Comparison of all four of the Finalist candidates from Bradley's 2002 coaching search

As most will recall - Bradley went through a long and complicated search process in 2002 to find a head coach. More than 70 candidates had applied and were considered, then after the field was narrowed, at least a dozen underwent early interviews.
Then a few withdrew - and finally four finalists were brought on to campus to be intensely interviewed by the search committee.

Those four were:
Brian Gregory
James Jones
Jim Les
Wayne McClain

In the intervening twelve seasons since that search process, each of those four have had multiple coaching jobs, except for James Jones who remains in the same position as he had in 2002, head coach at Yale.

Here are some simple stats & numbers on how each of those four 2002 finalists have some since 2002:


TOTAL Division I wins as a head coach:
Brian Gregory 215
James Jones 171
Jim Les 182
Wayne McClain 0

Total wins in conference:
Brian Gregory 86
James Jones 94
Jim Les 90
Wayne McClain 0
(James Jones is the only one with a conference winning pct. about .500)

Total post season wins:
Brian Gregory 8
James Jones 3 (all in CIT)
Jim Les 11
Wayne McClain 0 

TOTAL NCAA wins
Brian Gregory 1
James Jones 0
Jim Les 2
Wayne McClain 0

none of the other candidates were were even in the top dozen of so in 2002 have done any better...
For comparison, in D-I, Geno Ford has 105 career wins, 51 career wins in conference, has 3 post-season wins, zero NCAA wins, and is also not above .500 in career conference record.

Highlighting James Jones - he is now entering his 16th year at Yale, he has never won their league either in the regular season or tourney, and he has never been to the NCAA.
However - he has finished 2nd, 3rd, or 4th fourteen years in a row in the Ivy League.
They are happy with him and obviously keeping him at Yale has been the RIGHT move...even though I am sure there are fans that are disgruntled and claim he's never won big nor made the NCAA.
I think we can see that a lot of mid-majors make bad moves by cleaning house every few years and starting over - only to never get back where they were.
And we also have fans who are still whining & pining over not hiring some other guy back in 2002!

Certainly some of Bradley fans' BEST memories came in the mid-90's (Molinari years) - and in the mid-2000's (Les years) and there's been absolutely zero good memories since.
No quality wins, and an inordinate amount of lopsided and embarrassing losses.
Just maybe those who stumped for coaching changes each of the past couple decades steered us wrong.
It's been like cutting our heads off to spite our faces.  Going from bad to worse...

Breaking Cheating Scandals in College Sports

It's getting kind of hard to keep track of all the major cheating scandals and NCAA investigations, so I thought I'd condense them all into one thread..

Here's the latest ones.....

Syracuse - just breaking - is being investigated by NCAA for massive cheating as well - but it's been going on for years and NCAA has dragged their feet endlessly.
http://www.syracuse.com/orangefootball/index.ssf/2014/10/syracuse_ncaa_investigation_football_program_wide-ranging_inquiry.html

North Carolina football & basketball have been caught cheating and using phony & fraudulent classes to give players grades even though they are flunking and ineligible.  By all rights the NCAA has to come down hard on this and shut them down completely.
But I suspect they will severely criticize someone from the past, dock them a few games forfeited, then claim they've done their job and everything else is OK.
http://bradleyfans.com/vb/showthread.php?t=21370
http://bradleyfans.com/vb/showthread.php?p=298737#post298737
http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/22/us/unc-report-academic-fraud/index.html

Texas A&M - http://www.sbnation.com/college-football/2013/8/28/4668634/johnny-manziel-suspended-texas-a-m

Florida State - http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2230563-jameis-winston-reportedly-facing-investigation-over-signing-autographs-for-money

Georgia - http://www.businessinsider.com/todd-gurley-autograph-scandal-2014-10

...are all cases of players getting exposed for massive extra benefits violations and getting paid - NCAA has so far been almost invisible in all of this....I guess they're too busy flying all their field agents & investigators out to small schools whose players inadvertently were paid a few bucks more at a summer job than they should have been.


