Disturbing news

[real fan]

This is the coaches record at Bradley:
2002-2003 12-18
2003-2004 15-16
2004-2005 13-15
2005-2006 22-11
2006-2007 22-13
MVC overall 42-48
what is most concerning to me about these stats are the 2 great seasons we had was when C.Buescher was asst. coach and now that he is gone we no longer play good defense and our on our way to another losing season; I knew we would miss him but I never thought that we would digress this fast; didn"t anyone pay attention to how he coached the defense as we appear to be lost.

[Da Coach]

I can make the case again that our record is much more a reflection of being without our best player, and a possible POY candidate, and one of the best point guards in the country, than it has anything to do with Coach Buescher's absence. Bradley was 7-3 with a healthy Ruffin, and would likely be at least 12-6 if he had stayed healthy.

[longtimelistener]

Perhaps, but we're not the only team missing a key player and we're losing to those teams.

[Stryker]

Think about what this team has, and then look at it again. We lost the best point guard in the conference, the player this team revolves around. We have a true freshman and an role-player, although a good one in JC leading the team. Warren is a bright spot on the team. No one else stands out and we have Salley, who every once in a while has a good defensive play, so offense and terribel help D down low. Singh should be playing more in my opinion, but I don't know if he has the stamina. DC dissapeared. TCS in nearly non-existant, he needs help to create his shot, as does JC.

[Scouter]

Think about what this team has, and then look at it again. We lost the best point guard in the conference, the player this team revolves around. We have a true freshman and an role-player, although a good one in JC leading the team. Warren is a bright spot on the team. No one else stands out and we have Salley, who every once in a while has a good defensive play, so offense and terribel help D down low. Singh should be playing more in my opinion, but I don't know if he has the stamina. DC dissapeared. TCS in nearly non-existant, he needs help to create his shot, as does JC.

JC is a role player?

I'm not buying the excuse that Bradley is losing games because Ruffin is injured. We should be way past that stage at this point. And considering what SamMan has done in his absence, I don't think of him as a problem for this team. He's not a freshman anymore. Ruffin's injury makes a difference, but it's not the reason. The reason is the total lack of a post presence -- on offense and defense.

[BradleyBrave]

I can make the case again that our record is much more a reflection of being without our best player, and a possible POY candidate, and one of the best point guards in the country, than it has anything to do with Coach Buescher's absence. Bradley was 7-3 with a healthy Ruffin, and would likely be at least 12-6 if he had stayed healthy.

We should have beaten UNI, WSU, and Drake without him. We should be 11-7 even with DR's injury. SM and AW have stepped up tremendously in DR's absence - the numbers bear this out. Teams that have beaten us have injuries too. I think we have a more capable replacement for our star than any of these other shorthanded teams have had, yet we still have found ways to lose. Maybe DR affects 1-2 of the 6 losses we've had since his absence. Injuries just aren't an excuse to be 8-10. NCAA-caliber teams, and teams with depth should be able to overcome injuries and at least tread water. We've completely imploded, and in embarrassing fashion. Creighton went 19-9 2 years ago without their all-american guard the entire season and their starting point guard for half the conference season. Drake is 2-0 with their leading scorer out, with former walk-ons logging major minutes. Why can't we even tread water?

[real fan]

How many times is someone going to use D.Ruffin as an excuse for losing, injuries happen and good teams make adjustments; Sam, Andrew, And Crouch have done more then enough to help this team but we have the worse defense in the league and have not made any adjustments since Ruffin was injured; our inside players need to score and rebound and Salley plays hard but he is not a scorer or a rebounder and Wilson is not big enough to play the 4 .

[AE Braves Fan]

How can Ruffin be used as an excuse for this team's poor play when he was replaced with a "top 5 PG in the league"?

I'm tired of excuses. All teams have injuries. Good teams deal with them.

[Lakeview Brave]

We should have beaten UNI, WSU, and Drake without him. We should be 11-7 even with DR's injury. SM and AW have stepped up tremendously in DR's absence - the numbers bear this out. Teams that have beaten us have injuries too. I think we have a more capable replacement for our star than any of these other shorthanded teams have had, yet we still have found ways to lose. Maybe DR affects 1-2 of the 6 losses we've had since his absence. Injuries just aren't an excuse to be 8-10. NCAA-caliber teams, and teams with depth should be able to overcome injuries and at least tread water. We've completely imploded, and in embarrassing fashion. Creighton went 19-9 2 years ago without their all-american guard the entire season and their starting point guard for half the conference season. Drake is 2-0 with their leading scorer out, with former walk-ons logging major minutes. Why can't we even tread water?

