I just saw someone griping about the schedule

So the schedule is not strong this year - but I think most people who are currently griping will be surprised as time goes on.
Many of the teams on our schedule will be better than last year, as they are teams that return 4 or 5 starters and are on the rise...with good players.

But if you wanna find a culprit for why Bradley still has the woes that we have...then stop looking at the people in charge now and look back to where the problems came from.
Bradley really hasn't been good and hasn't had the prowess to schedule well since Joanne Glasser took over!  Before that we were regularly in the 30-40 RPI range and had Top 100 Strength of Schedule every season!

Prior to 2010, there were quality non-conference wins every year. Jim Les actually had a wining record against Big East opponents, and beat DePaul several times, Illinois a couple times, along with Rutgers, Providence, VCU, Cincinnati, Virginia, Kansas, Pitt, etc.

But since 2010, the only top 100 RPI win in the non-conference was Central Michigan. ....
So, if you wanna gripe about Bradley and the schedule, you're preaching to the choir...

but it is ALL ON JOANNE GLASSER

Her campaign to make changes in Men's Basketball program began in 2007 as soon as she was hired...

within days after she was hired she became furious with Ken Kavanagh because of the way he handled the off-campus death of Danny Dahlquist (whose funeral happened literally on THE VERY DAY Glasser arrived to take her job on campus.)

then there were a couple more on campus incidents like this that Glasser felt damaged her image and she wasn't gonna take the fall for it and was going to hang it all on someone else.  We all know that's just the way she is.

http://www.rrstar.com/x1126215083

And then of course the incident with Theron Wilson, TCS and underage drinking...then the Daniel Ruffin issue...

..and Glasser was furious with Les & Kavanagh --
by spring 2008 she made her feelings known that she wanted them out and was going to do it any way possible.
She stomped all over Kavanagh's hiring effort for a new baseball coach and told him to take a hike she was going to hire her own pick.

She had Kavanagh by the balls since his contract at Bradleywas already coming up for renewal in 2009- so she simply told him to get lost, he would not be renewed past spring of 2009. She even tried to torpedo his chances of going to work elsewhere but he's done just fine, hasn't he?

But she couldn't do much with Jim Les since he was signed all the way thru 2014...
but she decided to torpedo his program and force losses upon him, and so she fired his assistants and hired her choices, she vetoed multiple recruits of his including his own son, and threw her full efforts into damaging him and his reputation just like she did to Kavanagh (even tho Ken landed just fine on his feet since nobody anywhere else in Division I had any respect for Glasser anyway)

Finally she engineered a few resignations on the Board of Trustees and bullshitted them enough by promising instant improvement under her direction...that she got the ok to fire Les and then she found that all of her top choices to hire as new head basketball coach didn't want to work for her.
She ended up hiring about the 14th best choice and ended up paying so much (especially with lawsuits counted) that Bradley's basketball program was now doomed.
Under Joanne, Cross & Geno she drove everything from the stability and winning of the program to the campus-wide finances, enrollment, fan support, attendance, etc... - deep into the abyss and near bankruptcy.

This is how we got where we are...we're halfway back but still a ways to go.
Blame who you want but facts are facts and most of the facts have never been reported by the PJStar - and instead they have run interference and covered for Glasser & Cross - calling everything they did great and lying about their horrible failures.

I have re-upped for another year because I believe this year will be a very good year.  Thanks you to the fans that finally got Glasser run out, to the Board that finally listened, and to Dr. Chris Reynolds, Brian Wardle and his staff.  Keep working hard!


BTW- just saw someone claiming that GEORGIA SOUTHERN's coach Mark Byington was under consideration back when Bradley hired Brian Wardle in 2015.
LOL- That is 100% pompously and ignorantly false.  There's never been a single mention anywhere by anyone of Byington as a candidate for head coach at Bradley but if you just use common sense, then look at where Byington was in the spring of 2015.  He was a brand new coach at an obscure program and had not established any track record of winning or recruiting and had zero ties to the midwest....  Who the heck would have hired him at that point least of all at a school like Bradley that's well above the level of a Georgia Southern.  LOL, just more stupidity and blowhard.

New post for the 2017-18 season

Bradley returns everyone for the 2017-18 season and should have a great shot at being one of the top teams in the MVC...

I have talked to fans who have seen some of the players or watched practice, and I am hearing good things...  The players mentioned as far as improvement and development - range from Donte as a senior to guys like Kennell, Brown, Jr., and Bar as sophomores, and the incoming freshmen.

The teams that were above Bradley in the Valley in 2016-17 have all lost a bundle...