Penn State had massive scandals but not really cheating and yet got clobbered with sanctions - much of which were then quietly cancelled
http://theweek.com/speedreads/index/267742/speedreads-ncaa-drops-penn-state-punishments-handed-down-over-child-abuse-scandal

Other scandals at 
Ole Miss - http://www.saturdaydownsouth.com/ole-miss-football/ole-miss-ncaa-investigation-2014/

Oklahoma State
http://www.detroitnews.com/story/sports/college/2014/10/21/ncaa-report-cheating-oklahoma-state-unfounded/17681913/ 

Oregon
http://www.oregonlive.com/ducks/index.ssf/2014/08/oregon_ducks_football_violatio.html

Wichita State - http://www.kansas.com/sports/college/wichita-state/article2248275.html

Hawaii - http://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/story/25545820/ben-jay-statement-on-ncaa

Iowa, Iowa State, & UNI - http://archive.hawkcentral.com/2014/05/28/special-report-ncaa-violations-by-iowa-isu-and-uni-in-the-past-year/

Ohio State - http://thelantern.com/2014/04/ohio-state-athletics-nearly-double-self-reported-violations-compared-closest-conference-rival/

...... round out the rest of the ones I had heard about this past year....

Then, of course, news that the two biggest repeat cheaters in all of amateur sports - Bruce Paerl & Kelvin Sampson are back coaching in college basketball...
http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/story/_/id/10996097/bruce-pearl-kelvin-sampson-road-coaching-redemption

other than these - it's actually been kinda quiet on the cheating front...

Ranking the serious off-court issues

How would people rank the most troubling off-court issues we have had with the basketball program in the past 10-12 years?

If you take into account arrests & suspensions then I would doubt many can deny that the worst four offenses are (in no particular order):


-the 2008 case of Ruffin for similar circumstances
-the drug arrest in January that resulted in a 4-game suspension
-this current arrest, imprisonment, and charges for domestic battery
-the serious academic issue that resulted in a 4-game suspension to start the 2013-14 season (it was a serious academic violation for which most always students are expelled!) - and yet this violation got just one tiny mention in the press!

http://www.pjstar.com/article/20131112/SPORTS/131119756/2000/NEWS


No other issue I can recall resulted in even more than a 1-2 game suspension and none that I am aware of resulted in imprisonment or any protracted legal proceedings....
If you disagree and think there are some other examples - then please feel free to present your case.

In analyzing them, three have happened just within the past year - so one could definitely wonder if we are seeing a pattern of increasing frequency of serious off-court issues.
Then - two (the first two listed) got tons and tons of fast, frequent, and furious press coverage .. while the 2nd two got extremely little attention by the media.

I can understand why the 4th one got very little press, since that violation was not a matter of any public record and the school has the privacy obligation - although pretty much every BU fan who is anywhere close to being "in the loop" knows exactly why Prosser was disciplined.

So, as you can see - the only serious off court legal issue that got little publicity - is this current one. And why are we seeing an accelerating pattern of serious issues and suspensions...
We now have more than a dozen player suspensions, and four consecutive seasons starting with player suspensions...and one incident of four players simultaneously getting suspended.
http://bradleyfans.com/vb/showpost.php?p=263171&postcount=3


Once before we had the infamous "renegade program" column by the local press when we had merely three incidents - two of which were extremely minor - and one was four years earlier!
Now we're having major issues & arrests close together - three of the worst four issues in over a decade all happening in the past year - why no interest from the media?
http://bradleyfans.com/vb/showthread.php?p=297356#post297356

Hypocrisy? Just an interesting comparison - you decide

Here are the very words of the PJ Star sports editor.  There is no opinion involved, his own words speak for himself.

- "When did I start to sour on Jim Les?

I'd say the souring was a process, but the start would have been an overall poor taste in my mouth after his second season.

.. They were seriously flawed, lacked discipline, didn't play good defense, and weren't on the same page. ........ team chemistry is bad, and stuff happens and even a great coach can't find a way to hold it all together. 

.. I think Les could have done a better job managing the personnel in the second year .....end of year 3, and ... I found it unacceptable. After those failures led to yet another opening-night exit from the play-in round of the MVC tourney, yes, I dropped a critical hammer on Les and his program."
http://www.pjstarforums.com/viewtopic.php?f=63&t=88481&p=1186602#p1186602

So, the opinion of our local media started to sour in year two and was complete by year three and he turned critical & dropped the hammer...yet the reasons sound eerily like what we see right now, so is he souring again??  Doubtful if you read what's being written.


Then later - here's what he said...

2010:
"How hot is the seat under Jim Les?

