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BU at Creighton was for "Cancer Awareness"

2012-01-30T18:23:00.002-06:00

I read where they expect to make several thousand dollars off the pink promotion at the BU-Creighton game and that the money would go to...
"cancer awareness"
There's a million of these cancer awareness games and pink schemes from the junior hi level to the pros...anyone actually ask where the money that's raised actually goes...
Well I sure would before I blindly and naively gave money....shouldn't you??

Not to be disrespectful...but I have a simple thought about fund raisers in general - and I hope this doesn't come off the wrong way -as I know the hearts of all the people working to raise the money AND THOSE GIVING OR PARTICIPATING are WELL INTENDED....
but - just where do you mail your money when you want to help out "cancer awareness"
http://www.bradleybraves.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=3400&ATCLID=205368982

One article says the money goes to "an Omaha-area cancer research foundation"..BUT GIVES ABSOLUTELY no MORE INFO...I don't know about you, but based on this sketchy description - I sure wouldn't give them my money...
http://www.ketv.com/r/30233874/detail.html

EVEN ALL THE MONEY RAISED AT enormous events like the Race for the Cure..
The millions the Komen raises...are never fully accounted for and under suspicion and since they are private charities they never are required to tell you where the money goes...

http://www.naturalnews.com/033783_Komen_for_the_Cure_pinkwashing.html
http://www.wnho.net/charity_fraud_sg_komen_is_pure_con.htm

..but that to me isn't the same at all as "cancer awareness" - in fact a lot of money that goes ostensibly to "research" is in fact more than a little shady -
http://healthfreedoms.org/2011/08/14/cancer-research-for-10-yrs-useless-fraud-says-mayo-clinic/
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2011/10/15/mayo-clinic-finds-massive-fraud-in-cancer-research.aspx
http://www.rense.com/general9/cre.htm

In fact - a large amount raised from these very "pink" "awareness" events is wasted on phony and fraudulent endeavors...
http://www.whale.to/a/lanphier1.html
http://www.marieclaire.com/world-reports/news/breast-cancer-business-scams
http://jezebel.com/5840564/the-breast-cancer-charity-scam

The long held safest rule of giving to CHARITIES of any kind would be to give directly YOURSELF to the charity of your choice after making sure they are legit.

If you give to some fundraising scheme then you have no guarantee and far less than moderate certainty it is going anywhere that you had intended.
Many of these "cancer research" and "awareness" drives and promotions waste gobs of valuable resources by giving them fraudulently...and there's a lot of "charity people" driving Rolls Royces as a result...

Followups of BU guys and recruits, more ISU issues, etc...

2012-01-23T09:37:00.005-06:00

Here's how a few other our past Bradley Braves players and former recruits fared over the weekend...

-Andrew Warren's Cairns Taipans won again beating Adelaide 87-75, with Andrew playing well especially on defense.

-Zach Andrews played well again for his LA D-Fenders of the NBDL...
He had 10 pts, 15 rebounds, 3 assists, 2 blocks, and a steal...
Osiris Eldridge who was playing for the opponent, Bakersfield, had 24 pts, but took 23 shots (as usual) to get it done.

-Halifax won again 113-99 as Lawrence Wright rested a bit this game and scored only 6 pts, in 15 minutes....Boogie is still 5th in the league in scoring!

-Chris Roberts had 8 pts, 6 rebs in his team's easy win - Texas Legends 91 - Canton 82.

-Dodge City lost to #12 ranked Seward 81-75...as always I have the stats when they are simply unavailable anywhere else...
The score was quite close the whole way with Seward outscoring Dodge City down the stretch to take an 11 pt lead at 76-65 - but DCCC stormed back and almost sent the game to overtime before Seward fended off the challenge for the final 6-pt margin of 81-75.
Dodge normally gets good production off the bench but didn't in this game - and were outscored in bench production 18-5 by Seward.
Tyshon was 5-11 from the floor, and also 6-9 from the FT line for
16 points, 10 rebounds, and 3 assists, and 2 steals....in 36 minutes.

-Jim Les lost another of his starters to injury over the weekend - it's gonna be a long year...
but a very bright spot is the play of Tyler Les...
he made 3-5 from 3-pt range over the weekend, and now he is the LEADER in the entire conference (Big West) in 3-pt shooting and hitting nearly 50% and making more than 3 per game...

-Turkey has an All Star game that divides their best players into Turkish players vs. their foreign players...
We don't have any ex-Braves playing in Turkey but the "Foreigners" won 140-139.
http://www.eurobasket.com/Turkey/basketball.asp?NewsID=257056

-Ex-Bradley recruit Matt Roth (6 pts on 2-2 from 3-pt) helped the Hoosiers beat Penn State 73-54...
Sadly though they game turned ugly at the end...
One of the Penn State players fouled Christian Watford as Watford launched yet another 3-pt attempt with only seconds to go and Indiana already ahead by nearly 20!
It happened right in front of the Indiana bench and Tom Crean verbally attacked the Penn State player then some of his bench players - notably Will Sheehey, went onto the court after the guy...
Sheehey picked up two technicals and was run off the court & ejected.
The fight is seen here about 4 minutes into this video...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLOU_-D_ojw

Also seen after one of Matt Roth's 3-pointers is a little cocky trash talking and the ever-present and stupid little "3-goggle" crap that every high schooler seems to do nowadays.....come on guys - grow up a little...
by the end of his college career, Matt Roth may just have a grand total of maybe 500 career points - and a little over 100 3-pointers - not even what Jeremy Crouch had in ONE single season in 2007-2008 ...so let's put this into perspective...

-AP (Anthony Parker) is still with the struggling Cavs - he's off to a slow start but the Cavs have a chance to battle for a playoff spot this year!
They were at .500 until losing their lst 3.

-Danny Granger is having another solid season - 16 ppg, 4 rpg - but those numbers are definitely way off his recent years' numbers.

-Lastly - ex-Bradley recruit Iman Shumpert is getting a great chance to play for the Knicks - since the Knicks management simply did not plan well and they have NO other point guards!
He had a really nice game Saturday with 18 pts, 7 asst., and 4 rebs..
In 12 games now he's averaging 12.3 ppg, and 3.6 apg.
The Knicks also went after Josh Harrelson who is also underproductive and now out with fracture and my miss the rest of the season...
and we all recall Renaldo Balkman (1st round pick) who doesn't even see the court any more!
They have not planned well nor made good decisions despite spending plenty of millions....and to think people criticized Isiah Thomas!!

I get a real kick out of ISU fans who point at minor discipline issues at other schools...do those fans have no clue what's going on right under their noses??

They have multiple players currently on their own basketball roster with assault arrests...
Their reported "suspension" for disciplinary reasons lasted a grand total of a couple days and one game...a meaningless blowout of SIUE...
http://wjbc.com/tags/darious-clark/

But not only have their been a whole lot of major legal issues at ISU recently - a whole lot of kids have been run out at ISU the past couple seasons...here's just some....
..Kellen Thornton, Bobby Hill, Justin Clark, Terry Johnson, Kenyon Smith, Jeremy Robinson, Ty Modupe, Sead Odzic, Landon Shipley, Mike Vandello..
...all of whom have been Janked out thru the revolving door at ISU in just the past year or two ...many after getting arrested...serious stuff!
Here's just a brief list of some of just the more serious-robberies, batteries, rapes-
http://is.gd/JBXI7y
http://is.gd/NieUbF
http://is.gd/iiTZxU
http://is.gd/eULhfp

They've also had a few DUI's a drug related arrests..and virtually none of those was ever suspended even a single game!! Not even a single practice - as has been proven before..
I get a snicker out of ISU folks pointing fingers at other schools who have minuscule issues by comparison...

Also at ISU - they have a football player who has walked on for basketball and he was logging some pretty good minutes although he had only 6 pts in their BLOWOUT loss at Drake - but he was still in near the end of the game and re-injured his previously fractured ankle...
Bryant Allen is said by head coach Tim Jankovich to have an injury more serious than a sprain - so there's speculation it could be broken again.
He has not played in over a week since that loss.

Also - seems that the very people who whined that Bradley had to make massive changes and that we'd be immediately better - are all suddenly going into hiding although some are occasionally bitching about this year's team or out there shooting messangers...
one of our local sports editors was among the MOST vocal demanding a change and saying we couldn't be any worse...
Well, KW, you got your wish but you're being pretty naive saying we look good and could be out of the cellar in the MVC soon...
I sure don't remember JL's squads being this inept at scoring - barely hitting in the 40's and unable to even get a decent shot on key possessions.
As bad and fraught with injuries as we were last year - we only scored in the 40's twice...and once was at Duke and the other was still only a 20 pt loss at Wichita not 40 points.
We've scored in the 40's already four times this season - you have to go back and include the entire LAST four seasons of the JL era to find four 40-point regular-season games....
It might seem BU is at a low ebb - but it seemed that way a month ago and it clearly has gotten worse since..
Look for even a bit more fallout - it's not done yet...

The team from the Canarias Basketball Academy - where Michael Ochereobia was from - is touring the US and playing here...
http://www.zagsblog.com/2012/01/23/canarias-basketball-academy-making-u-s-tour/

BU loses at Evansville - just when we had a good game vs. UNI...

2012-01-19T17:07:00.001-06:00

I guess I had my hopes up a bit that after the 2nd half against UNI we'd come out in Evansville and play well.
But nobody will say we played well - we were embarrassed by a team that clearly has no overall greater talent than we have.

Even Kirk Wessler this morning followed the Phil Theobald school of journalism - that if you have nothing good to say then say nothing at all. Because he said nothing at all - not a word....which was a kind gesture.

