2-7

[Lakeview Brave]

Why arent we living up to expectations?

7 new comers and 2 that contribute

TCS = BUST. Supposed to replace Will Franklin and instead has replaced Kevin Jones

David Collins = Semi Bust. Played well early, great athlete, good free throw shooter and cant see minutes over Salley or Singh

Austin = The Jury is Still out. Wish he would have been here all summer, I like his hard nosed play but not giving us to much yet. Hopefully does more in remaining games

Egolf = Wait and see. Looks to have talent, maybe to hard to adjust from playing Eskimos to contribuiting as a freshman in the Valley. Certainly not as good a shooter as JC but I think has great potential. Unfortunatley it wont be reached in this season

Anthony Thompson = Smart more to red shirt IMO but I cant help but think that he is better than anyone in our current front court

Wilson = Boogie and I wish he was our stud 6th man like boogie instead of playing out of postion at the 4 and 5. He has been very good this season and makes me happy that DW didnt come here

SAM = Much better than I thought he would. Cant ask for more from him and love his attitude.

So thier you have it two out of seven new guys doing somthing this year. If three out of seven were good we would have a few more wins.

[MacabreMob]

The bust is "Transfer Cancer" Fears, "Smokin" Brown and "B10-Reject" D Williams.

Man... if only WM had the reigns. (whatever!)

[Lakeview Brave]

The bust is "Transfer Cancer" Fears, "Smokin" Brown and "B10-Reject" D Williams.

Man... if only WM had the reigns. (whatever!)

Ray Brown is maybe the biggest bust of all time but the other two we took a big chance in recruiting transfers with baggage and we got burnt.

[BradleyBrave]

We got burnt, but we're not losing because we lost those 3 perimeter players. Our guards are fine. I think they're the best guard trio in the league. The problem is that we never replaced Patrick O'Bryant with a capable MVC-caliber big man. We tried though. We tried for 3-4 other more capable big men (one of them being ISU big man Anthony Slack), and none of them chose BU. We ended up with Matt Salley, who's probably more suited for a reserve role on a good team. We also chose to bring in a question mark in Xavier Crawford rather than go with a safer choice who would be sure to play and didn't have so much baggage. Crawford barely spent 24 hours on campus before he was deemed ineligible. Getting a class with essentially no quality big men is killing this team this year more than misses with perimeter players.

[Beninator]

Why arent we living up to expectations?

7 new comers and 2 that contribute

TCS = BUST. Supposed to replace Will Franklin and instead has replaced Kevin Jones

David Collins = Semi Bust. Played well early, great athlete, good free throw shooter and cant see minutes over Salley or Singh

Laveview, I shortned your post as I pretty much agree with your assessments with a couple of exceptions . I think that the lack of production from TCS and DC is the main reason for this season's disappointment. If we get production from TCS and DC to compliment what we currently have, we would be looking at a much different season.imo

I would also tweak your assesment of Collins as follows:

David Collins= BUST. Played well against inferrior teams (28% of DC's rebounds came in one game against Maryland Eastern Shore--14 total rebounds) --great athlete is debatable-- from what I have seen, DC is a good freethrow shooter--

Also, a player who is labled a bust this year, is not necessarily a predetermined bust for next year. Some off season work and a big man camp is exacly what DC needs.

[Lakeview Brave]

Laveview, I shortned your post as I pretty much agree with your assessments with a couple of exceptions . I think that the lack of production from TCS and DC is the main reason for this season's disappointment. If we get production from TCS and DC to compliment what we currently have, we would be looking at a much different season.imo

I would also tweak your assesment of Collins as follows:

David Collins= BUST. Played well against inferrior teams (28% of DC's rebounds came in one game against Maryland Eastern Shore--14 total rebounds) --great athlete is debatable-- from what I have seen, DC is a good freethrow shooter--

Also, a player who is labled a bust this year, is not necessarily a predetermined bust for next year. Some off season work and a big man camp is exacly what DC needs.

Agree completely. TCS may be good next year but when you use schlorships on JUCO guys they need to give you at least a year and a half to be worth it. I really hope Collins gets better, we need it.

[Beninator]

We got burnt, but we're not losing because we lost those 3 perimeter players. Our guards are fine. I think they're the best guard trio in the league. The problem is that we never replaced Patrick O'Bryant with a capable MVC-caliber big man. We tried though. We tried for 3-4 other more capable big men (one of them being ISU big man Anthony Slack), and none of them chose BU. We ended up with Matt Salley, who's probably more suited for a reserve role on a good team. We also chose to bring in a question mark in Xavier Crawford rather than go with a safer choice who would be sure to play and didn't have so much baggage. Crawford barely spent 24 hours on campus before he was deemed ineligible. Getting a class with essentially no quality big men is killing this team this year more than misses with perimeter players.

Well said Bradleybrave

[Beninator]

Agree completely. TCS may be good next year but when you use schlorships on JUCO guys they need to give you at least a year and a half to be worth it. I really hope Collins gets better, we need it.

Lakeview, you JUCO statement here coincides in a way with opinions that have been stated about this team at the begining of the year. That point being the ability or inability for this team to mesh. Nothing against JUCOS as I like to blend JUCOS with four year players, but as we have seen with this team, the more a team's season is reliant on new JUCOS, the riskeir the outlook for that team.