..BU athletics director Michael Cross ..did explain...the process he uses to evaluate the coaches and programs in his department. There are five components to the process:

1. The educational experience of the athletes.

2. Living within your budget and being part of the process to enhance those resources.

3. Team environment, which includes off-court behavior, transfers in and out. More specifically, Cross said, “Is there constant angst every other day, are you constantly dealing with crises, or is there a stable, values-based culture that everyone is comfortable with and Bradley would expect?”

4. Compliance with NCAA, conference and university rules, and with federal, state and local laws

5. "The extent to which you’re competing for championships,” Cross said.

He also said this:

“Any one of those things can save you, and any one can sink you. There’s no absolute formula, no exact answers. It’s all those things combined.

Take Cross at his word and realize that a more important assessment is whether the Braves compete for a Valley title. Really compete."

http://www.pjstar.com/article/20101010/News/310109958


Then after admitting he turned against Jim Les in YEAR TWO - before Coach Les even had the opportunity to land his own players and get players who could or WOULD play his system, he followed up with continual swipes until finally he got his way...
And those attacks did not cease even though Coach Les brought Bradley & fans a few of the very best years we have had in half a century!

then in 2011...

"Out of optimism for Jim Les"
..a column in 2011 where he demanded Les must go, after just ONE losing season - Les' first and ONLY Thursday appearance in St. Louis since getting his own players.
http://www.pjstar.com/article/20110303/News/303039892

He railed at JL even tho Les had a winning record, a record of 102-41 at home (.741) better than every coach BU has ever had for more than 2 seasons!
He railed on attendance sliding towards 7, 400 (guffaw - as it now dwindles down around 4000-5000),
There were SCARCE, infrequent, and minor off the court issues as compared to plenty of them now,
And the future hardly looks bright with nobody yet wanting to take any of the open scholarships we have currently for 2015 - and no sure scoring threat returning this year - most players recovering from major joint surgery, broken bones, and arrests with impending suspensions.
This will be the fourth consecutive season (all four under current head coach Geno Ford) in which we will begin the season with at least 1 or 2 or even FOUR players on suspensions.

And yet the hypocrisy is that when it happened to the last coach the souring began in year two - but with the current staff we're heading into year four with the PJS cheerleaders continuing their mantra that they've chanted for the past three years about how we're "light years" better, maybe one recruiting-miss away, on the verge, or just need SEVERAL more seasons of status quo ...

Hmmm....all fans ask is be consistent - apply the same standards as before....
The fans see the hypocrisy - readership of the PJS is plummeting - the Journal Star staff layoffs roll on - as a

couple times each year we hear about more being let go....
But it mirrors the attendance at BU games - it's the double whammy --- sales of tickets are WAY, WAY down - crowds in the 5000's announced !!!
But we all know the truth is even way worse as half those seats are empty...some of last year's home games at Carver had as few as 3000, Some up on campus had as few as 1000!

but it will get worse.....although we all know what's coming....

-excuses about why we are still bad this year - GF's FOURTH with all his own new players - although many are just what's currently here with this game of musical roster - reloading every spring.
we will hear alibi's about how there were just too many new guys, too many injuries -- we need to give them more time....

- but then 2015-16 almost everyone (if they don't get booted or Creaned before then) on the roster will be a senior and we should have a good year - but if not, it'll be another truckload of excuses fabricated by the cheerleading local press.

- the question then becomes - how bad does it have to get before the people with agendas finally admit massive and proper changes need to take place emanating from above.... and not just shuffling from below and elevating some assistant


Lastly - let's go back to those criteria we've heard many times from Dr. Cross...
mainly the one about competing for championships.....

Well - I have a question .. in the five years Dr, Cross has been at the help - what program has ever competed for a championship??

We have some good success in soccer, but that's hardly new - although if anything can be seen, that success is quickly becoming less evident...

we also have a couple tourney wins for softball - coming from low seeds to get a bid despite a mediocre season where it can hardly be said we competed for a championship - but anyway, once in the NCAA we bowed out early and badly.
Nope - don't see any hint of those promises we'd be competing for championships - we were far closer back in 2006, 2007 or so than we are now...but we fired all the guys who got us there then - and nobody since had had much success.
And all the revenue successes from then are gone - now a huge debt problem and overspending problem is about to sink the ship as the very lifeblood of all of BU sports - the BASKETBALL season ticket fan base is disappearing faster than the businesses up at the Main & University intersection that all hate the traffic rebuild.