Hard to believe that after a shellacking like that last night in Evansville that the PJS would have a front page headline saying this...
"BU FALLS ON THE ROAD"

That's all...we just fell...pretty kind way of putting it
I sure wish some of the headlines the past 6-8 years were as kind...
the online story starts with "Evansville throttles Braves 90-67"..again a pretty kind statement as if we played well but Evansville just played better...

Even the Evansville paper was more to the point...
The headline in the Evansville paper read...
"UE, Colt Ryan trample Bradley"

And somehow DR comes up with this quote in his column...
"Evansville coach Marty Simmons said Bradley was a difficult team to guard because of its quickness and athleticism."

But that sure isn't the opinion of most who watch our games...
Recall the Big Ten broadcasters when we played Michigan repeatedly pointed out that Bradley's main tactic on offense was to just give the ball to someone and go one-on-one, and that the first person who gets the ball in the frontcourt was quite often the guy who instantly launched the shot....

And here we are, now, 20-games into the season and it seems little different.
Other teams screen well, get their shooters wide open, get them the ball (like Colt Ryan) and score, while we're still doing a whole lot of shake and bake, spin moves, reverse pivots and wild shots!

Marty is right that we are hard to guard but we then make it easy by getting off shots that are never going in anyway, so they don't need to guard very well.
Those dribble-drive, reverse spin moves that even our forwards make, then they throw up an impossible shot - is why we simply cannot score - we need better shots and and an offense that utilizes team play rather than just individual one-on-one moves.

In JL's first year as head coach - we had ONE 23-point loss - it was the the road game at Creighton in 2002-2003.
But now we've had four 23 (and 23+) point losses already this year - let's hope we've seen the last one.

In fact - in the entire rest of the 9-year Jim Les era - Les had only four more regular season 23-pt losses and three of them were to top ranked non-conference teams (Michigan State in 2006, Florida in 2008, Duke 2010) - never, ever did this happen when playing a middle-of-the-pack Valley team!!

And I am calling this a 23-point loss but for all intents and purposes we know it was actually a 30+ point loss and Marty was kind to flood his bench with his walk-ons & deep subs and call off the dogs...

Too bad we didn't make a few more subs earlier -- the guys starting and playing might just respond a bit if they knew their starting positions and playing time had to be battled for...

Stat-wise this one stands out..
They had 26 assists on 32 made baskets...and 16 turnovers
We had just 13 assists better than usual but 21 turnovers...

..and Marty does a good job helping pad the guy's stats playing him 38 minutes and launching more shots with a 30 point lead.

In the ISU win over Indiana State I noticed ISU never plays Trey Blue any more -- the guy must regret the day he transferred there --

BTW - -did you see that an ISU fan tried to rebut and argue the statement that Bryant Allen was a football player walking on playing basketball...
Duhh..what am I missing -- here's what his own ISU official bio says...

"Originally came to Illinois State as a member of the football team, as a wide receiver ...
Prior to Illinois State: ... played two seasons at Minnesota on the football team"

Opinions on the Valley, Bruce Weber now trying to recruit another Sammy and steal another mid-major star, and 5-year assessments...

2012-01-18T11:08:00.004-06:00

Here's one to ponder... the ISU beat writer has already declared and anointed ISU's Nic Moore as the MVC Freshman of the Year...

Here's his piece - titled...
"Moore headed for Valley award"

Then he says even though he hasn't even seen all the other freshmen in the Valley...
"Nic Moore's mother better clear some space on the family mantle for the MVC Freshman of the Year award.
...it is pretty clear Moore might be a unanimous winner."

http://www.pantagraph.com/blogs/redbirds/isu-basketball-moore-headed-for-valley-award/article_1e7542e6-3c92-11e1-b013-001871e3ce6c.html

Well - I can't say he won't - right now he probably is in the lead for the award but only a third of the Valley season has been played - a lot could still happen.
But seriously -- what this writer is really getting after isn't how overwhelmingly great Nic Moore is....but rather how shallow the Valley is this year with freshmen.

Compare to last year....the Freshman of the Year (Doug McDermott) also won the Newcomer of the Year and had awesome numbers!
Even a few of the runnerups from last year such as Jake Odum, Rayvonte Rice, etc...still had way better numbers last year than Moore has this year.

Currently Nic Moore is averaging almost 27 minutes per game out of desperate need the Redbirds have for anyone with point guard skills, and yet his averages pale in comparison to last year's winner...
Just 9 ppg, 3.7 apg (3.5 in conf. play), 40.5% FG shooting.

In fact - since this season is so weak with its freshman class and so strong with upperclassmen -- if you even tried to find an All-Freshman Team at this point you'd be hard pressed.
I can only find a handful of freshman playing in the Valley that have even logged noticable minutes...and as I am naming them I suspect many readers won't even recognize some of these names...

--UNI's Seth Tuttle & Deon Mitchell, SIU's Dantiel Daniels, Bradley's Shayok Shayok, Drake's Jeremy Jeffers..plus Moore, and that's about it!! And most of those guys also hardly deserve All-Conference recognition as frosh but they may back into it for lack of anyone else who's any stronger of a candidate.

Pretty weak field - so if Nic wins this year then congrats are due - but he's lucky his freshman season is 2011-2012 and not 2010-2011 or any other year!

Some will remember Jake Barnett - the top freshman from the Mac who wanted out and bartered his talents last year and settled for Saint Louis. Bradley would have loved to have him but he spurned BU and went to SLU. Wonder if he's happy - as he sat out a year and he's not even playing this year!! No more than 2 minutes even in some blowouts!! And even tho SLU was highly regarded they start the A-10 season 2-2 and look very vulnerable....
So right choice or wrong choice???

BU's Bryan Gaul selected in MLS draft - nice Job BG!
http://www.bradleybraves.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_LANG=C&ATCLID=205363915&DB_OEM_ID=3400

In athletics when a coach or someone has been in charge 4 or 5 years - then I guess it's fair to say it has been time enough to make a fair judgement on the guy's performance and progress.
Obviously Coach Ford's been here way less than a year so he deserves time before people can be judgemental (although some jerks have tried).

BUT - Isn't 4-5 years enough to make a call on how someone's doing on the job??
Surely you see there's people questioning the progress and performance of guys like UCLA's Ben Howland and SIU's Chris Lowery -- if they're doing way worse now than they were 4-5 years ago then it's time to say so, right??

Surely by the time anyone has been in place and in charge 4-5 years - there would be some demands to see progress or some accomplishments by year 4 and 5...makes sense!

These kinds of demands and pressures were also laid onto Jim Les but we all know by year 4 - Coach Les had accomplished plenty - leading Bradley to a Sweet Sixteen, plenty of headlines, a 1st round, lottery pick NBA player, and tremendous optimism that then landed Coach Les a huge contract extension!

But let's just glance at the progress four and a half to five years into a couple other tenures...

First - take a look at Eastern Kentucky...they're a mid-major in the Ohio Valley Conference.
In their current head basketball coach's first 4-5 years (he is now at yr-6) he's barely better than .500 - and that was taking over a really strong program when Travis Ford was hired away...
Last year they dropped to 15-16 and now they're 10-9...so at best I think you can say in the 4-5 years after that change was made - they've been mediocre at best...

Their Athletic Director - hired by their University President just before she departed to take the position at BU - has now been there going on 6 years and few of their sports programs have gotten any significant accomplishments in that span...
Their premier sports - football, men's basketball in particular - have foundered...

So let's compare to Bradley -- where Dr. David Broski stepped down in mid 2007 almost 5 years ago....
Some were pretty happy with Broski's performance - after all his selection of Coach Les took us further than Bradley had been in the NCAA in 60 years!

So -- remember -- Bradley had been to the NCAA, the Sweet 16, and had already had some major accomplishments in several other sports...including success in soccer for several years running!

BUT -- you'd better figure that now there's time to glance at how have we done in the 4-5 year span since?? Some will ask we better off? What, if any, sports are doing better now? Almost all of our sports have had coaching changes in the interval...but surely people can't say that 4 and a half to FIVE years just isn't enough time to judge!! You make the call -- I am a 100% positive Bradley fans so I am biased towards the POSITIVE but others might judge a bit differently.

Why judge some would ask but - if you can't have a fair and honest assessment after nearly FIVE years after a changeover - then that would make absolute hypocrites out of the people who demanded Jim Les' head after just 3 or 4 years...
So I ask -- you make the call - in the past 4 to 5 years, with all the changes, AD changes, massive Athletic Dept. changes, coaching changes, even huge sums expended to make the changes -- how far have we come?
We have great facilities...are the programs following along as well?
How much better are all the sports programs - surely we'd expect to see a quantum jump forward and there's some evidence to back it up....I think we see the beginning.

Right at this time five years ago we were still basking in a trip to the Sweet 16, we have players going pro, record attendances, talk of record boosts in the funding and revenue for athletics....so if we were doing that well five years ago - then it's time that the local papers do some fair coverage of how far we've come - or are we, like Eastern Kentucky, kinda stuck in the mud and still mediocre according to our local press? LMK...

Did you see - University of Illinois basketball (Sammy's team) now sits in FIRST PLACE in the Big Ten all by themselves!!
They play Penn State tomorrow and a win will keep them in 1st place.
http://www.bigten.org/sports/m-baskbl/spec-rel/m-baskbl-standings.html

Speaking of Illinois did you see what Bruce Weber said about Sam Maniscalco??

He said he'd like to fill the open scholarship he now has from Crandall Head's departure - with another player just like Sam Maniscalco - a graduate student transfer from some other school - specifically from some "lesser" school or midmajor...

