Bradley Baseball

[sportsnut2]

What is going on with this program? This is very frustrating to see. Dewey was a great guy and good coach, but in my opinion the change was needed long before it took place. Now, we go out and hire a guy with a career losing record (178-199-2) from the OVC??????? What were we thinking, or did Glasser get first choice just because he was from EKU? Give me a break. We currently sit at 11-19 and are a wonderful 0-7 in the MVC. I know people can make excuses for him that he's still getting adjusted and they aren't his players, but I was just wondering what made Elvis a good hire for this program????

[Da Coach]

I think everyone is discouraged with the way the baseball season is going. I think the coach is very knowledgeable, and is recruiting well. It would be nice to see better results, but it will probably take more time.

[BradleyBrave]

I hope for the best, but I wouldn't expect much from the baseball program in this regime. I don't see how one can expect a coach with a record that isn't even close to .500 in a low major conference to come into one of the better cold weather conferences in the country and succeed. With his ties to our president, this coach will likely have a very long leash. I don't think this hire says a lot about our president's hiring practices or ability to make the best hire for the program. With the current issues with the athletic director, I really question what direction our president is taking this athletic department. I am not real optimistic at this point.

[Braves4Life]

Does the baseball program even make any many for BU? Has it ever? Will it ever?

'Nuff said

[BradleyBrave]

Does the baseball program even make any many for BU? Has it ever? Will it ever?

'Nuff said

If it was good it might be able to make some money, especially if it ever made a College World Series. If a soccer program as relatively new as ours can make an Elite 8, our baseball team can certainly make a CWS. It's all matter of if we really want to or not. With this hire, I can't say that even being competitive is a priority.

[Da Coach]

First, Bradley is now 26-28, 10-14- not too bad for a 1st year coach, who hasn't had a chance to recruit anyone yet, and who took over a mediocre program. Let's give the new coach a chance.

There are very few colleges that have revenue generating baseball programs. They are mostly in the SEC and Pac-10, where travel costs are less, and they play their games in warmer weather. They are also the larger state funded schools with fabulous playing and practice facilities that are built at taxpayer expense.

It is very hard to develop a winning program. Baseball is a costly sport with the size of the team, and a lot of travel expenses. Plus, Bradley does not have it's own stadium, and must pay rent to play at O'Brien Field.
Also, they have rather poor practice facilities compared to most successful schools.
Then, when you consider the limited number of scholarships available. The NCAA limits total baseball scholarships to 11.7 per year, and they are divided between the players, and some schools cannot even affford that many. The obvious question is, "why would any top baseball prospect want to come to Bradley to play"?

Moreso in baseball than most sports, you can't win just with coaching strategy, or style of play, you need superior talent. It remains to be seen if this coach can recruit better talent.
But considering baseball will never be a revenue-generating sport at BU, I don't see much chance the school will invest in better facilities, or upgrade travel and scheduling, which are the main criteria to attracting top recruits. And even if they did, I doubt it would have much effect on drawing better talent here. Bradley competes in Illinois with as many as 20 other schools who recruit Illinois heavily for the talent. And the best talent isn't in Ilinois or the upper midwest, it's in the southern US, and in the Caribbean, where Bradley simply won't get any of those recruits, like schools in the south are able to do.

[tornado]

Bradley does play their home games in a pretty fabulous facility that was built partly at taxpayer expense, although BU doesn't own nor control the facility and probably pays a pretty good fee to play there.

[BradleyBrave]

First, Bradley is now 26-28, 10-14- not too bad for a 1st year coach, who hasn't had a chance to recruit anyone yet, and who took over a mediocre program. Let's give the new coach a chance.

There are very few colleges that have revenue generating baseball programs. They are mostly in the SEC and Pac-10, where travel costs are less, and they play their games in warmer weather. They are also the larger state funded schools with fabulous playing and practice facilities that are built at taxpayer expense.

It is very hard to develop a winning program. Baseball is a costly sport with the size of the team, and a lot of travel expenses. Plus, Bradley does not have it's own stadium, and must pay rent to play at O'Brien Field.
Also, they have rather poor practice facilities compared to most successful schools.
Then, when you consider the limited number of scholarships available. The NCAA limits total baseball scholarships to 11.7 per year, and they are divided between the players, and some schools cannot even affford that many. The obvious question is, "why would any top baseball prospect want to come to Bradley to play"?

