Lots of news, Bradley, the Valley, local recruits, Illini...

Note all the changes on the official BU roster.....
Walk-on Jordan Brown is not listed at all..
He has not been with the team at any of their events thus far -- maybe he's going to redshirt...I also haven't seen Ned Goertzen...but it doesn't mean he's not around, maybe he's hitting the books

The roster has been updated on the official BU site, and Ned is NOT on the roster any more...his name was there a few weeks ago but no longer..
Walt Lemon has #25, Andrew Davis has #23, Egolf has changed from #21 to #54..

Prosser is up from 220lb to 240lb
Dodie is up 5 lb
TB is up almost 20 lbs (and we have seen this is not exaggerated)
Milos is up almost 15 lb
AT is up to 232lb

..and for the first time since 2003-2004 there is no Sam Singh on the roster!
http://www.bradleybraves.com/SportSelect.dbml?SPSID=19333&SPID=1498&DB_OEM_ID=3400&KEY=&Q_SEASON=2010



Here's a story many have not seen......several local athletes involved in a serious accident, including a number of Manual basketball players who already have offers from Valley schools and who BU is following!
What's with all these guys, all underage, driving around at 3AM -- I guess even their parents must have them on a loose leash!
Brandon Watson was driving, one kid was thrown frmo the vehicle, and it's pretty amazing and thankfully - nobody was seriously injured.
http://blogs.pjstar.com/prepsplus/2010/09/02/details-on-manual-accident/



The new preseason preview magazines are starting to hit the newsstands...
I have kinda burned out going after them all and trying to make much of them....
they really don't vary much and kinda reflect the sentiment we see and hear all summer...nothing new. In fact, their individual player comments are often way behind the times, leaving out major current developments...understandably because much of this had to be written months ago. Personally, I think if you just stay up on the blogs and message boards you'd have a better feel for the stuff going on in the Valley.
Now -- if you wanted to buy it to scope out stuff on other conferences and teams, then it is probably going to be more useful for you there.

Lindy's is out and I've seen it -- it's OK -- BU picked 5th...can't disagree with a lot of it...but I will mention a few areas where I think differently....
obviously everyone's entitled to their opinion, but the guy writing the Valley section gives the nod as the "Best Playmaker" in the Valley to Sam Maniscalco, yet he doesn't include Sammy on either his 1st team or 2nd team All Conference. That's hard to understand...
I know I am biased, but from a few of the things I'll note below, clearly this guy is over-the-top biased for Creighton...

If Maniscalco does turn out to be the best playmaker, like Adam Emmenecker or Kwadzo Ahelegbe have in the past few years, then why wouldn't any team prize him at a 1st team-level?? Guess we'll have to wait and see.

Oh well....everyone's entitled to their own opinion, and beyond UNI last season, who everyone picked to finish first...the rest of the teams were all bunched 2-9 or so with no spot in that spread separated by more than a game in a close year in the Valley....

But here's where writer Steve Pivovar has been wrong in the past....he misses on the individual player accolades...
....some of his past comments on other Valley players have been silly....

For example -- let me quote his picks for the best players in the league LAST YEAR...

"-Most immediate impact on his team - Jake Kelly
-Best rebounder - Jordan Myers (SIU)
-Best jump shot - Justin Carter
-Best NBA prospect - Andrew Bock
-Biggest "Signing Coup" - Andrew Bock
...etc..."

A couple years earlier (06-07) he picked Jeremy Crouch as the best NBA prospect above Eldridge, Tolliver, and in 07-08 he picked Anthony Thompson as "Player that will Take You By Surprise"



One more thought on the idea of games up on campus...

First -- I can see the uproar if ALL the games were being moved....but the Chicken Little-type frenzy is hard to understand considering...
that it's possibly just one single game per year plus exhibitions...ONE GAME -- other schools do it and I have never heard any of those "world is coming to an end"-arguments ever put forward before...

Anyway -- BU is getting jacked around by the city in its deals with the Civic Center -- we never get the best dates, the fees are skyrocketing, and there's lots of problems with the venue, the electronics, the wetness, etc... -- BU has to do something or else we might just not have any place to play or have to move our home games to Bloomington!!