Here's his quote..
"Weber may take another transfer to fill scholarship spot
If Illinois basketball coach Bruce Weber wouldn’t have taken transfer Sam Maniscalco last spring, the former Bradley point guard likely would be somewhere else in the Big Ten Conference.

But Weber isn’t sure he likes the rule allowing players to transfer for a fifth year to attend graduate school without sitting out a season.

“If I was at a mid-major or a low-major, I wouldn’t like it at all,’’ he said Tuesday.

...“We’re just putting out feelers now, seeing what’s out there and what might become available,’’ he said. “We’re going to watch, wait and see what’s out there.’’
Weber doesn’t expect the rule to change, so it’s conceivable he would add another experienced fifth-year point guard next season. Like Wisconsin looking for another quarterback, the Illini might need help after Maniscalco leaves."
http://www.sj-r.com/sports/x713195756/Illini-Basketball-Weber-could-take-another-transfer

There it is....Weber saying that other Big Ten schools were also trying to lure Sam Maniscalco from Bradley - and that he was the successful one - and had he not been the successful one - then one of the other Big Ten schools would have been.

PLUS - he all but admits he's out there recruiting players off other schools' teams..
he says they're putting out feelers!! Seeing what's out there!!
He apparently now has such disdain for "mid-majors" that he sees them as just a source for rosters to pick over and go shopping from!!

Does anyone doubt he'll be giving DSE a call to see how close he might be to being able to get a degree by the end of summer?

Nice article on Nate Wells this morning - but I have a question -- why doesn't Nate dress and go through warmups at each game??
When AT and Jordan Prosser redshirted they dressed and went thru warmups - so did Cameron Sweatman and Saihou Jassey - even though they knew they were redshirting...so why doesn't Nate do it this year - it would give him more practice, more shooting, more drills, etc...
Anyone have an answer??

Lastly - I read where one of the local writers said that Walt Lemon's lob pass to Taylor Brown was a 50-foot lob pass...

OK let's dissect this one....
First the lob pass happened right in front of me so I can say with certainty that it did NOT come from the backcourt as some have said...Walt was on the fly, running, and released the pass a couple steps over half court so maybe 6-8 feet into the front court.
Even if it was from half court - the entire half court is only half of 94 feet and at least 5 feet of that distance is behind the front of the rim and four of those feet are actually behind the backboard....so a lob from half court would still have been only 42 feet or so...

BUT - since the toss came from well across the half court stripe I'd say a better estimate on the length of the lob for the dunk was maybe more in the 35 foot range...but if the local writers are going to exaggerate or tell mistruths then at least one kinda makes the Braves seem better not worse like those misstatements generally do!

I think we can declare the Occupy movement DOA -- belly up...
They had a rally in DC and only a few hundred showed up, they're running out of money and the only headlines they're getting are because they're beginning to get so violent and are throwing bombs...
yesterday they threw smoke bombs at the White House!!
Can you imagine the uproar had the Tea Party done that??
Whoa...

Also their Iowa rally last week had about 5 or 6 people that's all..
embarrassing........
http://www.salon.com/2012/01/04/the_complete_failure_and_unnoticed_success_of_occupy_iowa/singleton/

No transfers in or out, new InSU verbal, and some media talk...

2012-01-17T12:20:00.004-06:00

The window for players transferring from one D-I school to another in this mid-season has closed...
There were some "rumors" that Max Bielfeldt would be transferring - maybe even to Bradley --
there were also some statements made elsewhere that guys like Donivine Stewart and Devon Hodges had played so few games that they might just shut it down and not play then redshirt the rest of the year - which is, of course, ridiculous since you can't redshirt if you've played, and a "redshirt" is actually different than a "medical waiver" or medical redshirt".

So unless someone who has already completed their transfer has not yet been made known or publicized --
then it is clear that nobody will be leaving University of Michigan and nobody will be transferring here mid-season ..and it won't be happening anywhere else because they are now into the 2nd semester.

Now, if anyone leaves and transfers - from now 'til the end of the summer - they'd have to sit out a FULL year and then NOT be eligible until fall of 2013...

I simply can't imagine anyone currently redshirting would then also make a move that would require them to also MISS next season as well due to D-I transfer rules....

One other thing...
There are TWO players on our roster that had they been injured and unable to play the rest of the season - they would have qualified for a medical waiver (medical redshirt) this season...
DS has played only 8 games and DH only four.....(but even one game eliminates a standard redshirt - contrary to some of the uninformed opinions elsewhere...)

BUT -- since BOTH played in the Wichita State game on 1/13/12...they have now eliminated the possibility of even a medical redshirt should they get or have an injury...

The reason is because one requirement of medically redshirting is that you cannot play beyond the mid-point of the season -- even one minute of play at any time in the 2nd half of the season destroys any chance of a medical redshirt.

The Wichita game last week was our 18th game of the season well beyond the mid-point - so there will be no other redshirts than Wells...for any reason...
Sad....it's kind of a waste to give up a whole year of scholarship eligibility to play a handful of minutes only in just a few games of a bad season where there's essentially no hope of post-season play...

One other transfer followup...
Osamueda Egharevba is a 6-6 freshman forward from Wichita State who can play guard - and was a fairly highly regarded prep schooler..but he was apparently asked to redshirt by Gregg Marshall - stayed a little bit then left - reportedly because he didn't want to redshirt so he left..
He has now landed at Midland juco and will play there next year and will still be a freshman...

Indiana State Sycamores just landed a verbal from a junior college sophomore at nearby Wabash..Michael Samuels...
Listed some places at 6-11, and elsewhere as 6-10 center - originally from Pennsylvania, his current averages at juco..
6.1 ppg, 48% FG shooting, 62% FT shooting, 4.3 rpg, 0.9 bpg

Year before that he was at Vincennes...and averaged 2 ppg, 2 rpg..
here's a picture...

http://www.njcaa.org/schools/athleteimages/SamuelsForWeb.jpg

http://njcaa.org/colleges_college_player.cfm?sid=4&collegeid=1408&category=Roster&slid=2&teamid=105754&athleteid=314365

Regarding all this mushy stuff about Bradley being so much more open with the press and that some think the press is NOTreally all that negative or hostile towards anyone at BU or ever has been....
I can state with certainly and from many personal conversations with those involved...that every single coach, assistant, and Athletic Dept. personnel at Bradley (going back decades) has been of the opinion and been on constant guard - that the local press and sports writers are unfairly and aggressively negative -- going back at least all the way to the beginning of the Dick Versace era....and also into the Dick Lien era..

You can have any opinion you want - but you'd still have a hard time explaining why the very people closest to the situation - the very people most capable of seeing what's going on, and knowing the facts and the truth, literally every single BU basketball staff member has accepted it as a given that our local press goes overboard and beyond the call of duty to highlight the negative...
So..no matter what anyone else says - and even if I didn't see a hint of it myself - I'd still choose to believe that Versace, Albeck, Mo, Les, and all their staff have a better knowledge of this than anyone else and I'd believe them.

One other thing...

I keep reading and hearing people say...
"this staff is so much more open with the press, they are more honest, etc..."

Whoa....I wish I had a couple bridges to sell people who swallow that stuff....

I'd like for someone to show me how it's true....
Is Geno talking about what recruits he's going after?? Of course not -- is he revealing his game plan?? Nope..
What's more open than before...

Might I remind you some of the most fierce attacks leveled at Jim Les were because he didn't reveal what was going on behind the scenes, wouldn't say why certain players were suspended, wouldn't reveal his starters or explain why he made changes to the starting players, etc...

Duh.....did Geno ever say what Taylor Brown did to get suspended from the exhibition? Did he ever go into detail about why he made the change to the starting lineup - why Jake started the SIU game and DSE came off the bench??
If it was a foot injury as some had claimed - then does it surprise you DSE came immediately off the bench, played as much or more as other starters, and showed NO hint of injury as he was the Player of the Game and leading scorer and assist man..and nobody mentioned any injury in any of the game interviews?

Every coach maintains his secrets - it's no different now than ever but yet this staff has done a good job of buffaloing people into thinking they are doing things differently and some have gone for it...
I'm ok if they fool people into thinking things are way different or better - but Geno knows how to deal with the media and he's on guard 24/7

BU Booster Newsletter

2012-01-13T16:08:00.007-06:00

The folks at Bradley are doing something new....they are sending out via e mail a newsletter called..
"January, 2012 Booster 101 Newsletter"

A lot of it has to do with how NCAA rules affect boosters and their contact with athletes..but there's also some other useful info - so I thought I'd pass it on and reproduce it here...........

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

(edit - insert deleted and moved to the private page)

However - I will tell you one thing -- there has been one player dropped from Bradley's roster and he is no longer a member of the team...

I won't give you any more details

Here's the roster as it currently looks...
http://www.bradleybraves.com/SportSelect.dbml?&DB_OEM_ID=3400&SPID=1498&SPSID=19333

Here's the player just recently deleted from Bradley's roster...
http://www.bradleybraves.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=3400&ATCLID=205014758

more to come.....

More bad science and who's to blame for Bradley's bad record??

2012-01-12T12:36:00.003-06:00

Another article in the media for those interested in science...
but as is so common - the article is not very scientific - and instead shows publicity-hungry "scientists" offering little more than hopeful speculation.
If this stuff falls under the banner "Science" then I guess there's precious little left to put into the column "Conjecture"..

It's the AP story on page 2 of the PJ Star titled "Astronomers see more planets than stars"..

First - the headline is so totally false and inaccurate that it caused me to almost gag when I read it.
Do you know how many stars can be seen by astronomers?

-With the naked eye we can see at least 1000 stars - compared to only a half dozen or so planets visible - all within our own solar system (Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn).

