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Valley Emergency Meeting in STL

Dave Reynolds just tweeted:

According to a source, MVC took no action today in meeting about new membership. Ultimate action will be "thorough, swift and discreet."
 
Elgin should have been prepared to make a move at this meeting. At the very least polled the members and made a decision. Poor poor leadership as the Valley goes down the tubes. A good tine to begin jumping ship & form a new conference. The Valley has already lost any respect it was hanging on from past history.
 
SycamoreFanatic said:
Elgin should have been prepared to make a move at this meeting. At the very least polled the members and made a decision. Poor poor leadership as the Valley goes down the tubes. A good tine to begin jumping ship & form a new conference. The Valley has already lost any respect it was hanging on from past history.
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The condition of the Valley is exactly what happens when leadership is reactive instead of proactive. It is nowhere near as strong as it was 10 years ago. The problem is, the league may be at an all time low. There are no viable options except to improve from within. Without that everything else is futile. The Valley needs new leadership that is young and innovative.
 
Did not really expect a final decision to be made an announced on Sunday. I know the OVC has buy-out language in their conference charter if a school wishes to leave on short notice. If they contacted schools on Sunday with an offer, did not really expect anybody to make the decision that quickly.
 
Valley Emergency Meeting

Valley Emergency Meeting

Per my previous posts, IMO the Valley has had very poor leadership and no apparent proactive moves to improve its standing. It seems to wait for potential new members to come to us rather than going out and selling them on the benefits of Valley membership. It's time for new leadership in the valley OR Bradley should make it known that they are going to seek better conference affiliation by quickly building our program and then moving UP to a much better conference affiliation. IMO, Drake, So. Ill. Ill. St., and No. Iowa should do the same. We've had enough from weak sisters like Ind. St., Evansville, and Loyola!
Wizard
 
wizard said:
...OR Bradley should make it known that they are going to seek better conference affiliation ...
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well, we were definitely in a strong position that could have happened a decade ago and even up 'til 2009 while Ken Kavanagh was running the show..

but the earth-shattering and poorly devised changes that happened beginning in March of 2009 quickly obliterated any conceivable chance Bradley would have of moving to any other desirable conference.
EVERYTHING bad that anyone can name started when Joanne took over - and up 'til that point Bradley was riding high with NCAA Sweet Sixteen appearances, sellouts, great scheduling, average crowds of 10,000, huge donor support - nearly 80 members in the BSS, $160 mil raised to upgrade facilities, and a truly great legacy that teams WANTED to play us and leagues would have wanted us.

BUT -- For a while there under Joanne Glasser, I doubt even the Summit League would have wanted Bradley - although now we are definitely on the comeback trail.

Nope, you can blame the PJS' darling Joanne Glasser for destroying pretty much everything that was good about Bradley Athletics....
Good fans like you and I have been sending the alarm signal and warning about this disaster from the time JG took over then hired MC....but instead they listened to the few squeaky wheels that wanted changes.......
hopefully it won't be just you and I left when we finally escape all the fallout.
 
wizard said:
Per my previous posts, IMO the Valley has had very poor leadership and no apparent proactive moves to improve its standing. It seems to wait for potential new members to come to us rather than going out and selling them on the benefits of Valley membership. It's time for new leadership in the valley OR Bradley should make it known that they are going to seek better conference affiliation by quickly building our program and then moving UP to a much better conference affiliation. IMO, Drake, So. Ill. Ill. St., and No. Iowa should do the same. We've had enough from weak sisters like Ind. St., Evansville, and Loyola!
Wizard
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I could not agree more. In the past schools such as Louisville, Cincinnati, Memphis and Tulsa have bolted to improve their football as well as basketball. Now we have schools like Creighton and Wichita that have left to improve their basketball by playing against better competition. I can see the time when Bradley is in a midwestern conference consisting of schools that don't play FCS football.
 
