build a winner. You accuse me of being some kind of latecomer to the Jim Les supporters? I have 750 posts here, and I challenge you to find a single one where I questioned the coach or the direction this team was headed. Even when most were calling for a coaching change.

And when was Bradley's attendance ever "dwindling"? It fell under Jim Molinari, but it is a little bit of a stetch to claim it is dwindled under Jim Les. The only year under Les that the attendance fell was 2004 (Phillip Gilbert's injury year) and it dwindled a whopping 173.
2001 9112
2002 9072
2003 9351
2004 9178
2005 9337

[Big Mike]

For the record it's plain to see that I make no mention of keeping Dr tom.........if I were a DU fan I would be upset that they set up Keno for the future..........this is a bad move.....I don't care who you are!

[Da Coach]

I thought I remembered someone posting this a long time ago, and here it is--

http://www.bradleyfans.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=6853#6853

We really do have the best and most informed posters here!
Great scoop hoops guru. You had the story on this almost 7 months before it was announced. (Sept. 23, 2005)

[New Guy]

Da Coach said; We really do have the best and most informed posters here!

In the words of Smokey Robinson "I second that emotion"