Looking back 6 months

Here's the interview with Dr. Michael Cross at the time of his departure.
(and in compliance with the silly belief that I should not blog about opinions unless I state my affiliations - be it known I am a Bradley fan and supporter and have given a lot of money to the program.  And I have given more during the Joanne Glasser & Michael Cross era than in all other years put together - But whether I had given none or a million bucks, that would not have swayed my opinions.)

http://www.pjstar.com/article/20150316/SPORTS/150319345

He looks back on the five years of his tenure at Bradley and says a few things that were - and still are simply stupefying.  The guy must live in an alternate universe.

"Cross: 

"I walk out with a significant sense of accomplishment and appreciation for the opportunity to look back over the course of five years. There are numerous things we’ve done to change the culture of the department. We used to basically be a department that was the men’s basketball program and 13 other teams because we wanted to have a men’s basketball team in Division I. At this point, we’re at 15 teams that all buy into the mission of a distinctive education with a championship experience. Everyone does their best every day to try to live by the five core values of accountability, courage, diligence, integrity and respect."

You couple that with all the different things we’ve done, whether it be the opening of the Renaissance Coliseum, our best (Missouri Valley Conference) all-sports performance last year, the branding changes we’ve made, the establishment of a mascot. There are things we’ve put into place here that honestly will be here for generations to come. Our partnership with Learfield has resulted in record corporate sales. There have been a lot of positives here."

JS: Any regrets?

Cross: "From a process and decision-making standpoint, I don’t have any regrets. The regrets have to do with how this business works. Ultimately, winning and losing matters to a lot to people. I wasn’t here two weeks in 2010 when I told my wife, ‘No question in my mind, Bradley can be great. But I hope there’s enough patience for that to happen.’ Unfortunately, there isn’t enough patience." 

He then goes on to justify and blow off his ridiculously unsuccessful, unpopular and ignorant plans to move all the men's basketball games to the on-campus arena, and totally ignores all the terrible moves & decisions he made along with Dr. Glasser that nearly sent Bradley to the DIII level and into bankruptcy.

But let's look and the things he said in those paragraphs above, and most of what is true about Cross goes double for Dr. Glasser.

He actually says he "walks away" from his five years at Bradley thinking he's done a great job, the University is so much better off because of him, and that his 5-year tenure was all positive!

OMG - Those five years were a disaster of epic proportions.  And I am not alone in believing that as the basketball home attendance tanked to levels never seen since before Bradley moved into the Armory downtown in the early 1930's.

And when the Journal Star writer, Dave Reynolds, hints that there may be some cause for regrets - Cross blows that off, denies any regrets, and then ...

BLAMES THE BRADLEY BASKETBALL FANS FOR BEING TOO IMPATIENT!!!!!!!!!!!

YA THINK FIVE FREAKING YEARS with Mike Cross at the helm and fans watching every single aspect of Bradley Athletics go down the toilet - isn't patient enough?

Just who does he think he's fooling?  He & Joanne gave Jim Les just ONE losing year before pulling the trigger - one losing year out of the prior six....

As documented elsewhere - it is virtually unheard of for a coach to get fired under those circumstances - immediately after the FIRST losing season in a six year span.

Anyway - how dare he blame the fans and claim ...

"Unfortunately, there isn’t enough patience."

I think the Bradley fan base was incredibly patient - how long did the Kentucky fan base give Billy Gillispie - answer- just two seasons and he was 22-14 at the time they fired him!!!

Minnesota ran Tubby Smith out after consecutive 20-win seasons (21-13 & 23-15!)

Nope - sorry Dr. Cross - you and your leader got run out of town when a very patient and loyal fan base simply had seen enough malfeasance and negligence in the way you did your job.You fired the best people and then hired the incompetent.  then you blamed the fans and all along as Bradley was doing historically badly - you force-fed the public this preposterous notion that Bradley is doing better than ever before.Peorians aren't as dumb as you east-coasters believe.  This time the fans got their wishes - we cleaned house and hired the right people and already we're doing better.

Every single Bradley fan I have met, talked to or read their opinions on message boards over the past six months agrees 100%.  I haven't heard a single person say they were sad to see the whole bunch - Glasser, Cross, Ford - go...

When Ken Kavanagh was run out of town literally thousands of fans came to his reception before he left - and those same thousands still miss him and are sad he was run out.

What does it say that not one person - not ONE fan has ever expressed the same sentiment over the housecleaning we got last spring?