Moreso in baseball than most sports, you can't win just with coaching strategy, or style of play, you need superior talent. It remains to be seen if this coach can recruit better talent.
But considering baseball will never be a revenue-generating sport at BU, I don't see much chance the school will invest in better facilities, or upgrade travel and scheduling, which are the main criteria to attracting top recruits. And even if they did, I doubt it would have much effect on drawing better talent here. Bradley competes in Illinois with as many as 20 other schools who recruit Illinois heavily for the talent. And the best talent isn't in Ilinois or the upper midwest, it's in the southern US, and in the Caribbean, where Bradley simply won't get any of those recruits, like schools in the south are able to do.

I'm sure the same thing was said about soccer at Bradley. I don't buy that. I can't believe I am hearing this 'why would anyone want to come to Bradley' argument. The same thing could be said for just about any sport here. With the attitude of 'we can't', then quite simply 'we won't'. I don't buy it.

[Disturbed]

Eastern Illinois is currently 27-5 after last night's win against the Illini, and ranked 28th in one college baseball poll. It can be done.

I noticed that there isn't one player on the Bradley, WIU, IlSt., Illinois, or EIU rosters from the city of Peoria. There are some Mid-Illini kids from the area on these rosters, two of which are at BU. 25 years ago there were probably Peoria kids on the roster of every one of these schools. HS baseball in the city of Peoria is bad, and this probably doesn't help.

[BradleyBrave]

Eastern Illinois is currently 27-5 after last night's win against the Illini, and ranked 28th in one college baseball poll. It can be done.

Enough said.

[Da Coach]

Maybe. But you pick one rare example of a midmajor, midwestern school and suggest it should be easy. It's not. Eastern Illinois is a rarity, and they still have advantages that state schools have, and private schools do not.

Here is a recent poll--

http://www.baseballnews.com/polls/divI/currentpolldivI.htm

Notice anything similar about all the teams in the top 20?
They are all from southern sun-belt states, or from the west coast.

And despite Eastern Illinois (#29) and Kent State (#24) in the top 30, there is not one single private midmajor school anywhere in the poll that isn't in the south or far west. Schools like Bradley do not have a level playing field when it comes to minor, non-revenue sports like baseball.

Do we really want a school like Bradley to shift more funds into these sports to try to win a couple more games? Who cares? None of of the people who are complaining have probably ever been to a BU baseball game.
Remember, there is only a finite amount of funds, and every extra dollar Bradley spends on baseball staff, recruiting, and facilities will mean less money for basketball, soccer, etc.

[BUBraves06]

First, Bradley is now 26-28, 10-14- not too bad for a 1st year coach, who hasn't had a chance to recruit anyone yet, and who took over a mediocre program. Let's give the new coach a chance.

There are very few colleges that have revenue generating baseball programs. They are mostly in the SEC and Pac-10, where travel costs are less, and they play their games in warmer weather. They are also the larger state funded schools with fabulous playing and practice facilities that are built at taxpayer expense.

It is very hard to develop a winning program. Baseball is a costly sport with the size of the team, and a lot of travel expenses. Plus, Bradley does not have it's own stadium, and must pay rent to play at O'Brien Field.
Also, they have rather poor practice facilities compared to most successful schools.
Then, when you consider the limited number of scholarships available. The NCAA limits total baseball scholarships to 11.7 per year, and they are divided between the players, and some schools cannot even affford that many. The obvious question is, "why would any top baseball prospect want to come to Bradley to play"?

Moreso in baseball than most sports, you can't win just with coaching strategy, or style of play, you need superior talent. It remains to be seen if this coach can recruit better talent.
But considering baseball will never be a revenue-generating sport at BU, I don't see much chance the school will invest in better facilities, or upgrade travel and scheduling, which are the main criteria to attracting top recruits. And even if they did, I doubt it would have much effect on drawing better talent here. Bradley competes in Illinois with as many as 20 other schools who recruit Illinois heavily for the talent. And the best talent isn't in Ilinois or the upper midwest, it's in the southern US, and in the Caribbean, where Bradley simply won't get any of those recruits, like schools in the south are able to do.

Wow, after reading that post, it makes it seem like a miracle that we've even won 26 games this year. I feel like that's a pretty drastic picture that you painted DC.

[BradleyBrave]

Maybe. But you pick one rare example of a midmajor, midwestern school and suggest it should be easy. It's not. Eastern Illinois is a rarity, and they still have advantages that state schools have, and private schools do not.