In fact, on the boards, I linked to a couple schools doing the exact same thing - moving games into their own smaller ion-campus arenas for very sound reasons.
One was DePaul, who often move one of their expected low-attendance home games to their puny 3000 seat home arena...
DePaul is moving their game against Ball State THIS YEAR to their small McGrath Arena...

Seriously -- McGrath has only 3000 seats!!
http://www.eventticketscenter.com/Event.aspx?EventID=3905

..although with standing room they packed the place with 3502
http://www.depaulbluedemons.com/auto_pdf/p_hotos/s_chools/depa/sports/m-baskbl/auto_pdf/stats-0809

They do it sort of for a favor to the on campus students who might not be able to get to a game over at the Allstate Arena (Rosemont Horizon)..
and -- in the end since it then becomes the only game all year that some people have a chance to see,
it ends up serving MORE fans overall and a larger and more diverse fan base -- giving more opportunity overall to see a game than if held in the big arena.
And in the past several years I have never heard even one DePaul person complain like those at Bradley are.

Here's an example...on Nov. 17, 2008 DePaul hosted Albany in its 3000 seat on-campus McGrath Arena.
They won 75-64, and here's a quote...
"I thought playing on campus was a real plus
tonight. The large student turnout gave our guys a
lot of energy to start the game and kept pushing
them through in the second half." - DePaul head
coach Jerry Wainwright."
(they also played Hofstra there in 2006)

Not only was there no outcry from the DePaul fan base...but one post on their board even asked why not put MORE games on-campus!!
And not one other fan chimed in with complaints about the small on-campus arena..
http://depaul.rivals.com/showmsg.asp?fid=2125&tid=121574739&mid=121574739&sid=1143&style=2

Here's yet another fan's comments...he wants MORE of it!!
"As an alumni, I love it that they are playing on
campus. However, is this somthing they could start
doing more often or is it because of a schedule
conflict at All-State. Why can't they play 5 games at
McGrath next year to maintain this momentum. I
remember the NIT game and it was insane....They
should do this more often."
http://depaul.rivals.com/showmsg.asp?Override=1&mid=120712730&tid=120477682&sid=1143&fid=2125&style=1

And no where can you find even one single complaint...and you can google the comments that were in the Trib and Sun Times - and again not one complaint anywhere.

so why is BU's fan base so incessantly unhappy...
seems they are unhappy about wins and losses, about the coach, the players, about tweeting, about scheduling, about the on-campus arena, even about recruits we miss out on.....everyone loses recruits!
I don't understand all the constant misery and whining...sorry....



Here's an updated list of over 300 transfers...but still no mention of where Eddren McCain might be going...
http://community.foxsports.com/goodmanonfox/blog/2010/09/02/updated_end_of_year_transfer_list_-_grows_to_350-plus



Story about one of the ISU players - a walk on...
http://basketball.dailyherald.com/story/?id=405251



Well travelled Trevor Mbakwe - now playing at Minnesota, had a nice initial outing, albeit in a lopsided Canadian preseason exhibition game vs. University of British Columbia. He had 10 pt, 9 reb off the bench. In fact, Minnesota's bench was awesome -- they scored 50 of 80 points when the starters were kinda struggling against an easy opponent. Devoe Joseph also had a huge game off the bench.
Rodney Williams, always a controversy, started and was only 1-7 in 25 minutes.
http://www.gothunderbirds.ca/custompages/Stats/Bballm/2010-11/ubcmin.htm?SPSID=38661&SPID=3302&DB_LANG=C&DB_OEM_ID=8400



Looks like some Michigan fans are already giving up on John Beiliein
http://espn.go.com/blog/collegebasketballnation/post/_/id/14676/is-it-time-to-give-up-on-john-beilein

A couple familiar kids are at Arizona State under head coach Herb Sendek -- Brandon Dunson, Corey Hawkins...and here's an article about the players wanting to change Sendek's slow, methodical offense and turn it into a fast paced offense.
Will this constitute too many cooks in the kitchen?
http://espn.go.com/blog/collegebasketballnation/post/_/id/14617/asu-recruit-wants-to-push-the-pace

Doug Gottleib picks Illinois to win Big Ten
http://espn.go.com/ncb/notebook/_/page/notebooksummershootaround100830/big-ten