Nope - you're all alone in thinking you did a great job and that you left Bradley in better condition than when you got here.

You & Joanne were about as good for Bradley and a nuclear bomb is for Halloween party.

Ridiculous

Saw several stupid comments by the clueless that one of the new Braves, Scottie James was homesick and likely to leave.
LOL - but here's the truth.
Could he leave or transfer?  Sure, he could...anyone could - it happens all the time.  But he's no more likely than anyone else on the team and likely nowhere close to as likely and 99% of Division I players.  Come on - use some brains...
Every college kid looks at potential for playing time...
He just got here - hasn't finished a single semester.  He has basically NOBODY on the roster ahead of him - where the heck would he go or could he go that he'd have any better chance at playing time than here?
Plus, I have heard he likes it here, likes his teammates, likes the coaching staff. 
The rest of the players like Scottie, too - when he won the slam-dunk contest the players had at the Youth Clinic last week - the other guys mobbed him and were truly excited for him - even the dunkers he just beat! (btw- there is a vido of that dunk contest posted on the internet)

Also- remember - he turned DOWN an offer from FGCU (right down the road from his hometown) to come to Bradley.  Sure doesn't sound much like a kid who expected to get homesick.

And thus far - NOT ONE player on the roster has played a MINUTE more than Scottie since he arrived here.  So why would he leave.
That said - of course he still might leave - there hasn't been a single season this century that someone with eligibility remaining didn't leave - some quite unexpectedly, so as I said, it happens all the time.  But the wild and immature speculation that I am reading is completely wrong and silly.

On a separate topic, the open practice showed several things that fans noticed.
First is the way the practice was run.  Competently, professionally, and seriously - all business and no goofing off as many can confirm happened endlessly in Geno's practices....
Geno's practices looked like recess at a grade school sometimes, with kids doing their own thing, goofing off, and talking back at the coach - oblivious to any worries about losing playing time since Geno knew he couldn't win without those kids so they got away with it.!
The one kid who never goofed off was Nate Wells and he never got playing time, until Geno was forced, then Nate proved Geno didn't even know his own players.

Second- the players are fit and in shape -- no skinny 170 lb weaklings....
the smallest guy, Joel Okafor is ROCK SOLID and ripped...the skinniest guy, Davante Cooper, still comes in 30 lbs bigger than Anthony Thompson or Nate Wells did.

Then they all look like they can play - hustled, dived for loose balls, made some shots (can always improve on this) and weren't afraid to fight for rebounds.

Everyone is picking Bradley last for an obvious reason - youth & inexperience.  This is what a true empty cupboard (gift of Joanne, Cross, & Geno) looks like.  So we might finish last - but I knew we would last year even when the PJS guys were pompously bloviating about how much better we were and picking Bradley 3rd or 4th (Dave Reynolds picked Bradley in the Top four EACH of the last two-three years.)
But I still like our chances better than in any of the Geno years because at least we have kids who want to play, can play & develop, and who are good kids who will work hard for the team & for the fans.

Go Braves!

Yet another Joanne Glasser/Mike Cross hire that needs firing..

Well, we got it done in men's basketball - and we're only 2 months into the first semester since Glasser & Cross were fired - yet we see another sport where Glasser's & Cross' tinkering have led to horrific results - and losing in ALL TIME HISTORIC proportions!!

Check out Bradley Volleyball.  Glasser & Cross declared that the former coach Sean Burdette had to go - he was winning only 8-9 matches per season although he only was given 3 seasons then canned.
But he had some good recruits - that helped Cross' new hire Jenny Maurer - to 12 wins her first season but it was really down hill from there.

Whatever possessed Cross to hire a coach from Lehigh that had never had a winning season and really never competed well even in that lowly conference?
But in no time at all - just as soon as Maurer had recruited her own team and had all her own players - suddenly Bradley VB couldn't beat a junior high VB squad!!

Check the records the past two seasons.

Last year - 2014-15 - Bradley went 2-26, and just 2-16 in the MVC.
Now this year, BU just lost again to Loyola in straight sets - now they are 5-17 and 0-10 in the MVC.

That's a combined record over 1.5 seasons of 7-43 and 2-26 in the MVC - and it's gonna get worse.
BU could readily lose all their remaining matches and go 0-18 in the MVC, as they really aren't close in any match!

12 of the last 16 matches were lost in straight sets (5-48 in sets) and Bradley had a stretch last year where they lost a dozen matches consecutively by straight sets.  In other words - nothing even close!

