Sammy gets the Big Ten Sportsmanship award for Illinois
http://www.illinihq.com/sports/illi...-03-05/paul-named-third-team-all-big-ten.html

Sammy gets the Big Ten Sportsmanship award for Illinois
http://www.illinihq.com/sports/illi...-03-05/paul-named-third-team-all-big-ten.html
Just remember how many great leads and even a few great players we got from ABIII's Texas & juco connections (Will Franklin, Chris Roberts, Theron Wilson, Anthony Thompson, Eddren..)
It's unfortunate that we now have lost that strong Texas connection...look how many Texas & southwestern kids Creighton & Wichita are loading up on...
my point was that with all the talent in Texas - we still need & would benefit from someone with his type of connections...
the two top teams in our league have made a killing landing kids from ABIII's neighborhood...
my point was that with all the talent in Texas - we still need & would benefit from someone with his type of connections...
the two top teams in our league have made a killing landing kids from ABIII's neighborhood...
If you take advantage of getting kids in your own neighborhood, i.e. Rayvonte Rice, Johnny Moran, etc. then you shouldn't need to expand to Texas to get good players.
If you take advantage of getting kids in your own neighborhood, i.e. Rayvonte Rice, Johnny Moran, etc. then you shouldn't need to expand to Texas to get good players.
Bradley DOES have a few nice recruiting advantages...great academics, new facilities, and a REALLY great, loyal fan base.
BUT there are MANY other advantages a school might have in recruiting that Bradley simply does not have..........
being BCS, being the premier state school, being a state school, being in a large metropolitan area, having a nice new campus, having GREAT student support, having football, getting on TV a lot, having favorable press locally, getting good coverage in the nearest MAJOR media markets, etc...
Some of those other "advantages" might never happen at Bradley and winning will overcome some of them -- but I think it will ALWAYS be true - at least in the lifetimes of most all of us..
that recruiting to a small, private mid-major school in Peoria IS and ALWAYS be difficult and will always require TOP NOTCHED effort and a little bit of luck.
Bradley DOES have a few nice recruiting advantages...great academics, new facilities, and a REALLY great, loyal fan base.
BUT there are MANY other advantages a school might have in recruiting that Bradley simply does not have..........
being BCS, being the premier state school, being a state school, being in a large metropolitan area, having a nice new campus, having GREAT student support, having football, getting on TV a lot, having favorable press locally, getting good coverage in the nearest MAJOR media markets, etc...
Some of those other "advantages" might never happen at Bradley and winning will overcome some of them -- but I think it will ALWAYS be true - at least in the lifetimes of most all of us..
that recruiting to a small, private mid-major school in Peoria IS and ALWAYS be difficult and will always require TOP NOTCHED effort and a little bit of luck.
Agreed, and I wouldn't expect any coach at BU to get 100% of the D1 recruits coming out of the peoria area...the need to broaden horizons and venture into other geographical areas is a necessity no doubt.
Let's be clear. I am not, and have not, talked about kids from the state or local kids that went to BCS schools. No Bradley coach has ever gotten those kids consistently, nor do I expect them to. Kids generally go to the highest level they are recruited. I would never expect BU to get a kid that is offered by Michigan or Iowa, etc. Same for Drake or UNI and Iowa kids.
I also don't expect BU to get every single local kid. There are a lot of good players out there and a school only has so many scholarships. If a kid goes to Drake and plays well---that's fine---as long as Bradley has just as good of players and doing well.
But to see local and state kids go to other MVC schools and excel when Bradley is finishing last then, yeah, then it becomes an issue.
For example--I didn't care that Jeremy Stanton went to Evansville--Bradley had good guards from the state during that time.
hey - it would be great to start getting the Manual kids to Bradley - maybe we need to hire one of the Manual coaches??![]()