Chaos at ISU - lack of discipline, criminal behavior..

Wow - one of the ISU basketball team arrested and charged with selling drugs, manufacture & possession...etc...court date TODAY!!!
(are they rushing him to court so he won't miss practice??)

These are FELONY charges  -and not just possession but conspiracy, manufacture, delivery - peddling drugs...
what is going on over there???

Their discipline has historically been amazingly soft - so will it be any different now?
Lots & lots of players have had serious run-in with the law and not even been disciplined.

At least they suspended Geoffrey Allen .. let's see how long he is suspended...
Surely they had to know about him - they went out and recruited the kid to transfer & come to ISU - then lobbied to get the kid immediate eligibility even tho they would be just as good without him.
He should never be allowed to return to either the team or to the school if he's selling drugs.....just what kind of program would allow that?

Some history -
When they had a DUI & underage drinking under Jank (Sampay) they didn't make any move at all until they were outted on the message boards then they suspended the guy overnight then reinstated him the next morning....and he never served a minute or a game of penalty..
Pretty much the same story with Levi Dyer....only when it got brought up on a message board did the press ask Jank and he admitted it had happened but hadn't disciplined the player.

Last year when they had a couple guys arrested after going out drinking all night then beating up an innocent bystander on the street & charged with assault & battery - the players served a single days' suspension in a meaningless, early-season game against hapless SIUE then were immediately reinstated.

I won't even bring up all the players who have court dated for ordinance violations, driving without licenses, and ignoring and missing other court dates and neglecting their fines...
Four different players have court dates within the next couple weeks for these issues - FOUR!!  That's 1/3 of the team in just one given month!!!
And people there seem to spend all their worries on a Bradley player using a crude tweet or girlfriend spat.

More Attendance Woes - Going to Get worse

I know some don't want to hear about it or pretend it's not happening...so sorry to bring up the attendance issue again...but I have a bad feeling about the two weekday games next week...

Be prepared - now we are reaching the games that historically have a dropoff due to weather, holiday events, people being out of town for Christmas, students gone, band will be fill-ins, and last-but-not-least really, really crappy opponents.
We have Georgia Southern & Mississippi Valley State coming in next week - teams whose names aren't going to cause a rush to the box office....
if the crowds we're seeing now of only 6000 (with 1500-2000 empty seats) are disappointing and start causing finger-pointing, then we'd better get ready for even more finger pointing.

Several other threads suggest reasons for the near record low attendances...
I have read some people who blame the fans and say they've sorta gotten old and don't care..or blame the students....or the younger fans for not appreciating tradition or being fickle...
both of these are ridiculous...it's like any other business trying to increase sales coming out openly and blaming their customers....that sure isn't going to work and make them more appealing!

Then, of course we had the multiple columns in which the press has tried to lay all the blame on people who haven't even been here in 2, 3, and 4 years.
KW's column repeatedly went back to as far as 2007 and tried to claim it was the losses, the scheduling, the personalities, the players, the "issues", etc...
Really?? 

But it is so incredibly easy to blow that argument away because the attendance, the big crowds, the sellouts & 10K+ crowds didn't really all disappear until the past two years!
And how can the highest ranked team in all of history come in to our house and NOT be a sellout???  Close maybe, but still obviously several hundred shy of a sellout.  We used to sell out for DePaul!!
Just a couple years ago - crowds of 11,597 showed up for Michigan State & ISU and there were no empty seats & no-shows!!
Now we're even seeing a NEW benchmark we had also never seen before - on nights that BOTH BU & ISU both play at home, they are outdrawing us!!!  Is anyone noticing all this or are they too busy looking to blame KK or JL?

These mid-December non-conference games are a decent measure by which we can compare the past few years.
Of course back in 2005, 2006, 2007 we were drawing 8,000, 9,000, and even 10,000 for relatively obscure opponents in even some no name non-con games!
In 2008 we drew over 11,000 but that was for VCU - a little better known opponent but it was still well before VCU was a Final Four team.
In 2009 - even really obscure opponents that people generally stay home in droves for such as SEMO & SIUE drew well over 9,000 just the week before Christmas (remember - we're getting just over 6,000 announced but way fewer in reality).

As recently as 2009-2010 we were still drawing 9,000-10,000 for games right this time of year with competition from seasonal events all around town and for opponents as obscure as Western Carolina...

EIU, Jackson State, and Utah just two years ago drew crowds of well over 7000 up to 9000.
But now we see the biggest single-year dropoff in attendances...this year we're seeing consistently over 1000 less at these early season games........ 6300 to 6600 and next week is sure isn't going to get any better.

The problem is getting serious and the fingers are being pointed in the wrong direction.  Our kids, especially the seniors deserve to have the big crowds, the sellouts......we need to make it happen.....

Attendance woes II

Last Tuesday both Bradley & ISU played home games and ISU outdrew Bradley in attendance 

considerably...........

......... and this may be the very first time ever that has happened...BU's attendance numbers 

are getting noticably smaller and perhaps because the very people who wanted all the changes 

we have seen - simply don't want the blame - they are keeping silent about the empty arena!

Which all the more says that it is foolish to take Bradley's awesome fans and longtime local

fan-interest for granted...

some of these crowds, as I have said, are perhaps the smallest Bradley home crowds since 

we played in the armory....so why isn't that getting a bit more attention and why isn't there 

a little bit more effort to halt the skids???

