Rumors and Darned Rumors

Just last week after Eddren McCain left Bradley - there were multiple reports that other players were going to leave and we'd be hearing about it any minute...
In fact I have heard rumors (specifically by name) since the MVC Tournament of players leaving and except for Eddren, who was the obvious pick if anyone was going to leave, NOBODY else has left....
so scratch one sky-is-falling theory that we're still waiting on...

Then back a couple weeks ago - a blogger said John Wilkins had verballed to Iowa State. Instantly a few on the message boards said it was true and even a few so-called legitimate press outlets went with the story saying Wilkins had verballed, even though there was solid and substantial doubt about the story. Much of that doubt was raised right on BradleyFans as no direct confirmation of the verbal came from anyone in the Wilkins family, and where our own personal inquiries led us to believe NO verbal had actually occurred. Even the Iowa State fans had more skepticism than many BU fans who panicked as usual and ran for cover.
Later, the newspaper issued a half-retraction saying Wilkins misspoke....
But then the PJ Star never quoted nor bothered to interview Wilkins or his dad in the first place. How was it he misspoke if he never spoke in the first place?
Oh well.....all the posters who went ballistic and chose to buy into the false report of the verbal also took swipes at anyone who had legitimate doubts about the story.
Now it appears, from sources, that just maybe Iowa State is nowhere near the top of Wilkins' list!
So scratch a second sky-is-falling rumor........
But the big time recruiters do have a way of putting stars into the kids' eyes and make them lust for the biggest offer. It will be hard for Bradley to land the kid now that some of the real smooth talkers are in his ear, but clearly he has not verballed to Iowa State, so again chalk another one up for the reasonable people who think before they swallow rumors hook, line, and sinker.

Now we come to the latest silly rumor. Of course there's been changes in the athletic department, and I know there are stresses and further things could happen...
but one of the prime laws of the universe demands that a vacuum will easily swallow up just about anything.....
Thus, just like the simple minds that choose to join mass hysteria when someone sees the Virgin Mary in a department store window, or when some on the whole eastern seaboard panicked when Orson Welles did a radio show.......
Now we have people spouting off the Bradley's head coach is fired...
In fact, people claiming to be fans (we know otherwise) are almost gleeful at this news. Makes you wonder if they'd be tickled pink to see a couple more ACL injuries??
But the firing is sure news to a whole lot of people who DO know the true story. Our head coach along with his assistants are out recruiting and have been seen traveling to get to their destinations. And no story yet appears in the paper, and we know how they love to run with underage drinking if it happens at BU or give false reports of commitments when they don't exist (Wilkins, Manual Cass) or play up a little on-campus tussle if it involves a player...
Where are all the stories?? Shouldn't it be front page news if Coach Les is fired?
But here's what I think. I think it will happen some day. Coach Les will tire of the constant negativity, the poor coverage and the stress that comes with the job, OR he might just have a better offer or opportunity....and it could happen soon.
I hope he stays and coaches the great young group he has and gives them a chance to succeed.....we've seen first hand what can happen if a program loses all its top young talent.

Bradley will be returning 3 of the very best players in the league from last year - THREE of the top four scorers in Valley play, and with Dodie Dunson returning from injury for his final season, Bradley could have actually 4 of the best scorers and all around best players.
Plus a lot of BU fans will anxiously await the debut of Jordan Prosser, and will want to see how Dyricus and Jake have developed, and will also want to see how the rest of the players have come along...
And with the mini-but incessant-groundswell of negative nellies you kinda wonder if a minority who are vocal are so insistent on getting their way that could it possibly happen again?

This is exactly what happened in 2002. And oddly some of the nellies are the very same people who engineered it back then. Assisted by the local media criticisms and complaining and frequent negative letters selected by the local press...forced Jim Molinari out just on the cusp of having an incredibly talented team...with Phillip Gilbert, James Gillingham, Danny Granger, Joah Tucker, Antoine Tisby, etc...
Now looking back, those same people who whined about the team now say those guys would have been awesome had they only stayed at Bradley. But most of them did not stay because the whiners got their way and Mo was gone.
I can cheer any team out there as long as they play hard and give us their best efforts...and I like the guys we have and I think it would be a serious and costly mistake of long term ramifications if BU feels pressured to make huge changes.
But I see a mindset that says we will look only at numbers and if the numbers aren't what we want, then we will change. Then when change leads to a prolonged period of lesser results, then we will just pile on the next group and demand change again...
There is one difference this time around. Last time the only message board around was NOT a Bradley board. It was, in fact, an anti-Bradley board - a board loaded with criticisms, where the mods actually wanted to see negativity towards BU.
This time around, thankfully, the only message board with any significant traffic will be fair and promote the truth and not vicious lies and rumors.
The Bradley fans will have somewhere to go to get the facts and be given truth rather than silly rumor...and unfair attacks and exaggerations.

Had Northern Iowa had this kind of fans, then in 2007 when they ended with 13 losses, 9-9 in the Valley, one-and-done with a loss in the first round of the Valley Tourney (to Bradley), and losing 9 of their final 12 games..........
most certainly those fans would have demanded a change...clean house and get rid of Jacobson...he just wasn't producing with the talented "cupboard" that had been left behind!
Fortunately for the UNI fans, they didn't have that mindset...
They saw what they had and viewed it differently than some other fans elsewhere..they stuck with Jake despite a few complaints that they had made a mistake in elevating him to the top when McDermott left.
I'll bet they're glad they did.


I am reminded of a story where the so-called experts were totally fooled by the "facts" that they saw...
It is a story of the Modigliani frauds....
A group of college students made couterfeit artworks, then planted then so they'd be found and discovered as if accidentally, then be hailed as immensely valuable and "re-discovered" works of art.
Then just when it happened, the students stepped forward and even produced videotape showing and PROVING the items were phony and worthless...........
yet since the so-called experts had been fooled SO BADLY and they had certified the works as legitimate and authentic....that those experts STILL stood behind the fakes and argued they were real - even in the presence of evidence that convinced everyone else.
This just goes to show how badly "experts" can be fooled, and even more - how unwilling they are to ever admit they've been bamboozled.
http://koehlerlaw.net/2009/10/the-vermeer-and-modigliani-forgeriesfrauds-criminal-in-d-c/