Jenny Maurer has already had two nearly full years more time to show progress than Cross gave Burdette, so it's time to go.  I know VB isn't really a revenue sport but Dr. Chris Reynolds isn't gonna tolerate this kind of Glasser/Cross-caliber ineptitude much longer.
I am sure they are all nice people but that didn't stop Glasser & Cross from running a whole lot of nice people out - some of whom have gone on to great success elsewhere after leaving Bradley, while most of Glasser's hires have been truly abysmal.
Braves fans love Bradley athletics too much to stand for this and we trust Chris Reynolds to get-r-done.

Here's an interesting and yet predictable observation

I have been to numerous of the summer & preseason events with the basketball team, coaches, players and I plan to attend several more - starting tomorrow with the next Fan Appreciation Reception up at Ren-Col, then the open practice & scrimmages...
And - I have yet to see even ONE of the core group of Joanne Glasser brown-nosers...at any of those events so far.
Not that I care - kinda glad they're gone..they constantly try to bully other fans into joining their miserable bitterness.
You know - the Jim Les-haters & program destroyers who were so bitter going way back that they didn't get the candidate they wanted..... who kissed up to the former admin so much that their noses are permanently brown - the ones who dragged on their JG is the best Bradley President discussion for the past two years....many if not most of whom have serious moral and arrest records and horrible attack-mode demeanor both in public & message boards.

I know they still lurk because they still make schizophrenic and paranoid accusations that someone's reading their emails, hacking their message board and blocking them from seeing what's posted certain places on the internet.  People who actually photograph random people at sporting events then post their pictures as if they feel doomed ......
Must be kinda sad to go thru life feeling so oppressed, downtrodden and constantly scared sh**less that someone out there is smarter or better.

But those fans come & go - they got their way in 2009-2011 and then had to live with the enormous destruction the program....but now we're on the rebound - things look great and looking up.

Preseason Bradley Basketball Events in Full Swing

With the Itoo Supper and Auction so incredibly successful, it stands to reason that the Bradley Fan-Appreciation Receptions would also be successful.
These events to host season ticket holders and give them an inside look and briefing of the program & new players & staff are a great idea.
These events were first started a couple years ago - and I have to say they were one of the ideas by Dr. Cross (which, of course, he based on a few suggestions given to him like this..... LINK)
that was actually a very good idea to get fan interest ramped up leading into the season.
but - unfortunately for many reasons, the events in 2013 were very sparsely attended as detailed in the links below.

The one I went to in 2013 had tables set for 60 people but only a little over half that were actually in attendance.

http://bradleyfans.com/vb/showthread.php?p=283840#post283840

http://bradleyfans.com/vb/showpost.php?p=283896&postcount=6

However - the current AD and staff did a great job promoting these current events and they are off & running with tremendous success so far.

Here's what the Braves Club Room at Ren-Col looked like yesterday...

Here's a larger view


Many if not MOST of the best Bradley fans feel a lot like Cubs fans...
Both fan bases are incredibly loyal & faithful but I do admit the Cubs have faced futility a whole lot longer than Bradley fans have but it feels about the same for the Braves fans since the depth of futility and the lack of any real response from or effort by the people in charge was astronomical.
In case anyone even tries to interrupt at that point and claim Bradley had down years like that before - be it known that the tanking of the attendance and of fan interest in just the last couple years was totally unprecedented.  NEVER in the worst of the Stowell years, the Albeck years, or Mo-years - NEVER did attendance fall anywhere close to the crowds were were seeing on a regular basis under Joanne Glasser & Michael Cross.  Seriously - they drove fans away not just with putting poor product on the floor but with the attitude & atmosphere of neglecting and ignoring the fans and treating them like dirt - as if the fans' opinions and sentiments did not ever matter.

Anyway - the Cubs fans aren't just excited for being in the Playoffs - there's an extra degree of excitement and satisfaction that's simply due to the absence of such post-season success for so many years - as if they've been released from a LONG incarceration in a deep, dark dungeon - and then immediately are welcomed as they exit the living hell - and are presented with the rewards of great success.
Bradley fans haven't actually gotten to the success level yet, but we knew we NEVER would until massive changes took place and now we see those changes!

I predict we'll see more and more success at these preseason events, more and more excitement in a fan base that had all but died or given up, and then hopefully more success on the court and in the entire program.
The hope is restored.....Go Bradley!