Reports on Bradley, other Valley teams, and a weird way to go about getting an interview....

Nice report on the Bradley basketball players taking time out to be with kids....
http://www.bradleybraves.com/ViewArticle.dbml?SPSID=25965&SPID=1498&ATCLID=205006835&DB_OEM_ID=3400


I wish this kind of thing would get a little more positive press......



There is a nice column in the PJ Star covering BU's boot camp...
http://www.bradleyhoops.com/breaking/x1423340127/Braves-marching-to-new-regimen?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Keep it up ..and get us a nice picture of those camouflage jerseys!!!

Coach Les likes what he is seeing in boot camp...
http://twitter.com/#!/CoachJimLes/status/26651336720

The players are quite pumped as well........
http://twitter.com/#!/dodie_dunson/status/26646991766
http://twitter.com/#!/willFREEMAN21/status/26417451501




Here's a little positive press for some local high school kids....in the Sun Times...

"Hard-nosed Peorians
There may not be a team in Illinois this season with a better tough-as-nails 1-2 punch than Peoria Manual's Kiki Stokes and Jacoby Roddy. These are a couple of players, who played this past summer with the Illinois Wolves, who are enjoyable to watch. What's interesting about the tandem is they may not fit a particular position right now when projecting them as college prospects, but they are both just players who battle and make plays.

Roddy, who is an athletic but undersized 4-man at 6-5, continues to show an ability to step out and knock down that 12-15 foot face-up jumper. And he rebounds and rebounds and rebounds. Stokes, meanwhile, reminds the Hoops Report of former Illinois player Chester Frazier in so many ways. While he may not be a true point guard or the ideal shooting guard, Stokes defends, competes, is about as tough as they come and finds ways to impact a game.

Kyle Heck of Metamora has been receiving some interest from college programs at all levels. The 6-2 guard opened some eyes with his play at Morris and is a solid small college basketball prospect."
http://blogs.suntimes.com/hoopsreport/2010/10/a_little_flash_returns_to_even.html



Here's a real "rumor" -- actually sort of a prediction or projection by a guy on the Indiana message board...just for the sake of discussion...
so take it for what it's worth.....
"Matt Roth will graduate early, and play out his remaining eligibility at Bradley as a grad student."
http://mbd.scout.com/mb.aspx?s=170&f=2353&t=6484646

One followup response says they think he'll leave Indiana and walk on at ISU!



Duke was just ranked by Sports Illustrated as having the 8th toughest non-conference schedule...so you see what playing Bradley will do for a team??
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2010/writers/luke_winn/10/05/schedules/1.html



The Wichita State sports writer Paul Suellentrop is previewing the Valley and ranking the teams...
He started with Evansville -- so I suspect he's putting them 10th.
http://blogs.kansas.com/shockwaves/2010/10/06/three-questions-for-evansville/

Then he has Drake...9th in the Valley...
http://blogs.kansas.com/shockwaves/2010/10/07/three-questions-for-drake/



King O having some issues??
http://twitter.com/#!/Osiris_Eldridge/status/26651997664



One of DePaul's players, a projected starter...Eric Wallace...just broke his leg...
http://mbd.scout.com/mb.aspx?s=430&f=2585&t=6479940



Also... this morning, in the Cue Section, there was an interview with Jay Leno...
here are a couple excerpts....see what you think, since the journalist doing the interview with Leno then turns the entire story in a completely different and bizarre direction.....

--Question: "Are you calling in from home today?"
Leno: "No -- at home? I'm at work. I get here at 7:30 in the morning."

--Question: "I saw a story on Popeater.com recently about your car breaking down. What happened?"
Leno: "It was here in Los Angeles about 40 miles from my house. I was driving a 1907 steam car, it looks like a big giant tractor. You really can't make a move here without someone thinking it's a big story. When you don't fool around with hookers or drugs or anything, I guess (a car breaking down) makes a big story."

...and there's more, but every single answer that Leno gave as recorded in the interview in the PJS seemed no more than what a comedian would give -- in fact none seemed out of line or jokes or inappropriate.

BUT --- apparently that's not how the interviewer saw it...
She then writes a companion column that is every bit as long as the entire interview....and the column is one constant and continuous rip and attack of Jay Leno!

She even seems to blame Leno for some insult another comedian laid on her apparently from some completely unrelated interview she did a long time ago...

Here are a few of Hatch's slams on Leno -- see if you think this is good journalism....even the title of her column is an obvious attempt to insult Leno...

"Leno's more ogre than loveable oaf"

"I've watched Jay Leno on television since my wee days. His big, sweet, oaf-like presence...

When his assistant accepted my interview request with him to advance his Oct. 16 performance at Bradley University, I was on top of the world.