[Lakeview Brave]

Lakeview, you JUCO statement here coincides in a way with opinions that have been stated about this team at the begining of the year. That point being the ability or inability for this team to mesh. Nothing against JUCOS as I like to blend JUCOS with four year players, but as we have seen with this team, the more a team's season is reliant on new JUCOS, the riskeir the outlook for that team.

You are right, if TCS was Franklin and DC or Austin were Zach we would be ranked. Alas they are not and if they dont improve next year we might as well have kept Saihoo.

[Bravesfan]

Why arent we living up to expectations?

7 new comers and 2 that contribute

TCS = BUST. Supposed to replace Will Franklin and instead has replaced Kevin Jones

David Collins = Semi Bust. Played well early, great athlete, good free throw shooter and cant see minutes over Salley or Singh

Austin = The Jury is Still out. Wish he would have been here all summer, I like his hard nosed play but not giving us to much yet. Hopefully does more in remaining games

Egolf = Wait and see. Looks to have talent, maybe to hard to adjust from playing Eskimos to contribuiting as a freshman in the Valley. Certainly not as good a shooter as JC but I think has great potential. Unfortunatley it wont be reached in this season

Anthony Thompson = Smart more to red shirt IMO but I cant help but think that he is better than anyone in our current front court

Wilson = Boogie and I wish he was our stud 6th man like boogie instead of playing out of postion at the 4 and 5. He has been very good this season and makes me happy that DW didnt come here

SAM = Much better than I thought he would. Cant ask for more from him and love his attitude.

So thier you have it two out of seven new guys doing somthing this year. If three out of seven were good we would have a few more wins.

If a couple of more of these "busts" come through next year, we may not be half bad. But that is the problem with Juco transfers and other "baggage" that some other teams rejected. Some are great from the get go, but the majority never pan out, or at the very least take two years to develop. By the time they are gone at the end of next year, we will have to depend on our four year players. That's why we need to try to recruit four year players and develop them from the beginning, redshirting some if needed. I don't think we reach the next level if we don't change our recruiting philosophy.

[ph]

If a couple of more of these "busts" come through next year, we may not be half bad. But that is the problem with Juco transfers and other "baggage" that some other teams rejected. Some are great from the get go, but the majority never pan out, or at the very least take two years to develop. By the time they are gone at the end of next year, we will have to depend on our four year players. That's why we need to try to recruit four year players and develop them from the beginning, redshirting some if needed. I don't think we reach the next level if we don't change our recruiting philosophy.

There are too many 4 year players we recruited to say anything other than we use JuCos as a backup plan.
Had everything worked out, we would have 4 year players, POB, Stemler, Ray Brown, Buycks, XC, Jassey this year. We took risks and now use jucos as plan B.
You might be right that we need a better plan A, though.

[Lakeview Brave]

I dont think you can say "things didnt work out" as it relates to POB. Would you trade the sweet 16 to have him for two more years? I do think that POB get the perfect set of circumstances to get picked as high as he did. He embarassed Aaron Gray on National TV, had we played another team or had he not played well in that game he probably would have come back even if we won in the second round. That said Im glad he did what he did in his time here and I think it worked out GREAT with him.

[BradleyBrave]

There are too many 4 year players we recruited to say anything other than we use JuCos as a backup plan.
Had everything worked out, we would have 4 year players, POB, Stemler, Ray Brown, Buycks, XC, Jassey this year. We took risks and now use jucos as plan B.
You might be right that we need a better plan A, though.

You can't blame JL for POB. If a guy wants to come in here, take us to the Sweet 16, and go to the NBA early, I'll take my chances with that any day.

Stemler wasn't a 4 year guy, he came from a JUCO. I also never thought he was very good, and still don't.

Ray Brown was a bust, but I can't fault JL for him either. He was a highly-touted recruit who didn't have any baggage coming from HS. We've replaced him with Andrew Warren, who I think is more talented anyways.

Buycks was a risk that didn't work out.

Jassey was a project that didn't work out.

Crawford was a mistake that should not have been made.

Our guards and guard depth isn't the issue. It's the inability to replace POB with any capable bigs that's keeping this team (and arguably last year's team) from reaching it's full potential.

[ph]

You can't blame JL for POB. If a guy wants to come in here, take us to the Sweet 16, and go to the NBA early, I'll take my chances with that any day.

Stemler wasn't a 4 year guy, he came from a JUCO. I also never thought he was very good, and still don't.

Ray Brown was a bust, but I can't fault JL for him either. He was a highly-touted recruit who didn't have any baggage coming from HS. We've replaced him with Andrew Warren, who I think is more talented anyways.

Buycks was a risk that didn't work out.

Jassey was a project that didn't work out.

Crawford was a mistake that should not have been made.

Our guards and guard depth isn't the issue. It's the inability to replace POB with any capable bigs that's keeping this team (and arguably last year's team) from reaching it's full potential.

Stemler redshirted 1 year at a juco and then transferred into Bradley (never played at a juco) with 4 years eligibility remaining. (4 years to play 5, much the same way we got 3 years from Sommerville) That may be no longer possible, but it was at the time.

I was just pointing out that we have "landed" enough 4 year players to fill a roster. Not a great roster, but enough players.