Here is a recent poll--

http://www.baseballnews.com/polls/divI/currentpolldivI.htm

Notice anything similar about all the teams in the top 20?
They are all from southern sun-belt states, or from the west coast.

And despite Eastern Illinois (#29) and Kent State (#24) in the top 30, there is not one single private midmajor school anywhere in the poll that isn't in the south or far west. Schools like Bradley do not have a level playing field when it comes to minor, non-revenue sports like baseball.

Do we really want a school like Bradley to shift more funds into these sports to try to win a couple more games? Who cares? None of of the people who are complaining have probably ever been to a BU baseball game.
Remember, there is only a finite amount of funds, and every extra dollar Bradley spends on baseball staff, recruiting, and facilities will mean less money for basketball, soccer, etc.

I have been to a Bradley baseball game before.

Taking away money from basketball and soccer? I am guessing that's the same argument there was 10 years ago regarding pouring money into the soccer program. Again, I don't buy it. I don't think it would take much more money, if any, to get a better baseball program year in and year out. A lot of things are either already in place or on the way. However, the most important piece is missing thanks to President Glasser.

And I am not saying that we need to be a nationally ranked program year in and year out. However, I think it's ridiculous to say that we can't be among the elite in our conference and compete for conference titles. Much like basketball, I will point to Creighton as the model for which we should strive to emulate. They are a school like Bradley, and much like basketball don't make excuses but rather deliver results. Just look at their coach's profile.

http://www.gocreighton.com/ViewArticle.dbml?SPSID=89368&SPID=78&DB_OEM_ID=1000&ATCLID=1147873&Q_SEASON=2008

Creighton plays at an on-campus facility. Their facility is not as nice as O'Brien Field. They play a few games at year at Rosenblatt Stadium, where the College World Series is held. Rosenblatt is not that much bigger than a minor league field, so it's not as if they are playing in some sort of major league-caliber field even when they do play at Rosenblatt. I'm sure it's a nice recruiting tool, but I don't think it's so much of a recruiting tool to make them on a different level than BU altogether. However...their coach might be.

http://www.gocreighton.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=1000&KEY=&ATCLID=1150415&SPID=78&SPSID=93887

If Creighton can do it, and we can do it in soccer, we can do it in baseball. We have new athletic facilities for all sports on the way, play in a fairly new facility downtown, and play in a good conference. I am sorry, I just don't buy the 'we can't' when it comes to Bradley Baseball, and I don't think it would take some tremendous influx of money to get this program competing for league titles. A good hire at the top would be a good start, it usually is the foundation of every winning program regardless of sport. But, if we want to be bad, then we'll be bad. Some will say it's the best we can do. Not trying to be adversarial on the topic, I just happen to disagree that it can't be done at Bradley.

[Lakeview Brave]

Some people are just happy with mediocrity and find as many excuses as possible for why Bradley is mediocore or worse in almost every sport over the last 10 years. Its to hard to recruit, we don??™t have good facilities, we are in Peoria.....

The soccer team lost to my intramural team in 1997 and 10 years later is one of the best programs in the country, it can happen with any of our programs with the right coaches and accountablity. I have a firm belief that President Glasser will be holding people accountable.

[BradleyBrave]

Some people are just happy with mediocrity and find as many excuses as possible for why Bradley is mediocore or worse in almost every sport over the last 10 years. Its to hard to recruit, we don??™t have good facilities, we are in Peoria.....

The soccer team lost to my intramural team in 1997 and 10 years later is one of the best programs in the country, it can happen with any of our programs with the right coaches and accountablity. I have a firm belief that President Glasser will be holding people accountable.

I wish I shared the belief that Glasser will hold people accountable. With people who were here when she arrived, I believe without a doubt she's holding people accountable. However, I am not so sure that she'll be holding her hand-picked baseball coach, the husband of her best friend, who didn't even interview with any of the athletic department, to the same standards. If she does, my hat is off to her. If she doesn't, well, it will be disappointing to say the least and 'business as usual' when it comes to Bradley athletics.

Beyond that though, I agree 100% with Lakeview. If we want to be good, we can be. The excuses didn't prohibit the soccer team, which is by far the youngest of all of our sports, from not only becoming relevant in the conference, but also a national power. We can be really good at baseball too...if we want to be.