Yes! Dana made excuses when their best player was out the whole year. Every team has injuries or transfers or things that happen. Ruff or no Ruff we should not be losing at home like this.

[lefty]

the only way we have a shot in the MVC tourney is not to be play-in game. DR or no DR we don't have enought depth to win 4 in a row...

Where is all the depth that we thought we had in the beginning?
I know the answer but it's intersting how things change in a couple of months

[basketball nut]

How many times is someone going to use D.Ruffin as an excuse for losing, injuries happen and good teams make adjustments; Sam, Andrew, And Crouch have done more then enough to help this team but we have the worse defense in the league and have not made any adjustments since Ruffin was injured; our inside players need to score and rebound and Salley plays hard but he is not a scorer or a rebounder and Wilson is not big enough to play the 4 .

The one thing that I have noticed is the lack of rebounding and I don't really want to hear that DC is the answer because for every rebound or point he got he gave up 2 points. I have watched BU for several years now and can't really remember the last great rebounding team that we have had. (Possibly have to go back to the Versace era)
As far as this team goes I am convinced that MS can not jump. The old addage that white men can't jump didn't hold true the other night as Drake was actually smaller then we were and we got out rebounded (a 6'8" white guy was the reason the ball was kept alive at the end of the game). We have a 6'5" guy jumping center and a 6'9" freshman that can out jump our tallest player (happened on the tip of the red-white game) so maybe the other night we did need to bring in WE to help get a rebound at the end instead of MS. My reason for not bringing in DC is he plays out of position and there is such a great chance that he would have fouled on the play like he usually does but we definately need to add some rebounding to our game somehow.
I can't wait to get DR back so we can have a guard rotation w/o TCS to shoot poorly and turn the ball over so many times. The other night if DR is playing JC takes the ball out and he is one of the smartest players overall in the league-we don't have 2 turnovers in 5 seconds w/ the other team scoring 5 points in 5 seconds because of it and we win the game.

[BU ICEMAN]

I agree with two points that have been raised, Buescher's influence and post presence.

Starting with my intro to BU basketball in 97/98 through the current season, I think that the post presence/serviceable big man argument carries a little more weight. When you look at the years that BU has had success, it's been because they've had a player (or 2) that has demanded respect or been effective down low, on both ends of the floor:

Adebayo Akinkunle
Patrick O'Bryant
Marcellus Sommerville (he played outside more than many of us liked, but was still effective down low)
Zach Andrews

Bradley has always seemed to have good guards in that time frame, at least a good pair:

Dye/Roberson
Gilbert/Gillingham
Ruffin/Franklin/Crouch/Bennett
Ruffin/Crouch

But without an inside game or inside player(s) the guards haven't been able to get it done without them.

The Buescher Factor (how's that for a fancy-ancy sounding name for it?) is a little less "easier" to prove. It's a little more circumstantial, and circumstantial evidence is still good evidence, but when you look at his years, the personnel on the squad was probably the best of those years, too. Don't get me wrong, I think his years of experience and wealth of knowledge are sorely missed, but the large amount of talent on the roster provides somewhat of a counter-argument.

Looking to the future, it looks like we've got the traditional good guard pair in Maniscalco and Warren. I think it's absolutely critical to get that effective big man if we expect big things from BU Basketball.

[real fan]

According to the newpaper Merfeld is responsible for developing our post players so hopefully he is working overtime with them and getting one of them ready to be more consistent in scoring and rebounding as if we could get one inside player to be a major contributor we would be a lot harder to defend against.

[Chico]

Lefty, you said the magic word, thought.

[real fan]

Happy about the win and T. Wilsons performance as he had a great game after having a sub par game against Drake; Sam M. was his usual steady self; Sam Singh gave us a lift off the bench late in the game; once again our defense was bad and the main reason why Evansville almost won the game; they had way too many open looks which is why there shooting % was so good ; if we want to keep winning games we had better learn how to stop the other teams from getting so many wide open shots. The main thing is we were able to win the game and it sure feels better to leave the arena with a win even if it was against Evansville who played well for a last place team.