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If Les is less, then who is more?

From electricmayhem's article-
If the administration doesn't believe that Les is the man to resurrect the program, or at least bring it to the top of the league, then they should remove him immediately, turn the program over to Eric Buescher and Alvin Brooks for the remainder of the season, and conduct a national search for the best candidate. In other words, follow the current DePaul blueprint.
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Please- I will support Bradley, whatever the powers decide. But stop with this suggestion that the coach be fired now, midseason, and turn the program over to the assistants. That suggestion is ridiculous, and will not happen.
If the DePaul blueprint was such a lofty goal, a lot of other programs would do it, but they don't. DePaul went 0-18 in the Big East, and they are headed for last place again. Bradley is not comparable to their situation.
 
Coach - I wasn't suggesting it. I truly believe that if the administration doesn't think JL is the guy, then why wait?

I happen to believe that with good assistants and better luck, JL would be a good long-term answer. He doesn't have that now...
 
The point, like T brought up, is that nobody can name a person who they think would be better than JL. There isn't an obvious answer to this.
 
We do have a decent group of players who will almost all return next year (except one senior and one super-senior)....
We lose only 20% of our scoring, 18% of our rebounding, and we even get back an experienced guy in Dodie who sure helped us win games when he was healthy!
There is no talk from anywhere but some of the blogs and message boards of a coaching change...
 
That's as far as we know... but you don't think President Glasser and Dr. Cross have had discussions about it?

Look, I'm with DC on this one. I'll support whoever the coach is, much like the President of the United States. I don't have to agree with him, or like the way he governs, coaches, etc. but I offer my full support to the position.

If everyone is happy with being one small step above mediocrity for the last 25 years, then nothing should be done, because JL is an excellent man.

However - and I'm speaking of the University - if they want to try to return to the top, then something needs to happen.
 
I wouldn't compare the track record of DePaul to Bradley and use DePaul as an example to possibly follow. Letting your head coach go in the middle of the season should only be done if there are reasons outside of simply the W/L record.
 
tornado said:
We do have a decent group of players who will almost all return next year (except one senior and one super-senior)....
We lose only 20% of our scoring, 18% of our rebounding, and we even get back an experienced guy in Dodie who sure helped us win games when he was healthy!
There is no talk from anywhere but some of the blogs and message boards of a coaching change...
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I agree with that. Next year will be a better year regardless of who the head coach is. Give Les another year (I'm OK with that) or use that talent as a way to recruit a new coach (I'm OK with that too). In the end, I'm more interested in the program than who the head coach is.
 
I think letting a coach go mid-season is a sure way to lose players you want to try to keep (if possible). Need to have a replacement I think announced shortly if a head coach is fired. That way, it helps reduce uncertainty among current and incoming players.

If the university moves in a new direction, I'd hope it's a top assistant at a competitive school with good experience. The knock on this move, of course, is you know this guy is looking to use BU as a stepping stone to bigger things.

I say let him. If he's done a good enough job at BU to attract BCS offers, then we'd be finishing in the top 3 of the Valley and competing in the Valley tourney championship. Now, ideally, this new guy would have groomed a successor among the assistant coaches, and BU would not lose much continuity despite his leaving after a few years.
 
Dallas Brave said:
I wouldn't compare the track record of DePaul to Bradley and use DePaul as an example to possibly follow. Letting your head coach go in the middle of the season should only be done if there are reasons outside of simply the W/L record.
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I'm certainly not comparing the track record of the two schools...

Do you think that DePaul let Wainwright go for something other than the W/L record?
 
I think LES has years left on his contract and there is no way he will be bought out because BU needs all the money it can get to pay for all the new facilities that are or have been built.
We need to look back at what transpired when the last coaching change was made, we ended up losing Tucker, Tisby and eventually Granger which put this program back a good 4 years , how many players would we lose this time and are there any better candidates for the job this time?
 
electricmayhem said:
Coach - I wasn't suggesting it. I truly believe that if the administration doesn't think JL is the guy, then why wait?

I happen to believe that with good assistants and better luck, JL would be a good long-term answer. He doesn't have that now...
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What makes you say that the administration doesn't think JL is the guy? Have you been in on meetings with them? As far as I know there has been no public reprimand of JL. The only ones that think he isn't the guy are the people who are on this board who say so and the 500+ ppl that boo at the games.
 