Seems some are picking Loyola to be the top team but they lost their best player and team leader in Milton Doyle, plus a few other contributors and now have lost perhaps their two best incoming new players to injury.

ISU loses almost everyone but they still have some new talent.

Missouri State loses the least - just Dequon Miller and some bit pieces - but they return the player who likely will be preseason Player of the Year in Alize Johnson.

UNI always is in the hunt, but they were a surprisingly bad 14-16 and also lose their best player (Jeremy Morgan).

Some think SIU will be strong enough to compete for a top spot in the MVC but I think they lose an awful lot of firepower & team leadership in O'Brien, Rodriguez, & Vincent.  They also have a short bench with all their losses and bring back only 3 players who had much experience at all in Bol, Lloyd & Fletcher.

Drake, Evansville, Indiana State or Valparaiso all might surprise...time will tell.

Bradley will still be a young team this season with only 2 seniors....then 2018-19 should be a strong year where Bradley will field almost all very experienced players & lots of juniors & seniors.
Things are definitely looking up....the optimism is as good as it's been since the Jim Les era....even tho every season under Geno was hyped to hell by the PJS writers with glowing praise, talk of all time top recruiting classes & talent and strength at every position that hasn't been matched since the Mitchell Anderson/Thirdkill/Reese era....
(Seriously - Dave Reynolds & Kirk Wessler actually said those things, and instead what we got were horrible players like Chris Blake or Jermaine Morgan, ineligible/injured guys like Mike Shaw & Kendahl Amerson, or chronic police blotter guys like Warren Jones & Auston Barnes.)

Hopefully this season will go a long way to helping the great fans of Bradley forget the Joanne Glasser/Mike Cross/Geno Ford era of nightmarishly bad basketball but also corruption, spending wastefully and horrible treatments of the fine fan base.

Hard to imagine that just a few years ago - a tiny clueless segment of the Bradley fan base that had their noses up Joanne Glasser's butt praised her as the best President that Bradley had ever had.  OMG - could anyone have been more ignorant and clueless?  Most of those bozos have since realized their ignorance but amazingly a few still have never caught on to how bad she was for Bradley and DI athletics.

Another complete & total butchering of truth by Kirk Wessler

Kirk Wessler's article this morning rails on and on about how the BU-ISU rivalry isn't a rivalry any more...
and he tries to put the blame on Jim Les again by pointing to the JL era for when the rivalry died off....and then back to the 90's for the last time both teams were solid contenders at the same time (I guess to heap a little blame on Molinari, too)

Well, someone has to straighten him out and point out the facts.

The BU-ISU game was still a solid rivalry right up until just a few years ago...
2010-2011 - Jim Les' final year - BOTH BU-ISU games were 1-pt thrillers with near sellouts (the BU game was 10,600!)
2009-2010 - even the game over at ISU sold out at 10,200 - they've really never packed the place like that since!! The game HERE was a 1-point thriller again with 11,300 (only 100 short of a sellout!!)
2009-2009 - the BU-ISU game at Carver was one of the most exciting rivalry games in memory..BU held off the Redbirds despite a really great performance by Osiris Eldridge, [B]attendance was 11, 592 - the BIGGEST CROWD EVER at Carver
Arena!![/B] - ...the game over at Redbird Arena was also a SELLOUT that season
...and etc., etc...
..all the games in the Jim Les era had the UNDENIABLE feel of RIVALRY games...

I have no ideas where Kirk Wessler was during that era - he obviously was so consumed with his irrational hate for Coach Les and his desire to smear Bradley during that era and try to "beat the drum" to get Les fired (those are KW's own admitted words for how he felt from 2003 on.....)

So once again - we MUST correct a total rewrite of history -- the BU- ISU rivalry DID NOT DIE during the Jim Les era...
it is NOT Jim Molinari's fault, it is not Jim Les' fault, it is NOT Ken Kavanagh's fault...

The fault lies clearly and directly with the administration that took over in 2007-2008, then cleaned house, hired Mike Cross in 2009, then fired Jim Les & hired Geno Ford in 2011.
the numbers simple do not lie...this rivalry still has a pulse and it's still possible to revive it - but it was sent to its DEATH BED by Joanne Glasser, Mike Cross, Geno Ford and even Kirk Wessler himself - who got exactly what he cheered for and beat the drum for in that span of the latter half of the Jim Les era...
Kirk got EXACTLY WHAT HE WANTED and now he sees it's a mess, it's undesirable, it's a disaster...and he's looking for someone else to blame.
Check the mirror and your locket that you wear with Joanne & Mike's picture in it.