The Braves are 2-3 in the Valley and a whole lot of criticism is flying. Outside of being president (or maybe a message board moderator), I have to think there's no more dangerous job in regards to criticism shot at you than being a D-I college coach. Everyone has an opinion, and they all claim to be experts.
We all saw the criticism in the local Peoria newspaper...but maybe it'll have its desired effect. Maybe it'll spur the Braves to even work harder.
But isn't it odd, that one day after we see a column claiming the entire team and all the players and coaches are soft, NOW we see a column by the guy at the newspaper that knows the most about Bradley coning in specifically on Andrew Warren and detailing how tremendously hard he's been working and how very well he has done.
Andrew Warren is averaging about 20 points per game since the start of Valley conference play and is one of the best players in the league right now. Thankfully someone other than a few Bradley fans now notices that, and he highlights the very HARD work Andrew has put in to get to where he is.
For those who don't know Andrew Warren, he is one of the most pleasant people you'd ever meet. Polite, friendly, easy to make friends with, and even a little bit of a comic at times. But he is dedicated to being the best he can be on the court. And his talents were overlooked by a lot of college recruiters when he came to Bradley 3 years ago.
Andrew is not even half way through his junior season, and now has 798 career points at BU. Andrew now has career averages of 10 ppg, 3 rpg, 81.2% on FT's and 41.3% on 3-pointers...but it's Andrew's performances of late that are most noticable...as the past 5 Valley games have been tough, yet Andrew is performing well and getting better every game. He is showing power and moves that he hasn't shown in more than a year.
Here is the link to the local column on Andrew...
Andrew Warren: "Successful Return to Court"
Here's wishing Andrew and the Braves a great run through the end of the season....
But there's more....let me next highlight another Bradley Brave whose work ethic is anything but soft. Will Egolf had a devastating knee injury little over a year ago. The process of recovery is hard and quite commonly quite unsuccessful....just ask a couple of ISU players who have tried to come back from ACL surgery, Bobby Hill and Jeremy Robinson...neither of whom have been able to even make a dent in the lineup as the injury and surgery simply left them unable to be what they once were.
What many people don't know is that Will's ACL rupture was quite complex and way worse than most...involving multiple ligament tears, cartilege tears, and even bone injury.
But Will Egolf has now begun to show athleticism and moves we have never seen before from him. His pivot move down the lane Saturday was nice and he's been getting up off the floor better. And we really haven't been hurt in the paint by the guys he's been guarding! (he'll get a test against Eglseder!)
Again...Will is anything but soft...often leaving the court with a fat lip or blood trickling from his nose, but never backing down. He didn't play a lot of post in high school so this is something he's had to put some effort into and learn.
BTW- check out this video of Will running the wing in high school!!
Note the behind the back dribble and high rise dunk!
Will heating up in Alaska
Then there's Dyricus Simms-Edwards...who is also - anything but soft.....
This kid was set to rest his injured foot with stress reaction in the 4th metatarsal for at least 4 weeks.
But in only about 3 weeks he was back...
and in the 2nd game back Dyricus logged almost 20 minutes, and I don't know anyone who'd use the word soft in the context of DSE. The best is yet to come.
Same goes for Taylor Brown, Sam Maniscalco, Jake, Chris, Eddren.......these guys are going through a tough spell...but it will make them tougher individuals...
Their shots - GOOD SHOTS that they are taking- like layups - just aren't falling, the opponents have always seemed to get someone hotter than heck, and in each game we've shown bursts of excellent play...so I remain optimistic.
I know a portion of the fan base is fickle and at the same time vocal...
Those fickle, vocal fans got Molinari fired, then the same people ironically and paradoxically whined for years about how the fine players Mo had recruited (Granger, Tucker, Tisby..) never had a chance to stay in Peoria and show everyone how good of a team we'd have had.
Amazing and at the same time ironic...I think this proves that the sentiment from the fickle, never-happy crowd is more dangerous than helpful.
These are to a large part, the same people who saw Patrick O'Bryant as a freshman and declared him a long term project and a wasted scholarship....
and the same people who ranted incessantly how we should get rid of JJ Tauai, and dump the juco players like Will Franklin, Taylor Brown, or Theron Wilson.