-Then with even the cheapest Sears catalog telescope - at least a million stars can be seen and still only about eight planets (you can add Uranus & Neptune).

-With the most elaborate telescopes, hundreds of millions - and even billions of stars are easily visible.
And yet as the article states - there's perhaps 700 planets CONFIRMED - and perhaps a few thousands more suspected...
anything beyond that is pure speculation....but they have NOT been seen as the headline states.

SO -- isn't the headline a bit misleading?? Isn't it NON-science and pure speculation that if they've found a few thousand planets then there must be BILLIONS??

Again -- science is - according to those who are scientists - all about the measurable, observable, provable, reproducible, and confirmable.
But this story is pure fantasy-speculation.

BUT still -- I have no problem with speculation - just be honest and call it that and don't lie and claim this is good science --- but this story even one-ups that...

One thing that this story also confirms is that the very things these SAME scientists believed to be facts just a few years ago are now totally overturned and they believe NEW "facts".

So.... just how factual are facts if they get revised every few years?? Hmmm -- sounds like we're really talking speculation and theories here and not facts.

The column says that just a few years ago - scientists believed it was NOT possible for planets to orbit a double star/sun...

they said...
"this type of two-sun system is too unstable to support planets"

BUT -- now they believe the total opposite - that it can happen...
I guess I wonder how sure can they be of some theory or concept if just a couple years ago it replaced a different theory or concept they thought was fact at that time?

Come on -- facts should not change and be substituted with "new facts"!
Just maybe a little caution and skepticism is due here but these guys sure don't think so -- they're raving about their new-found "facts"...

Just a few years ago - they were sure that these exoplanets (planets orbiting other stars) were rare - maybe only one in 100 or even 1000 stars had them.
Now they totally reverse that and say they are much common -- and speculate they may even be more common than stars (but the headline still remains totally false because nobody sees that many).

Then there's this statement...
"Because it's so hard to see these size planets, they must be pretty plentiful, (John) Johnson said. It's kind of like cockroaches.."

"must be plentiful"??? Again - just how scientific is that??? We don't see them, and it's quite difficult to see them - so let's speculate and say there MUST BE plenty of them!!!

Using that argument I could say it's "so hard to see pink elephants and little green men - thus they must be pretty plentiful!"

I don't claim to be any world renowned scientist but these guys are funny - they defy their own definition of science and substitute pure speculation whenever they want to grab some headlines - or maybe sell a book.

But you know where this is all headed -- it just goes with the claim many scientists make that since there's endless numbers of planets "out there" is somehow "proves" there must be intelligent life out there as well. (it's some effort to cheapen life on earth and make it less unique and special)

Baloney - it proves no such thing. IT IS MANDATORY by the very definition of science - that we have to observe some evidence of life before we say it's out there or even possibly out there...and we have observed NONE even after looking intensely for it for more than 6 or 7 decades.

In fact - the more planets we find - then the more the Fermi principle fits -- that if there's so many planets and they have intelligent life on them- then why doesn't at least one of them (intentionally or unintentionally) emit or send out a signal (as we earth people have done many times for decades in the form of electronic signals, laser signals, spacecraft like Voyager that even contained message for other intelligence to find, etc...)?
If there's life on any planet nearby or even close to nearby - then within a few years after intelligence gets to the electronic age we'd start receiving non-random electronic signals that can be interpreted as intelligently formed.
I am not saying it will never happen - we have no way of knowing but it sure hasn't happened yet!

S0 -- still - nothing - no evidence -- never has been and I believe never will be....
I think the evidence is clear - we are alone -- if we were not then why wouldn't at least ONE of those intelligent civilizations come and make contact -- just one????
And for those who say they have then they have to invent to "conspiracy" arguments or the "someone's hiding it" arguments...

The most laughable "pseudo-science" is on History Channel in the form of the "Ancient Aliens" shows -- how laughable is it that aliens came to earth long ago - when they built pyramids, when the Native Americans scrawled their cave-man like drawings, and even when Hitler was fighting WWII.

AND - in every case they gave the earth civilizations NEW technology. But still there's no evidence that any technology at that time was anything more than stone-age or contemporary "technology"...
The final argument is that if the aliens were helping Adolph Hitler and the Germans - why didn't they give Hitler the technology to make A-bombs and win the war - or digital technology, or stealth technology, etc....why did they give Hitler only enough technology to be a force in the world but not enough to avoid losing the war to more technologically advanced nations like us??
Do these people not see how really silly and stupid they look with these ridiculous theories?

But these stories do make for some good entertainment...

Lastly - there is lots of blame being thrown about by miserable and unhappy fans of Bradley basketball - this is hardly new....
There have been people whining about sub-par play and records for years always looking for someone to blame it on.
They blame the coach, the players, and even the other fans that support the team.
Yes - I was told once by an angry and disgruntled BU fan that he blamed me personally because he saw ME as someone who supported Coach Les - thus I was responsible in his eyes for JL not being fired.
Never mind that I couldn't have either kept him in place nor gotten him fired by any action or support I ever had - no matter what and no matter how loony that thought is...
Truth is - JL was fired as soon as the person firing him could get Board of Trustee approval and it happened moments after that occurred and couldn't have possibly happened sooner.

Well - despite warnings and predictions from those who are the bright ones in the fans base - Bradley is way, way worse now than ever in anyone's memory and the "other shoe" may not have even dropped yet...
in other words it may get worse and overall dissatisfaction gets the players down and we might yet see some player departures.

Anyway -- I don't bother hardly ever reading the crap people post on the message boards where the trashing and whining is not only allowed but encouraged and where it is the norm....and I never go to a certain board where irrational and schizophrenic thoughts abound among people always quick to heap blame for their own actions onto someone else.
But people tell me what's going on. And it is obvious that there's a small crowd of endless whiners and complainers who gotta find someone to blame for their misery.
They have tried blaming the players and it's even getting harsher and more vitriolic - maybe even blaming the fans who continue to cheer and support (God-knows where the logic comes from on this one??)...
but none of those bozos have yet to properly figure out who really deserves the blame.

So I will put it succinctly -- the blame - nearly 100% of it - goes to those who spent the last couple years clamoring for and demanding that we fire Jim Les...
those are the people whose own actions - as selfish and short sighted as they are - have gotten exactly what they demanded - and it's landed us where we are now.
The people who wanted JL fired and who got what they wanted have shot themselves in the foot and are now looking to shoot the other foot as well by blaming everyone but themselves and creating bitterness and dischord.
You guys who wanted to run Jim Les and everyone associated with him out of town have only yourselves to blame...

Look in a mirror, then ask yourself this..
"Did I open my mouth and ask for this change? Was I one who bitched and whined and wanted to make the move or even wrote or said that we ought to fire Jim Les and move on from there and been a strong and open supporter of that move?"

Then if you answer yes to that question - then blame yourself for what you're now trying to blame everyone else for.
Most who answer "yes" were never really supporters of BU anyway - they whined loudly all the time and never gave any financial support, and when they became the LOUD squeaky wheel they triggered the actions that led to this - and that's a fact!
We are where we are - with perhaps the worst team and the worst record in anyone's memory - because of YOU. At least in 2002-2003 we had a ton of fine young players in Gillingham, Gilbert, etc...other years we at least had injuries to account for sub-par performance, but this year we are not playing well and yet lose our best player and only consistent scorer when the season ends.

Sorry - I know this will send some off the deep end - as some will deny it but others will know it's true and will go ballistic trying to lie, deflect and deny....the traits they're best at..

Meanwhile - I feel we still have a group of fine young players with potential and the job can still get done. I am not bailing and I'll be there enjoying every game - although I see the disappointment with what could have been.
As I noted - somewhere there's a coach or two who are financially very well set - saying to themselves - whoa - what a mess they have in Peoria - a mess of certain people's own doing and am I ever glad to be outta there.

Just some interesting reading from the past...

2012-01-11T11:14:00.006-06:00

I have no particular point here -- you can draw all your own conclusions -- but...
Here are some random comments - just a sampling of what I found today from the past couple years about what Bradley basketball "fans" wanted to see .....
These are culled directly from message board opinions....
I am still very hopeful we can get there - I look at every single game as the next chance to win - and even expect a win at every opportunity.
There are some things that are discouraging and it's not like we weren't warned about the fallout........
There's plenty more - maybe even some better and more enjoyable comments - but remember - these were all people saying these things 1-2 years ago - and oddly all those same people seem to have suddenly grown satisfied with the exact things they had previously said they hated and wanted to replace....

"There are those who are comfy with CBI and CIT tourneys ...Mediocrity should not be our mantra. We all should expect more. We all should demand more.
I just want more than this middle-of-the-road stuff year after year."

"I WANT BRADLEY TO BE BETTER THAN AVERAGE.
I cannot sit year after year and watch the same result. I want more than this.
.... I don't see any improvement. I don't see stability. I don't see the signs of this turning out successful..."

"..I thought about what you want in a coach.
These are just some things that came to mind (in no particular order):

1. teaches fundamentals...players shoot, pass, defend well

2. sound defensively....in position, flexible, know the X's and O's

3. gets the most out of or develops players ....growth in skill is obvious

4. good recruiter....team is deep and talent is varied by position.