There is no question the Glasser administration was a disaster. There is a much deeper problem within the league. The quality of basketball has declined steadily over the past several years. With that, so has attendance. I'm not going to single out any schools, but there are several that will never be in a position to consistently compete for a league title. When the Bracket Buster started, they did quite well. As it went on and more schools were added it was all the league could do to finish .500 overall. As weak as the bottom half of the league has become and as weak as their non conference schedules are the post season Valley tournament winner will find it very difficult to get a NCAA seed higher than 12. This is why until the bottom half of the league must be more competitive. I don't know how you do it or how you enforce it, but until that happens the doormats are gonna drag the rest of the league down. You can add Belmont, Murray State and Valpo, but you still have the same problem.
 
Vent said:
There is no question the Glasser administration was a disaster. There is a much deeper problem within the league. The quality of basketball has declined steadily over the past several years. With that, so has attendance. I'm not going to single out any schools, but there are several that will never be in a position to consistently compete for a league title. When the Bracket Buster started, they did quite well. As it went on and more schools were added it was all the league could do to finish .500 overall. As weak as the bottom half of the league has become and as weak as their non conference schedules are the post season Valley tournament winner will find it very difficult to get a NCAA seed higher than 12. This is why until the bottom half of the league must be more competitive. I don't know how you do it or how you enforce it, but until that happens the doormats are gonna drag the rest of the league down. You can add Belmont, Murray State and Valpo, but you still have the same problem.
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I agree and will add that we have no control over what any of the other Valley teams do. The new Bradley regime is headed in the right direction. That direction is to return to being a basketball force to be contended with. We need to succeed at that and then, like Wichta State, move onward and upward and control most of our own destiny.
 
pfcmsh said:
I agree and will add that we have no control over what any of the other Valley teams do. The new Bradley regime is headed in the right direction. That direction is to return to being a basketball force to be contended with. We need to succeed at that and then, like Wichta State, move onward and upward and control most of our own destiny.
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I agree with this. :)

And before we name schools like Indiana State, Evansville, and Loyola as "weak sisters", realize that because of the damage done by Glasser, et. al., for most of the last 6 or 7 seasons those schools have finished above Bradley in men's and women's Basketball and many other sports.
 
Yes I agree we just need to focus on getting better. We have been part of the problem since 2011-not part of the solution. I also don't see better conference options and we simply are not attractive to anyone else at this point. The rest of our sports programs are not world beaters either( soccer has been good but even that is going through a rough patch)..sad but true
 
I did not realize Drake, Loyola and UNI don't play baseball. Also there are six affiliate members: Central Arkansas - men's soccer, Dallas Baptist - baseball, Arkansas Little Rock - women's soccer, Maryland Baltimore County - men's tennis, SIU-E - men's soccer, Stony Brook - men's tennis.
 
houstonbrave said:
Yes I agree we just need to focus on getting better. We have been part of the problem since 2011-not part of the solution.
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I think you are off by a decade. The last time Bradley finished in the top three was 2001. It's not one coach or administrator, it's a culture that the current group is trying to change.

With the two best recent programs out of the Valley, now is the time to make a move up the standings. The bar has been lowered. Two losses just came off the schedule.
 
when the admin backed our coach and allowed him to recruit his own players and have his own coaches..
we put together a string of solid 20-win seasons and post-season appearances..
99% of Bradley fans wouldn't mind returning to those days..

but then began the meddling and the arrogant interference by the higher-ups, and we all know what happened then...

Coach Les is not to blame and the proof is that the first 8 or 9 candidates they brought and offered up to $700,000/yr to - turned down Joanne cold and knew it would be a career-killer to work with her pulling all the strings - and indeed it has danged near killed Geno's career.
 
it's boogie time said:
I think you are off by a decade. The last time Bradley finished in the top three was 2001. It's not one coach or administrator, it's a culture that the current group is trying to change.

With the two best recent programs out of the Valley, now is the time to make a move up the standings. The bar has been lowered. Two losses just came off the schedule.
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Bradley might not have been in the top 3, but we were always near the top in attendance and had decent teams and tougher schedules.
 
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