Recently we've seen their convoluted logic when they claim we have terrible production out of our bigs, yet we should have done everything we can to hold onto the guy coaching our bigs when he decided on his own to leave!
BTW-- Here's a stat to chew on....
at the time our "bigs-coach" left, Will Egolf was averaging 6.5 ppg and 4.5 rpg.
In the games since then, against what is CLEARLY the tougher part of the schedule...he's averaging...8.0 ppg, and 4.5 rpg...so I'd give Will the credit for getting better.
The Bradley game Tuesday at UNI will be on ESPNU!!
http://www.bradleybraves.com//ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=3400&ATCLID=204867473
Meltdown at USC continues....head football coach Pete Carroll is gone to the NFL. The truth is finally trying to come to light that USC has been cheating for years...
but this whole act of letting the FB coach go and and slapping the hands of the basketball program will probably be enough for NCAA and they'll look the other way and never bother to really expose the cheating that's gone on from Reggie Bush to OJ Mayo!
Watch it unfold...and see that the NCAA literally gives them a pass despite the cheating they've done...
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/sports_blog/2010/01/pete-carroll-to-take-seattle-seahawks-coaching-position.html
Here's a laugh and also shows how fickle fans can be...
Kansas is rated #1 and goes on the road to suffer a tough loss to a ranked team...
Guess what??? There's a freakin' meltdown on the Kansas message board!!
They are crying like the sky is falling, looking for someone to rip or blame, even blaming head coach Bill Self - calling him "stupid!", and talking about who they'd want "if Bill Self were not their coach"!!!!!!!!!!
"If Self wasn't our coach, who would you want?"
http://mbd.scout.com/mb.aspx?s=172&f=2481&t=5425012
"I blame Bill Self ........"
http://mbd.scout.com/mb.aspx?s=172&f=2481&t=5441041
"Nice zone, coach"
http://mbd.scout.com/mb.aspx?s=172&f=2481&t=5439622
BTW-- Bruce Pearl has finally realized now that fate has taken away all his gun-toting, drug-using studs, that he actually does have kids sitting on the bench that can play and who want to play!
He even seems to concede he never knew that before!
...duh...."We have a basketball program here"
But it's not like they have no talent...
they have basically the same level of talented kids as far as the 4-Star and 5-Star recruits as Kansas has!!
http://bradleyfans.com/vb/showthread.php?p=157586#post157586
DePaul will announce today that head coach Jerry Wainwright is stepping down. Look for one of the assistants, Billy Garrett, David Booth, or Tracy Webster to take over while DePaul searches for their next head coach.
Right now the going rumble is that it'll be Tracy Webster.
Will any of their players bolt??? BU had previously wanted Devin Hill.
ESPN is reporting Wainwright will step down.
http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=1213866806468167855
Another player Bradley pursued, Chris Colvin - freshman at Iowa State, has been suspended for unspecified behavior.
After Illinois tore Indiana apart in the paint and Mike Tisdale went off for 27 pts, 9 rebs, while IU post players were all but non-existent...
Indiana is out beating the bushes for anyone available to play in the paint.
They have offered one big kid from Carmel-
http://indiana.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=1038396
and are also reportedly after Greg Echineque, who just left Rutgers a few days ago, looking to transfer elsewhere for playing time...and a couple other juco big men.
But if the kid can't find playing time at Rutgers, then won't he just be yet another benchwarming big man at Indiana?
Recall, the Hoosiers do have two 7-footers already on the bench...
senior Tijan Jobe and Bawa Muniru who's been a few prep schools before joining IU.
It's only 1/2 way into Crean's 2nd season but there are already some pretty impatient and unhappy Indiana fans who are wondering why even when the Hoosiers have a big lead, that Tom Crean gets outcoached all the way down the stretch and gets beaten.
Saint Louis saw the debut of Cody Ellis, the top player in Australia and an incoming freshman, as he played in his first game since finally being cleared by NCAA.
SLU beat Richmond 63-58...still showing signs of struggling with scoring...but Ellis had 10 pts, 5 rebs in 23 minutes.
Rick Majerus now has two Aussies on his roster, as SLU goes to 10-5 and 1-0 in the A-10.
GO Braves!
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