5. contends for titles (league, tournament, etc)

6. instructs players outside of basketball...ie, being a good student, being a better man, working hard

7. coaches motivate players.........to achieve, play hard, buy in to program"

"I want a coach who adapts system to fit personnel and situation, rather than the other way around. This is what makes most great coaches great"

http://www.bradleyfans.com/vb/showthread.php?t=17407

Then an entire long harsh critical thread really unloading directly on Jim Les and attacking his coaching ability...
http://www.bradleyfans.com/vb/showthread.php?t=14160

(this is just to expose the stupidity and dishonesty of those who claim the message board never allowed anyone to criticize Coach Les -- ha, that's all they did for several years and here's proof!!)

and some funny ones...
http://www.bradleyfans.com/vb/showthread.php?p=155017#post155017

More evidence of serious financial issues for one of Peoria's major corporations

2012-01-10T15:55:00.004-06:00

I guess you won't read it anywhere else..but there are some very disturbing facts about Methodist Hospital in Peoria - which does business as Methodist Medical Center of Illinois..and it's simply not being reported anywhere locally.

I noted their serious debt crisis that is well reported by major national financial sites:

http://bubravesblogger.blogspot.com/2011/08/reuters-reports-on-financial-troubles.html

And then recently they canned their CEO of 11 years and sold out to an Iowa Corporation.
But now......... just as soon as the new Iowa corporation takes over they begin a "fire-sale" of assets.

Many in Peoria are familiar with a facility that Methodist just built and touted as a state-of-the-art outpatient facility. They built and owned the medical facility called the "Methodist at North Allen Road" - an outpatient and office facility right at the intersection of Allen Road and Rt. 6 (in north Peoria) which was built to compete with the new OSF facility close by on Rt. 91.

Here's the announcement that they were going to build it back in 2008 at which time they believed it was going to get done for $30 million. These are their own words:

http://www.mymethodist.net/about/newsroom/2008/Methodistonallen/

However - the costs were said later to have spiraled as they often do and it was reported to have cost much more to build and even more when you figure in all the operating costs currently.

But here's the bad news - they just unloaded it for a little over $24 million...
Could it be they are in deep financial trouble and it's not being reported?
It looks like a desperate fire-sale as they unloaded it to apparently the first buyer they could get - an outfit out of New York called "American Realty Capital Healthcare Trust, Inc."

http://nyinc.com/view/full_story/16863903/article-American-Realty-Capital-Healthcare-Trust-Acquires-Methodist-North-Medical-Office-Building-and-Odessa-Regional-Medical-Office-Building?instance=home_lead_story

I guess I am puzzled that this is big enough news that it should get reported in Peoria but the PJS doesn't have a clue??

Observations from the Creighton game

2012-01-09T09:01:00.008-06:00

As noted elsewhere -- here's the play-by-play from the BU-Creighton game as it applies to Doug McDermott's scoring and who we had playing the post at the time.
You draw whatever conclusions - and I am not in any way saying that it was JP nor AT who were the ones assigned to cover McDermott...because several players took turns..

All I am saying is look at McDermott's scoring and compare it to who we had playing the post...
I have pruned the play-by-play as cut and pasted from the official web site - and tried to show only the relevant parts regarding McD, JP, and AT...
Here it is.......

Play-by-Play
#24 Creighton vs Bradley
01-07-12 7:07 p.m. at Peoria, Ill. - Carver Arena

1st PERIOD Play-by-Play (Page 1)
HOME TEAM: Bradley
TIME SCORE MAR
VISITORS: #24 Creighton

20:00 - Prosser in to start
18:38 GOOD! JUMPER by McDermott
17:24 GOOD! LAYUP by McDermott
16:53 GOOD! LAYUP by McDermott
16:53 Good! FT shot by McDermott
15:45 GOOD! JUMPER by McDermott
SUB IN : Thompson, Anthony 15:05
SUB OUT: Prosser, Jordan 15:05
12:06 SUB OUT: McDermott
10:53 SUB IN : McDermott
SUB IN : Prosser, Jordan 10:00
SUB OUT: Prosser, Jordan 09:10
07:52 GOOD! LAYUP by McDermott
06:30 SUB OUT: McDermott
GOOD! DUNK by Thompson, Anthony [FB/PNT] 05:07
SUB IN : Prosser, Jordan 04:07 SUB IN : McDermott
SUB OUT: Thompson, Anthony 04:07
02:58 GOOD! JUMPER by McDermott
SUB IN : Thompson, Anthony 01:58
SUB OUT: Prosser, Jordan 01:58

GOOD! FT SHOT by Thompson, Anthony 00:34
...end of 1st half...Creighton 44, Bradley 34

2nd PERIOD Play-by-Play
Prosser in to start 2nd half 20:00
19:05 GOOD! JUMPER by McDermott
17:32 GOOD! JUMPER by McDermott
SUB IN : Thompson, Anthony 17:08
SUB OUT: Prosser, Jordan 17:08
16:26 GOOD! LAYUP by McDermott
15:50 GOOD! LAYUP by McDermott
13:47 TURNOVR by McDermott
SUB IN : Prosser, Jordan 13:35
SUB OUT: Thompson, Anthony 13:35
MISSED JUMPER by Eastman, Jake 13:21
13:02 GOOD! 3 PTR by McDermott
11:42 GOOD! LAYUP by McDermott
11:22 GOOD! LAYUP by McDermott
11:17 SUB OUT: McDermott
SUB OUT: Prosser, Jordan 11:17
SUB IN : Thompson, Anthony 11:13
SUB IN : Prosser, Jordan 10:39
SUB OUT: Thompson, Anthony 10:39
09:57 SUB IN : McDermott
SUB OUT: Prosser, Jordan 09:44
09:10 GOOD! JUMPER by McDermott
07:57 GOOD! 3 PTR by McDermott
06:21 3 PTR by McDermott
SUB IN : Prosser, Jordan 05:31
04:47 GOOD! LAYUP by McDermott
SUB OUT: Prosser, Jordan 01:32
01:00 GOOD! FT SHOT by McDermott
01:00 GOOD! FT SHOT by McDermott
00:33 GOOD! FT SHOT by McDermott
00:33 GOOD! FT SHOT by McDermott
00:07 GOOD! DUNK by McDermott
End of game.........

In summary - what it shows is that Anthony Thompson played 17 minutes...13 of which were in the 1st half and the entire last 10:39 AT did not play..

BUT do the math -- in the entire 17 minutes that AT played - McDermott was in the game almost all of that time and scored only 6 points while AT was in there -- SIX total of his 44 points.
In the 23 minutes AT did not play - McDermott scored 38 points.
BUT when BOTH AT and JP were playing together - only about 3 minutes - then Doug McDermott did not score at all!
I'm not claiming he was totally neutralized - maybe he was still helping his team but at least we have pretty solid evidence of how to stop McDermott's scoring -- AT inhibits McDermott's shots around the hoop because of his long arms and the duo of AT & JP forces McDermott to pass out of the post.

I think if we neutralize McDermott's scoring we have a chance to win.

I know all of our best scorers are our non-post players (TB, Walt, DSE, Jake, SS) so it is possible our scoring drops a bit when we go with two post players - but considering that Creighton's scoring takes an even bigger hit it might be worth a chance next time!

Go BU - get a win vs. Creighton!

2012-01-07T08:54:00.004-06:00

Tonight is a great chance for the Braves to snap out of the losing streak and surprise everyone who expects Bradley to lose to Creighton -- I'll be there cheering them on but I see now a few loser fans and some in the media are turning on Bradley.
it's sad - because most of the worst critics are the very ones who wanted to make the changes last spring that got us here -- they are the REAL cause of the current struggles!

Wasn't this predicted?? Didn't a few observant people say the fallout would be way more severe than most expected?
And yet I see people arguing on message boards that this isn't so bad and that lots of other coaches who took over programs in the Valley recently have done no better...
Well - again the facts make fools of those folks - just check the numbers - Bradley is currently doing as badly and are on course to to even WORSE than any other Valley team in the past two decades in their first season under a new coach!
Sorry - but read it and weep -- we are hurting despite that I and the best Bradley fans are still still 100% behind this team!
http://www.bradleyfans.com/vb/showthread.php?p=246690#post246690

Didn't the most faithful and knowledgeable fans point out that we were headed from bad to worse and might even be worse than just about anyone imagined?
(Even tho we have the talent to do better!)

Not only were some of the player and recruit departures foreseen - plus the HUGE dropoff in attendance that's worse than all but a tiny few had imagined (LINK), but the poor play as the players try to adjust to a completely new system and set of coaches?
All of this was precisely predicted by some - so maybe those who laughed at those predictions should shut the h*** up and accept that they've been schooled when it comes to knowing how these things work.
Weren't even the media attacks on players, the endless weak efforts to blame this all on Jim Les as we approach a year since he was fired, and even the insane efforts that some fans make to even blame other fans - especially the good ones who are still faithful -- all this was FULLY PREDICTED!

Well - it keeps rolling -- Bradley is not playing well but true Braves fans are still there pulling for them...I am but I sure don't see th epudest of the loudmouths and bashers..they're in hiding (perhaps they know just who is responsible for their misery).

But the pretenders are lashing out in full force...and knowing that Coach Les isn't here any more it's getting harder and harder to keep a straight face when they bash JL for whatever they see wrong currently.
So now... the bashers are going after the players --

If you look ahead you will see that we might lose the next several games as well so even more fans will turn "Salukitalk" on the players - let's see -- it really says a lot about a so-called "fan" when they immaturely rip on he kids when there are numerous factors out of their control at play here.

BTW -- anyone else remember the 11-game losing streak of last year?
Dave Reynolds wrote about it almost daily and reminded fans endlessly as if it was the worst thing that could ever or has ever happened to Bradley basketball.
(BTW - we broke that streak last year against Creighton - so let's git-R-done)

If you read the sentiments of those OTOB they are viciously unloading on the entire team and all its components. But then if fans like that bail and boycott - is it really a boycott or a healing?

also - I note KW is beginning to get a bit more vicious as well - more and more direct insults and attacks on BU's players....
but aren't hey just doing what they just pieces in a larger puzzle?
http://blogs.pjstar.com/wessler/2012/01/06/sayonara-angelo-bu-no-d-bowl-games-failed-proposal/

I know winning will evaporate a lot of this...but some fan behavior is pretty embarrassing for the university - but it's not the only thing that's causing Bradley to be embarrassd on a national stage right now...