Is this not a classic example of THE FANS ARE SPEAKING and nobody's listening...
One more time - if a ship is steering right for the rocks and is about wreck then why are people

either ignoring it or blaming the guy who was one of the crew members two years ago?

Perhaps when the home crowds drop under 3200 then someone besides me will wake up 

and take notice.....oops, may be too late.......I guess it already happened....

BU attendance woes

It didn't get much mention in the press but the PAID ATTENDANCE of 6313 at the GWU game represents the smallest paid attendance at regularly scheduled Bradley home game (not the NIT games - not the alternate-arena Ren-Col games) and the worst ever at the Civic Center...for a long, long time......
... a really long time!
Even the snow game had a substantially better "paid attendance"..

We are dangerously close to slipping under 6000 (although with no-shows we're already way under 5000!) in paid attendance and thus we'll be seeing ISU-like numbers for home crowds soon!!!

Once we're under 6000 we're in totally uncharted territory - never seen in the downtown Carver Arena...

The 6313 is not only the lowest this year - but way lower even than any home crowd at Carver last year - BY FAR - with no crowd last year even under 7000.
In JL's last year we really only had one crowd (of over 7,200) that was substantially even under 8,000!

...and people blamed JL for the low attendance back when it was 7,000 - 8,000!!!
You can't blame the captain from two years ago who isn't piloting the ship any longer - when you have a shipwreck NOW!!!!

The 6313 may even be smaller than most of the crowds ever at the Fieldhouse but I don't know all those figures...
does anyone know??
It could well be one of the smallest paid crowd for D-I game at Bradley in 50 or 60 years - maybe going back to the Armory!
Even the games in the lowest of the Albeck era still are generally all upper 6000 to 7000's...

BUT does this surprise anyone - it seems to surprise some but not me - as some have been predicting this exact thing for nearly TWO YEARS!

I guess what I am surprised by is...
that this fact is NOT more disconcerting to many - it sure is to me -- I am at every game.....where's everyone else...
especially those who are such uninformed critics who called for the changes we have seen the past couple years -- this is what they've asked for and yet now they're all MIA....

I am doing all I can and bring 6 or so to every Bradley game - even buying extra tickets to bring extras to the Michigan game - all the while some of those most DUMBFOUNDED - and without explanation for the tiny crowds are those pseudo-fans and endless whiners on a lesser frequented message board who are uninformed and who call everyone they don't agree with "morons".

Just a little more info about the Mooseheart HS situation that the media isn't mentioning

An Illinois high school named Mooseheart is being accused of recruiting players and yet almost all the press coverage is about the mean old other school that is objecting to Mooseheart's use of illegally recruited players because they are dirt poor and come from Africa. http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/suburbs/batavia/ct-met-mooseheart-red-ramblers--1204-20121204,0,5091694.story ................................................................................................. -first this is NOT about race nor Africa nor any other issue other than whether the school, Mooseheart, follows the rules that THEY agreed to follow when they became members of IHSA.. it's really kinda shameful that their defense is to allege racism rather than stand up for what hey have done and be honest. ................................................................................................. -Mooseheart also drags up irrelevant arguments about a cross country student, about the timing of the claims, and arguments about how the information on their students was obtained. They seem to NEVER ONCE deny that the info IS TRUE and that they specifically used athletic abilities to determine which African kids to "recruit" and bring to the school. They claim the info was obtained under false pretenses... but the only false pretenses here are coming from Mooseheart - who never reveal the facts willingly - and now they are mad that someone found out the facts by tricking them into thinking they were giving the facts for a survey. ................................................................................................. -since when is Hinckley Mooseheart's "archrival" and why does Mooseheart make that claim as if it thus nullifies Hinckley's desire to see fairness and expect Mooseheart use LEGAL and qualified student-athletes. the schools are 20 miles apart - about as far apart as Notre Dame & Lowpoint-Washburn, and they only compete in a few sports ...... ................................................................................................. -so what if Hinckley was partly involved in requesting that IHSA check into the recruited athletes...after all IHSA has NEVER instituted such an investigation on their own and they AL:WAYS enlist the action of member schools to help identify this kind of abuse of the rules. Virtually every investigation IHSA ever pursues to check on use of ineligible kids is at the request of another school - generally some other competing school. ................................................................................................. -and why shouldn't IHSA use evidence such as quotes and facts THAT APPEAR IN NEWSPAPERS? Isn't that how they found out that the head coach of Hales had been illegally recruiting kids from other schools - because he actually said so in an interview? ................................................................................................. -is it not quite interesting that the very person cited and quoted as funnelling those kids to Mooseheart and arranging for their tuition to be paid - is also the exact same person that a totally separate athletic organization, NCAA, also found had illegally paid money in behalf of, covered expenses, then funneled top prospects to University of Indiana, Mark Adams? I am sure Mooseheart WOULD HAVE NEVER USED Mark Adams as a reference and character witness except that this document was from March of 2012 - before the NCAA caught Adams acting illegally as an agent to funnel talent to IU. ........................................................................................ -lastly - whether the story about bringing Sudanese kids to America tugs at your heartstrings or now - you have to seriously wonder why every Sudanese kid they seem to bring here JUST HAPPENS to be 6-7 or even 7-feet and play basketball! If they were just randomly bringing over Sudanese kids unrelated to their athletic ability then using Mark Adams or the fact that all the kids are enormously tall make a mockery out of that claim. ................................................................................................. Independent of all the tear-jerking stories here - the IHSA found strong evidence to prove that Mooseheart... "acted "for athletic purposes" and "was seeking out athletes, and basketball players in particular"