Lindy's Preseason College Basketball Preview Magazine - and a 6-year followup of the NCAA investigating Bradley in the summer of 2005

The 2nd 2011-2012 College Basketball Preview issue is out, Lindy's.

Here's a short review of it from a Missouri Valley perspective...and much of the info relevant to the Missouri Valley is written by and contributed by Steve Pivovar - the beat writer for the Creighton Bluejays, so it stands to NO surprise that Creighton players kinda dominate all the preseason teams and Creighton is rated so highly...

The cover of the local issue has Illinois' Brandon Paul and DePaul's Brandon Young.

In the National preseason Top 25 - they have Creighton at #23.

In the prediction of the NCAA Tourney bids, they have two MVC teams in, both losing before the 2nd round of Regionals, Creighton as Valley winner and Wichita State as an at large team.
They rank the Valley as the #11 strongest conference, behind all the BCS conferences, CUSA, A-10, MWC, and WCC (which now includes BYU).

Among preseason accolades for individual players, they have BOTH Wichita State's Carl Hall and Memphis' Stan Simpson labelled among the TOP transfers (they include juco transfers and D-I transfers).

On their listing of Top 10 Mid-major players they include both Doug McDermott & Kyle Weems.

Then they rank the Top 20 players nationally at each position...
Creighton's Antoine Young is ranked as #24 best point guard in all of Division-I

..but they also list ex-Saluki Brandon Wood as the #9 best shooting guard in the ENTIRE NATION -- seriously!!
And they have Robbie Hummel - even coming off double knee surgery - something virtually nobody has ever done before - ranked as #11 best small forward nationally.


In the Valley here's how they see the finish..
1- Creighton
2- Wichita State
3- Indiana State
4- Drake
5- Northern Iowa
6- Evansville
7- Missouri State
8- Bradley
9- SIU
10- Illinois State

Then the 1st Team preseason All Valley:
Antoine Young-Creighton, Toure Murry-Wichita, Dwayne Lathan-Indiana State, Kyle Weems-Missouri State, Doug McDermott-Creighton

2nd Team - Dyricus Simms Edwards, Jake Odum, Colt Ryan, Mamadou Seck, Greg Echenique

3rd Team - BRADLEY's Taylor Brown, UNI's Anthony James, Rayvonte Rice, Garrett Stutz, Jackie Carmichael

Player of the Year - Doug McDermott
Newcomer of the Year - Carl Hall
Best Defender - Jake Odum
Best NBA Prospect - Doug McDermott (OK - someone name the last mid-major white kid who was a 6-7 power forward that made the NBA? - ;))

Not much of note in any of the individual team sections that everyone doesn't already know except the writer seems to think Will Egolf is still coming back this season - and calls him just questionable and says our front court will struggle if he isn't back.
He also lists the departure of Sam Maniscalco as one of the things that has happened "since Geno Ford was hired"...
when we all know Sammy was gone well before that.

Again -- if I thought there was much for any Bradley fan to like or enjoy reading or keeping - I would have bought the issue. Instead I just previewed it and decided against spending the money.
If you're a big time Shaka Smart fan or if you are a Creighton Bluejays fan then buy it because half the issue will be to your liking.



It was 6 years ago this summer and something that I have never heard of either BEFORE or SINCE happened - and it happened to Bradley. And I challenge anyone to find even one other example of this same kind of occurrence even in MAJOR NCAA CASES......
The NCAA swooped onto Bradley's campus unannounced to dig like crazy for something they thought was happening -- something that they must have thought so SEVERE and URGENT that they used unprecedented actions - actions they have never used before or since!!!

First - the NCAA is involved with checking on issues at member schools constantly -- and full blown investigations are occurring at every incresing frequency.

BUT -- here's how the process goes....IT ALWAYS follows a slow, open process....

First the NCAA needs to be notified or made aware of an issue somewhere. Sometimes that's an incident of self-reporting, sometimes (and lately it's a LOT) it's an issue that's made widely PUBLIC by the media or bloggers (like the payoffs at USC, OHIO STATE, and UCONN), and sometimes it is something the NCAA decides to investigate because of confidential and even ANONYMOUS tips...

BUT -- before the NCAA begins an investigation, they first make some calls, ask some questions - they need to know more because it is clearly unfair to go after an NCAA member based on a tip or an unfounded report - especially if it comes from some disgruntled person, and they even send ADVANCED official notice to the schools ALL THE TIME to tell them of the issue and even ask for more data, records, etc...
In other words - secret, planned on-campus investigaitons are just NOT the NCAA's way --

In all of the history of the NCAA - I am unaware of even a single incident where the NCAA swooped into town, came unannounced onto campus, showed up with NO prior notice, and started asking for specific info, files, and demanding answers and intreviews...
Does anyone else know of even one other example???

THIS HAS NEVER, NEVER, EVER happened.....that is except ONCE....

This did happen once in all of history -- so it surely must have been some massive cheating scandal -- something so urgent and at the highest level of intentional cheating that it warranted this once-in-a-century plan of action....

So what happened in the summer of 2005 that the NCAA somehow got wind of something so terrible, so massive, so sinister, so damaging to the game and to the integrity of the sport that it warranted an IMPRESSIVE sneak investigation by NOT ONE....
but TWO of the NCAA's TOP investigators and field agents??

Well -- the answer has become a little bit more clear over the past six years, but it has still never been made known very widely - and many of the people who knew the details and facts are now gone or moved on -- but further info has come to light that has never been made known previously since some of the people who have moved on are now discreetly and cautiously revealing some facts.

Seems that someone ratted on Bradley by making claims to the NCAA of some violations that were supposedly occurring and being hidden on campus (someone with an axe to grind?) -- AND YET -- after the NCAA came, searched, dug for weeks, asked all kinds of questions, they ended up concluding that those "anonymous tips" that led to this unprecedented investigation were unfounded.

That Bradley was NOT cheating..... As you all know, the only thing they did find was the inadvertent and previously unknown summer job overpay....but since the NCAA was so embarrassed by jumping the gun on everything else, they decided to blow the whole summer job thing that was truly a minor accoutning error - into a major issue.
Well - I have more info that I will discuss privately - info that obviously has never been revealed - especially about who was it that sicked the NCAA attack dogs on Bradley and why. You can connect the dots but you'll have to catch up with more elsewhere, discreetly, and off the record....catch ya later.........