SIU in town...and other news from around the Valley

2012-01-04T11:12:00.003-06:00

SIU in town for tonight's game against Bradley - will Justin Bocot play?
After he was held out and suspended during his questioning & investigation for a sexual assault - he was reinstated after missing FOUR whole games. Bocot then returned amid little mention nor fanfare and played a lot in the Kansas State game and the games against Clemson, Xavier, and Evansville...and shot A LOT but shot poorly (a combined 12-36)
In those four games he apparently must have not shown reason to continue to play him, because when SIU beat ISU last weekend, Bocot did not play at all!
There are some reports that the case has been completed and there are no plans to file charges - so he might be in the clear but he's still not playing....we might be hearing more on this soon...

The Braves absolutely have to get a win tonight!

Nice story on Jim Les and the job he's getting done at UC-Davis...
http://www.davisenterprise.com/sports/aggies/ucd-mens-hoops-squad-works-to-find-its-stride/

and of course Coach Molinari is getting the job done at WIU - who won again last night bringing their overall record to 7-5 and they are 2-2 in conference.
Both those win totals equal their number for ALL of last year!

So - if both Jim Les and Jim Molinari are getting praises for how they're getting things done, and if not ONE single player on either one of their rosters would have ever played or even been recruited to the Valley nor at BU - then surely we're gonna be next with the roster we have that contains kids who got pre-season All Conference mention and who are fine scorers....right?
There's just no way with the players we have that we should be losing to low majors - so expect to see a turnaround.

A few interesting news items around the Valley and elsewhere...

-Wichita killed us then returns home and loses to Creighton -
Then the Wichita fans, on their message board, are blaming their crowd for the home loss to Creighton - saying the home fans sat on their butts while their team had an 8-point halftime lead, and did not support the team in the 2nd half...allowing Creighton to outscore the Shockers 37-22 to win the game.
I have heard of blaming the refs, and the ever popular trend among pseudo-BU fans of blaming the players and coaches, and even recently blaming the coach that was fired LAST YEAR...and I have even been told that MY support for the coach of last year even means that I am to blame (if you can figure out the sheer stupidity of that one) but now we're seeing more and more of this trend of blaming the fans!

-Missouri State is off to a 2-0 start and they beat Creighton in Omaha - causing some of the national pundits to suddenly change their useless & ever evolving "bracketology" - now placing Missouri State in as an at-large team!
Joe Lunardi has MSU as a 13-seed - but as if early-season "bracketology" even needs any debunking - it'll change tomorrow, anyway...
It's a feather in the Bears' cap but it's as meaningless as anyone's opinion at this point of who's gonna be in next year's World Series.
http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/bracketology

BTW -- Missouri State's Caleb Patterson will sit out tonight when Illinois State visits Missouri State due to some symptoms from a concussion.

-Northern Iowa appears to be planning on two players, Chris Olivier & Matt Bohannon redshirting..they have not played a minute yet - and one guy who did play some minutes earlier - freshman Marvin Singleton - has disappeared and not played at all lately - but can no longer redshirt.

-Yet another one of SIU's ex-players has gone on and is getting headlines somewhere else..
http://is.gd/mVH8BU

-Drake fans had some fairly high expectations - but now after a couple straight losses - some fans are already talking about next year...!

Bradley fans in Chicago...

2012-01-03T09:44:00.003-06:00

I had a great weekend and wanted to share some surprising experiences that made me proud to be a Bradley fan...
I was in Chicago with plenty of family and went to the Chicago Bulls season opener Sunday night vs. Memphis and then spent time at the museums, restaurants, etc...

Everywhere we went I and most of my family members wore our Bradley gear - since the red and black kinda fit well with being at the Bulls game anyway.
Time after time after time, at the United Center, while standing in line at concessions or even just walking up the aisles...people would stop us and ask - are you Bradley grads....and we started a conversation.
Every time it was someone who still keeps in touch and who follows Bradley basketball...
Even a few of the young workers and guides working at the museum during the extra heavy attendance days over the holiday week - were either Bradley students or grads and loved talking Bradley basketball.

By the way - the Bulls game was great -- opening night, raising the Divisional banner, and lots of other great activities.....plus a tremendous blowout win.
The only drawback was the game being such a blowout that the starters didn't play a whole lot in the 4th quarter.

Also - sat right near Chicago's Jesse Jackson...and he really looked a little different than I have ever seen him...
he was slowed down a little bit, walked a bit stiffly, had to be lead up the stairs.
He was fine standing and talking and even greeting fans and the players but was definitely less mobile that I have seen him in the past....(and I found in one recent "march" where he was filmed walking with Occupy protesters he was firmly held on both sides while he walked as if he had to be steadied a bit...)
This caused a couple medical experts sitting in our section to comment that it looked as if he had early Parkinson's Disease, but he simply did not look very energetic as we often see him.

Just a few ex-Brave followups...
In the past weekend's games...

Cellus had a 17 pt game on 7-10 from the field for Le Mans in France

Patrick O'Bryant had 11 pts, 7 rebs in a win that puts Kavala a half game out of 5th in the13 team Greek top pro league.

Andrew Warren's Taipans won again Saturday 74-57 with Andrew having an off nite - but the Taipans are only one game out of 3rd and two games out of 1st

Zach Andrews' LA D-Fenders are winning again with Zach just under a double-double - 11 ppg, 9 rpg

Halifax won again yesterday to go and Lawrence Wright had yet another GREAT game..
Boogie hit 9-14 shots and 6-8 from behind the arc...finishing with 28 points, 5 rebounds, 4 blocks, 2 steals.
Boogie's averages are...18 ppg, 50% overall FG shooting and 42% from 3-pt range, 77% on FTs, 5.4 rpg.
Boogie stands at 4th in the league in scoring, 5th in 3-pt FG%, 6th in 3-pt FG's per game, and 6th in blocks

Antoine Tisby of the St. John's Mill Rats is and also 4th in rebounding at 8.7 rpg, 10th in scoring (16 ppg) and 3rd in blocks at 1.4 bpg.

Watch Oak Park River Forest HS play Peoria Manual at the Pontiac Tournament

2011-12-29T13:13:00.001-06:00

Watch Ka'Darryl Bell's Oak Park River Forest team play Peoria Manual at 7:30PM tonight - should be great game! -
http://www.highschoolcube.com/schools/oak-park--river-forest-high-school-oak-park-illinois

I guess I expected this....

2011-12-29T12:19:00.002-06:00

I guess I expected it - but now the BU bashers have stepped it up a notch..
one even signed into the chat last night using my screen name and acted like a total jerk thinking it was funny...that poster (b4L) has now been banned..
He was trying to deflect attention from the fact that the total collapse we saw last night was in part the fault of those very people demanding we make the changes that were made!
In other word - that poster trying to make a mockery of our embarrassing loss was more responsible for that loss than the players he's trashing! He's one of the ones that asked to be where we are...hey - look in a mirror!

Can you spell FALLOUT???

But note all the attacks on the players...here and on other boards -- nobody can admit that this is NOT the players' fault ..there's way more going on than players playing poorly...
This is a program in turmoil -- and despite the overwhelming evidence some are still reluctant to cite the obvious ...
These are the very same players who took ranked Michigan deep into the 2nd half and drew major praises from the Michigan players and coaches...
The same guys who did some decent teams earlier in the year....

Now we have people in threads apparently encouraging players on the team to transfer...one guy even claiming that since players like Donivine and Devon have played only 7 games or less - that they can still redshirt and/or transfer before 2nd semester...
But that's so wrong on so many fronts!!! A player can't redshirt after he's played even ONE minute -- and even if that poster massively confused a redshirt with a medical waiver - he still has his facts all wrong -- you can't fake and injury or claim a medical redshirt when there is no injury - I can't believe someone has to point that out to a guy with a gazillion posts on a message board...??

This thread about players 7 games into the season choosing to redshirt really has to be one of the funniest and most ridiculously ignorant threads ever seen on a message board anywhere - and yet not one other poster figures it out and corrects the guy!

BUT if you can't believe those asinine statements - there's even more...
.. one of the posters ("over there") who was vigorously in favor of all the moves that brought us to this point - now claims "I wanted my PROGRAM to do better"...and is suddenly silent with his boasts that he helped engineer the changes that got us here.

Somewhere a few people who knew this was coming are wondering why others were so happy to see it happening -- they have shot themselves in our collective foot!

The very people boasting on Bradley's talent after the Michigan game are now saying we don't even have MVC-caliber talent -- what bozos...do they realize how foolish they look contradicting the very things they said in their own posts and columns just a couple days ago?

Oh -- and BTW - one ball handler had no turnovers and he was the only player with an assist that didn't also have turnovers...thankfully nobody's blaming this fiasco on that guy..

It is interesting to read the Wichita writer's take on this...
He really never once tries to make the stupid claim that Bradley has no talent - he knows better...
He says it right...
"Bradley is over-matched in coach Geno Ford’s first season."
(note he does NOT say Bradley's talent is overmatched)
"Bradley accomplished enough in its non-conference play to gain WSU’s respect.
..The Braves started 3-0, played Wisconsin and Nevada, won a road game and played Michigan tough before losing 77-66 on the road. They should not have been overwhelmed by WSU..
Walt Lemon Jr. and Dyricus Simms-Edwards combined to shoot 2 of 18 from the field and commit six turnovers with two assists."
http://blogs.kansas.com/shockwaves/2011/12/29/day-after-wichita-state-at-bradley/

So just maybe it wasn't 100% the players we have but the players doing things that do not help the team...there is a difference........