I've heard about all the wait until next year I can take. It aint gonna get any better, its as good as its gonna get. Its hard for me to understand how many loosers there are on this board, people who accept loosing without wanting to put up a fight and get it taken care of. I will not accept it under any circumstance. Its just not part of my program. We need a major change and I have a feeling JG is on board.
 
just a couple weeks ago the board was filled with posts about how Missouri State has turned their program around in just a couple years and how we should have hired a coach who would do exactly what MSU and Cuonzo is doing....or that Chris Lowery is doing so great at SIU, surely we could have found someone who'd have done as well....there were even some mentions of how Indiana State was doing...anyone remember??

Well....currently...
Bradley 5-6 - SOS 43
Missouri State 5-6 - SOS 156
SIU 4-6 - SOS 189
Indiana State 4-6 - SOS 59

are they all going to fire their guys?
 
tornado said:
just a couple weeks ago the board was filled with posts about how Missouri State has turned their program around in just a couple years and how we should have hired a coach who would do exactly what MSU and Cuonzo is doing....or that Chris Lowery is doing so great at SIU, surely we could have found someone who'd have done as well....there were even some mentions of how Indiana State was doing...anyone remember??

Well....currently...
Bradley 5-6 - SOS 43
Missouri State 5-6 - SOS 156
SIU 4-6 - SOS 189
Indiana State 4-6 - SOS 59

are they all going to fire their guys?
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Thats just it...nobody knows and few care what "others" are doing.

We are BU....whats good for US. What are WE going to do.
 
naive

naive

patrick_o'brian said:
What makes you say that the administration doesn't think JL is the guy? Have you been in on meetings with them? As far as I know there has been no public reprimand of JL. The only ones that think he isn't the guy are the people who are on this board who say so and the 500+ ppl that boo at the games.
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It is not my intent to be personal, but how in the world can you be so naive to think that only people on this board and 500 people that boo at the games are the only ones that think that JL is not the guy? It is a proven statistic that most of the people dis-satisfied never speak up. I wish only the best for JL. But, as another poster so accurately stated, the support should be first for the program, not for the coach. And, for thoses posters that think that there is no replacement better than JL, that is absolutely ridiculous. The replacement cannot be named at present as there has been no serious search or feelers put out. There are many qualified coaches out there that could be possible candidates. Jake Eastman's father has already been mentioned(not to say that he would accept). Don't you think that 8 years has been enough to show some kind of performance improvement? How long are we going to talk about the 20+ game winning streak when we all know it was accomplished by winning games in non-recognizd tournaments? How many people on this board would still have their jobs after 8 years of mediocre perfromance and not achieveing their goals (surely finishing better than fourth has been a goal). How long are we all going to continue to accept mediocrity? Please..............
 
I'm giving Les another yr to produce a top 3 finish but if the offseason happens like I think it will then I think Glasser and company will have no choice but to fire Les. It's gonna get nasty out there.

Jason
 
patrick_o'brian said:
What makes you say that the administration doesn't think JL is the guy? Have you been in on meetings with them? As far as I know there has been no public reprimand of JL. The only ones that think he isn't the guy are the people who are on this board who say so and the 500+ ppl that boo at the games.
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I'm not trying to be a jerk, but I didn't say the administration doesn't think he's the guy. I said IF they don't think he's the guy, then why wait?

And I know what your response will be - "Why would the administration think that after 86 wins in four seasons" - or something like that. My take all along is that we shouldn't settle. Yes we won 86 games, but like I said in the article; when it takes you 142 games to do it, the great feeling of accomplishment isn't there.

I know JG likes her own people, and I know that We still haven't finished better than fourth in JL's eight years. It could happen this season, but are you honestly happy with the way the program has progressed since the Sweet 16?

Again, I believe that with top assistants and continued excellent recruiting, that JL can have a successful career.

Where's Al Biancalana when we need him?
 
Quote from Electricmayhem's article:

"While I'm not convinced that Les needs to update his Monster.com profile, it's no secret that the Braves have been mired in mediocrity since the departure of Dick Versace. Combine the records of Stan Albeck, Jim Molinari and Jim Les, and you come up with a hardly thrilling 385-339 mark. The Braves have won the Missouri Valley regular season title once since 1988, and have finished better than fourth in the conference in just four other seasons. As I stated in April in my first Examiner article, there hasn't been a major difference between Les and his predecessors."

First off Electric, I think that this is a well written and reasoned article. I disagree with the "Depaul solution" that you stated for numerous reasons. About a month ago, I posted that I thought that BU needs to look inward and ask questions as to why the program has had limited success over the past few years. As we all know, we have had 3 coaches since DV. I think that 2 out of the 3 were/are decent college coaches. The one thing that is constant during the era of the record that you cited is the Bradley institution. I don't pretend to have inside knowledge about this, but I think that the 385-339 record since DV's departure speaks volumes that Bradley first needs to look inside as to how to improve things aside from the completion of the new facilities.
 
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