So, why, after I hung up the phone with him, did I feel like someone kicked my dog?
"Are you calling from home today?" is how I started out.
He answered, "No - at home? I'm at work. I get here at 7:30 in the morning."

I sensed some irritation.

How careless of me. I guess I just asked out of habit, because most of the comedians I interview are just getting their day started in the afternoon.

I asked him what he thinks his legacy will be and he seemed to stumble, not sure at first how to answer.

I thought we'd bond over some car talk, since everyone knows about his extensive collection. But I made the mistake of mentioning a photo I saw of him online, in which a 1907 steam car had broken down. I thought he'd have a sense of humor about it - after all, if you go around driving century old vehicles, don't you automatically run the risk of having a little car trouble? He said he couldn't believe that made news.

...I've had bad interviews before. There was B.B. King, who I spoke with after he'd already done a few consecutive interviews. He seemed tired and distracted. There was Greg Proops, a comedian who said I could call his personal cell phone number for the interview, but that I was not to share it with anyone. He was not amused when I told him I would wait until after our interview to sell the number on eBay.

Mental note: don't crack jokes to comedians.

..It seemed like Leno was tensely on guard, waiting for me to sneak in a question or two about his late-night rival.

Sometimes during an interview I feel like a nurse with a needle, poking around someone's arm to find that nice, fat vein. I never tapped into that vein on Leno, and I didn't even hit a nerve. I just slogged through the interview that I had looked forward to with such glee just a few hours earlier.

As the late-night hosts know, a bad interview is better than no interview. And I guess I shouldn't be surprised that real-life Jay Leno isn't the same as late-night host Jay Leno. After all, this is show-business. You know, as in putting on a show? And as, it's only business?"

Read the whole interview, then read the accompanying hit piece.....
http://www.pjstar.com/entertainment/enterainmentcolumns/x1164157757/Cue-Card-Lenos-more-ogre-than-loveable-oaf



Is it any wonder why people often DO NOT LIKE speaking to the press? I have been asked several times by various media representatives for an interview -- given that occasionally a reporter wants some comment from someone in the particular field I work in. I have always refused, as I have seen time and again that no matter what you say, there's always a chance that it'll look a little different in the newspaper than you had envisioned it. And at times you literally get ambushed as Jay Leno did, when he simply complied with the interviewer's request for the interview, and then gets attacked as a bad guy.....
By all other measures, and by every single other time I have ever seen a story about Leno or an interview with him...he seems like a pretty nice guy, a fair guy, and gives a decent interview. I have seen segments on entertainment TV shows and even segments interviewing him on the History channel about his cars....and he's always in a good mood and does a nice interview. I have never heard nor can I even find a single reference anywhere - even with a Google search saying he's a bad guy, an oaf, or a phony (as in how he was criticized... "putting on a show").
And what's with bringing up some age old peeve she has with some other completely unrelated comedian named Proops, then ragging on that as if Leno was somehow also responsible for other woes she's experienced in her interviews...
In fact, it seems that about the only consistent thing in her rant is she repeatedly seems to land bad interviews with famous people - and ticks them off with her line of questioning. Hmmm...seems to say a lot more about her than about Jay Leno - so why bash Leno for her problems with BB King or Greg Proops??

After actually saying some fairly nice things about Peoria and the people here in Peoria, I doubt if Jay Leno reads this hit piece, that he'd ever want to come here again or give any interviews to reporters from Peoria.



WICHITA STATE COMES IN RANKED #46 in these guys' preseason college basketball preview and Top 99 ranking...
http://www.thesportsbank.net/college-bball/99-in-99-46-wichita-state-shockers/

They had previously ranked Bradley at #73, Creighton at #61, and UNI at #60..so they must be projecting BU as 4th in the Valley.

These guys are ranking the Top 65 teams, and have Wichita State at #40, and Missouri State at #35!
http://thehoopsreport.com/


One other site is ranking the legacy of each of the TOP 100 mid-major programs..using his own personal formula that's influenced by wins, wins over BCS schools, NCAA wins, etc...

His count is now all the way down to the Top 25, and using his point system, he's still at 73 points for the #26 team.
But Bradley should have close to 90 points, and maybe more -- and so clearly Bradley should end up somewhere considerably higher than 20th and maybe inside the TOP 10 of all the non-BCS programs.....
Gonzaga, Memphis, Xavier...they'll be at the top, but there aren't many other mid-majors who'll have scores higher than Bradley.
I see this as positive -- even if BU came in around 10, 12, or even 15 (although I have to believe they'll be way higher), I think it reflects that we have way, way more to be proud of and happy about than to be complaining about.
But then, as I have said elsewhere, if a glass of water was 99% full -- some would still choose to whine about the 1% that's not there, than to appreciate the 99% that is there.



These guys pick Illinois to win the Big Ten...
http://www.collegechalktalk.com/general/2010-11/releases/10.7.10house