ALSO - THE ATTENDANCE of just barely over 7000 for a home conference game in mid-season is astoundingly small - also solid evidence of what many won't admit - that recent moves have hurt way more than helped...

Hey - at least we didn't lose as badly as one other local game last night...the Olympia girls basketball team lost 50-3!!! Ouch...
http://www.sj-r.com/sports/x1980204697/Girls-basketball-Southeast-falls-in-OT-to-East-St-Louis

Some other observations from last night...
Meyers Leonard watched the game from Pete Vonachen's season seats - sitting with Pete's granddaughters and also with his date Elle Bielfeldt.
Poor guy couldn't get a decent break in the treatment from fans who kinda bothered him all nite and pestered him to pose for pictures.... Meyers was actually pretty good about it but come on BU fans - give the guy some privacy when he's with a gal...

Speaking of Illinois -- Carl Maniscalco was at the Bradley game last night -- wonder what he's thinking after seeing that mess -- gotta believe he's about as thankful as possible.

Oh - and yes - Larry Austin saw this game -- ahem.....

But I am still 100% pro-BU and I hollered and encouraged the team - and I still have hope they'll have successes before the season is over...but unfortunately I don't hold out too much hope of those fans who demanded this change actually sticking around long enough to support the team through the horrible period that hose changes have caused.

Also - did you see that Bruce Weber got quoted saying that if he had known Crandall Head was so miserably unhappy about the playing time he was getting that Bruce would have played him more....apparently to cave in and appease the guy??
Bruce Weber actually says that had he known how unhappy Crandall Head was with his playing time - and that he was on the verge of leaving Illinois - then Bruce would have played him more!!
That's an astounding statement - that basically says if a guy bitches up a little bit and makes his beefs known to the coach that the coach will comply and hand the guy more playing time!

BTW -- I noted Indiana got whupped - kinda bringing most but not all Crean-lovers back down to reality..
Hmmm...just maybe that SOS of 255 set the stage for this - and the fact that they played so few road games in preparation for the Big Ten season was poor planning....
Matt Roth did get a chance to play and hit a couple shots in 18 minutes.

Northwestern again showed their lack of athleticism against a superior team as Ohio State absolutely killed them last night. They'd better hope those 10 softy non-conference wins hold up come Selection day...

More evidence of why newspapers are doing so poorly...
Here's the New York Times -- the New York Yankees of newspapers and look at the really stupid moves they make...

-They erroneously send discount e mails to millions - then they refuse to honor the discounts that they just offered...
Gotta wonder how many people were amused by this idiocy...
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2079826/New-York-Times-emails-millions-discount-offer-meant-hundred.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

-The jettison and leave many smaller newspapers to be hung out to dry...
http://flaglerlive.com/32663/news-journal-nyt/comment-page-1

-but like most really bad news sites (and this one is from msnbc) they sure have the endless time and space to devote to and promote the really ignorant and laughable stories like this one -
http://scoop.today.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/12/29/9797787-new-details-on-drug-run-that-ended-sinead-oconnors-16-day-marriage

Followup and more on a great Bradley University grad and Braves fan...

2011-12-28T08:22:00.006-06:00

The blog entry from a few weeks ago dealt with Joe Chamberlain - one of Peoria's finest natives and Bradley's finest and most accomplished graduates, even though many had not known of him.
He never really sought fame or success and the facts bear that out.

Here is that blog entry from December 1...

http://bubravesblogger.blogspot.com/2011/12/joseph-joe-miles-chamberlain-remarkable.html

Now Joe has been laid to rest in a local burial gardens - right next to Philip Jose Farmer. This is so ironic on a couple fronts....first because Farmer is a world renowned writer of science and so is Joe Chamberlain (more on that below) but Joe never received the media attention and widespread name recognition.
Farmer is famous for the science FICTION variety. Joe Chamberlain was world renowned in science FACT although not well known even in Peoria. The other big difference dealt with their spiritual beliefs...with Farmer not only being an outspoken atheist - but even notably hostile and ridiculing of anyone of faith and often debating people of faith by attacking them personally as superstitious and shallow-minded.
BUT Joe was quite different - and now is getting more written on him than ever during his life. Although Joe could debate any point he chose to quite well and was an expert on many phases of science - he was one of the most congenial, polite, and courteous - thus often complimenting anyone he might debate or discuss with yet provide a powerful argument.

The New York Times did a major piece on his passing..as did all the other New York papers..
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/12/science/space/joseph-m-chamberlain-dies-at-88-led-hayden-and-adler-planetariums.html

And so did the Boston Globe that also noted that Joe helped guide CBS' Mike Wallace when the network did a special series of shows back in the 1960's on the planets and solar system...
This story from the Boston Globe even pictures Joe with CBS' Mike Wallace...
http://articles.boston.com/2011-12-13/bostonglobe/30512730_1_planetariums-new-era-natural-history

But the real proof that finally someone has noticed is that Phil Luciano honored Joe this morning with a nice column on the front page, that I enjoyed.

Here is that piece by Phil Luciano ..even noting a little known story about a stolen ruby that Joe was involved in..
http://www.pjstar.com/news/x2023107345/Luciano-Peoria-native-had-true-star-qualities

Here are a couple more sources that detail the fantastic jewel heist at the museum and the story of how Joe retrieved the ruby...

http://articles.nydailynews.com/2001-05-02/news/18174328_1_carat-ruby-gem-magazine-writer
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=Ns4VAAAAIBAJ&sjid=jxEEAAAAIBAJ&pg=5088,364030&hl=en
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=0cQiAAAAIBAJ&sjid=OLcFAAAAIBAJ&pg=911,938250&hl=en

BTW - one source says..
"The heist was the subject of a 1975 movie, directed by Marvin Chomsky, called "Murph the Surf". The movie starred Robert Conrad, Burt Young, and Don Stroud (as Murphy)"...but unfortunately Joe must have been left on the cutting room floor!

I might point out that Luciano uses a few phrases that seem directly taken from the other sources - with minimal alterations in the words (read the NYT and Globe pieces and see..) but it's a pretty good column nonetheless.

Getting back to the point I made above - the Farmer was a writer of science fiction while Joe was a writer of science fact...one last little known thing about Joe Chamberlain was that he was also best-selling writer - although perhaps not on the scale of Philip Jose Farmer.
Back in the late 1950's and early 1960's, when the world's interest in outer space and planets was piqued by the launches of Sputnik and American efforts to get a man into space...
Joe wrote and published a book that he was told would never sell.

Now, remember, this was 20 years before Carl Sagan and his PBS series "COSMOS".... and Joe was warned by publishers that although good science FICTION books with good stories about outer space would sell, BUT books that contained facts about outer space would be dry and uninteresting and would NOT sell.

But.... Joe proceeded to write and publish his book anyway and it became the biggest selling non-fiction science book of the race-for-space era of the late 1950's through 1960's.
The book is called "Planets, Stars and Space"..and copies of it can still be purchsed easily on ebay, Amazon, and other book re-sellers.

Here is a photo of the cover...
http://i.ebayimg.com/t/Planets-Stars-and-Space-1962-Joseph-M-Chamberlain-/00/$(KGrHqF,!jME2HeCqLPYBNvuMV4E9Q~~_12.JPG

Note that unlike any other book you will find, Joe chose not to even place his own name as author on the front cover - that's just how modest and unassuming he was - preferring to shine a light on the title, the topic, and the American Museum rather than himself!

And although the proceeds of this book made Joe set for life - he also gave plenty of the proceeds to great causes - some of which he founded himself or helped found, such as...
The Division for Planetary Sciences of the American Astronomical Society
http://dps.aas.org/history/chamberlain_cruikshank_1999

The Committee on Planetary Science of the American Physical Society ..
http://history.nasa.gov/SP-4211/ch9-7.htm

And American Astronautical Society...

In any listing you might find of great people who are graduates of Bradley University - you'll find names such as...

Robert H. Michel
General John M. Shalikashvili
Jack Brickhouse
Philip Jose Farmer
Jerry Hadley
David Horowitz
Chick Hearn
Charlie Steiner
Hersey Hawkins
etc...

BUT -- I find it odd that none of those listings mentions Joe Chamberlain, a man who through his own hard work, dedication, and giving has actually had a considerably MORE accomplished career and life than many, if not most, of the Bradley grads who are listed. But this would be just as Joe might have wanted it - that the only recognition he ever sought was from his family and loved ones, which all the more embellishes his overall success.

Bradley loses at home to WCU

2011-12-21T08:38:00.004-06:00

Not only did we lose a very winnable game, we really didn't exploit the matchup difficulties WCU would have had in the paint, we didn't make FT's, and at times didn't play as smart and as energetically as they did.
All of these opinions aren't just mine - but they are echoed by numerous other people who have stated their opinions - even the guys on the post game radio show.
We still have a long way to go....

Its a rebuilding year and I can be patient -- but clearly we are seeing more of the fallout from the coaching changeover - we just don't have good PG play (last night out PG had one assists) and we don't hit the FT's (Walt's misses really hurt) or the open jumpers.

BUT - a few things being said are astoundingly stupid and need debunking.....
..we have a few comments from people who claim they saw the same game and yet they say some pretty astounding things!

Here are just a few of the ridiculous things I have seen or heard since last night...

First - someone last night said to me ..
"we're getting better"....
..but nobody else sees it - we're actually struggling - and that's exactly what many others saw and agree - and even the coach's post game comments echo that - and point out that we NEED to get better...
In many respects - outside shooting, FT shooting, PG play, turnovers, etc...we are not seeing improvement yet.
I still strongly support these guys and am 100% behind them and cheering - but let's open our eyes and be realistic -- we're a long way from where we want to be.
We have the personnel to do way better.

Then I saw someone who decided that this must all be Jim Les' fault with this comment..
"how incredibly stupid Les was for scheduling a 2-and-1 with a SoCon team"
....I fully expected some to blame it all on Jim Les - but this is pretty silly - we need to play games like this - winnable home games against decent teams....
I suppose we should have done what ISU does and scheduled Chicago State instead? LOL

"I think there were any number of encouraging things you could take from the game"
...strangely the guy who says this then fails to actually name anything encouraging but instead notes a few pretty negative observations.

"I didn't think it was ugly.....I am seeing some progress."
...keep whistling...I am as big of a Bradley fan as exists - but I thought it was unfortunately an ugly loss and so did Dave Reynolds...
"For Bradley to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory — as the men’s basketball team did .. — took poor play in several phases of the game."

Then I saw where the old injury argument got dragged up again and someone says this..
"Creighton lost Nate Funk for a whole year and still finished ahead of us in league play."

..Well... but this same person repeatedly points out we never finished higher than 4th so how impressive is it that Creighton did the same thing that year?
Anyway - someone has to shine a light on ignorance so I suppose it has to be me since nobody else bothers to straighten out this asinine comment..

The facts will easily prove that Creighton's loss of Nate Funk that year was HUGE and cost them dearly.

First - Nate Funk never missed "a whole year". He did only play 6 games in 2005-2006 so I suppose that's the year referred to - but in those 6 games, Funk averaged 17 ppg and Creighton went 4-2 in that stretch BEATING Dayton, beat a 19-win Nebraska team, and CLOBBERED GEORGE MASON by 20 points!!!
Remember - George Mason was a team who went 27-8 that year and made the FINAL FOUR!
They were very, very good and obviously Creighton was likewise VERY good when they had Funk!

In other words -- Creighton was just maybe George-Mason-good with Nate Funk and showed beyond question that had the talent to possibly go deep in the NCAA Tournament or even be a FINAL FOUR team!!!
Everyone in the universe agrees that with Nate Funk in 2005-2006 Creighton was at least a 25 win team - and would have won the Valley and gone deep into the NCAA!

BUT - without Funk - they finished out the rest of the season going just 15-7 and got hammered badly by Bradley in the MVC Tourney.
Not to mention BU finished pretty close to Creighton that year had a better RPI, got an NCAA bid while Creighton did NOT.

So...
Without Funk they finish 20-10 overall, lose several games they should have won and get knocked out of the MVC Tourney by a lower seed!! - scoring only 47 points...
they then falter in the NIT while BU makes the Sweet Sixteen -

Had they had Nate Funk - this might well have been their best year ever at Creighton basketball!
So how can anyone say or even hint that in 2005-2006 Creighton did just as well without Nate Funk as they would have done with him?
CLEARLY - in the context this argument is being thrown around - YES you can blame injuries because they do account for MASSIVE changes in how a team does.

BTW - the very next year when they did have Nate Funk - the won the Valley, swept through the MVC Tourney easily and went to the NCAA Tourney...case closed on another mindless comment.

OK -- just a few more comments on what might have been...

One kid who really wanted to be at Bradley but landed at ISU when BU had a coaching change back in March...
is Tyler Brown...who last night single-handedly saved ISU from an embarrassing home loss to UALR.
Brown scored a career high 23 points hiting 50% on his 3-pointer and all 6 of 6 of his FT's.
For the season Brown is hitting 48.3 of his 3-pt attempts, 80% on FT's, and is arguably their BEST player right now - averaging 13 ppg, 4 rebs, 3 asst - all of which would put him among BU's leaders - and he really wanted to come to BU - settling for ISU only as a 2nd option given circumstances.
Unfortunately nobody really saw Brown's fine performance last night - as their claimed attendance number of 3100 is roughly 2000 more than believable - and here's a ton of photos to back that up...
http://www.goredbirds.com/view.gal?id=108954

Here's another - last night Tyler Les - who would have been here had JL had his own way - equalled a SCHOOL RECORD eight 3-pointers and 24 points...whoa - we coulda used that!!
He was 8 for 9 from beyond the arc and moves his season's shooting pct. on treys to 44% (31-71) and scoring average to 10.1 ppg.
Sadly UC-Davis doesn't have much else this year and are rebuilding.
http://www.ucdavisaggies.com/sports/m-baskbl/recaps/122111aaa.html

Wow - UNI sure got hammered at home last night against Ohio.
Outside the top two Valley teams were may not be as strong as some are saying.

NIU drops to 0-11 - and their team is in shambles. Recall their new head coach Mark Montgomery was one of the first choices for the BU spot but declined in favor of taking the helm at NIU.
Their heralded freshman Abdel Nader - who some hyped as an immediate impact player - is also struggling. He averages 9 ppg but takes 12 shots per game to get those meager 9 points. Meanwhile his Assist to Turnover ration of 0.25 is telling.

In NBA play - Anthony Parker had a nice game for the Cavs as they lost a 1-pt decision to Detroit. AP had 12 pts, 5 rebs, 2 asst. Hi snumbers were considerbly better than the two guys hyped in the press - Brandon Knight & Kyrie Irving.

The Bulls won again over the Pacers - 93-85, Rose 12 pts/9 asst, Rip Hamilton 13 pts, 6 asst, Danny Granger had a bad game 12 pts, 1 reb, no assists.

BU has GREAT fans and needs more!

2011-12-19T11:18:00.004-06:00

I just don't get it ....
I'd love for BU to be undefeated but I can handle the current situation -- we're getting better and learning the new system.
BUT -- TEN games into the Geno Ford era at Bradley and there's already some calling themselves fans who are angry and starting arguments over non-existent issues!

It's hardly a secret that most are the very ones who have been so chronically miserable and were so incredibly critical the past few years - ripping on Jim Les & the past couple years' Braves and demanding JL's firing and replacement!
These are the very people who ought to be MOST happy to have what we now have, because they kinda got their way...and yet some are still miserable!
And I can see from their posts that they admit to being miserable and are proud of stirring up arguments!

First - they're trying to find every current flaw and loudly proclaim it as JL's fault still nine months after Coach Les is gone.
Then they start arguments in every discussion about the current team!

What gives???
Everyone pretty much agreed BU was picked last and yet we've won just about every game we'd have been expected to win given that positioning...

PLUS -- we don't have ANY of the horribly embarrassing losses and home humiliations that a few other Valley teams have like...

-ISU losing at home and scoring only 54 against UNC-Wilmington and 47 at Fresno

-Evansville losing to UIC & Tennessee Tech and only one decent home win

-SIU losing at home to Ohio (who the heck are they) Dominican and scoring only 43 at WMU

-Drake getting humiliated by 44 points against Boise State and by 14 to Iowa who Creighton demolished

-Even Indiana State barely staved off tiny Maryville at home last week...trailing in the 2nd half and needed to rally to take the lead late...

So guys -- give it a rest -- you are embarrassing your university -- and making incredible fools of yourself in the process.
Get on board and support your team - come to the games, that's the least "fans" should do...
The most vocal critics the past year or two are nowhere to be seen at many games - preferring to "boycott" (their exact words) rather than be supportive of the current Braves.
Don't start going Salukifan on us and turning viciously against your own players & team and other fans....looking for everything and anything to rip on...
Do the search on the message boards and find that some have even gone so far to say that Walt reminds them of TCS!!! What the hey are they looking at??

Even in a loss - I feel every fan still needs to be supportive of the team. It's ok to talk about the games' specifics and the fouls, the missed shots, the turnovers...but it crosses the line when insulting direct shots are taken -- especially the intentional shots made just to start arguments.

I expected some of this and cited it would be part of the fallout -- but seeing this much so early is astounding....
(most all of it has already been removed and axed from the best message boards so you won't find it now, thankfully - and some have banned over their constant arguments).

I knew the fallout would include a drop off in fan interest and attendance and we're seeing it...and guess what --
we're going to keep seeing it for some time to come... winning will correct that.
BUT -- nobody's been more precise and more accurate in predicting all of this.... than I have been - predicting the attendance dropoff, loss of fan interest, departure of players and recruits, the selfish and egotistical "boycott" some false-fans staged for the game at Renaissance Coliseum, the bickering by some who want to find a scapegoat and attack players, coaches and other fans, and significant dropoff in ability to put points on the board given the full turnover in coaching staff...

BUT -- I am still on board and 100% supportive and cheering for our Braves...even hitting the road and catching the games away from Carver!!
Those who support the team with more than just their words - with their time and attendance even at games away from Carver and with their financial support - those are, by far, the very best BU fans and I admire them!
Thankfully the best part of BU's fan base are also still on board and fully supporting their team. But it's disturbing to see those who must want to get included in Time's Man of the Year as a "protester" by protesting and trashing BU and its fan base the way the "Occupy protesters" have trashed the parks they're squatting in with their excrement.

BUT -- I really expected a few of those who called themselves fans and wanted JL out would at least give Coach Ford a dozen games or more before losing it and acting like crying babies whose lollipop has been yanked away.

Take a look in the mirror - here's what you see-

Too much of this

When we should be seeing more of this-

Lots of miscellaneous basketball news and followups..

2011-12-18T09:49:00.002-06:00

Ex-BU favorite - Chris Roberts has now left his Mexican team, Fuerza Regia after leading them to 1st place and a record of 27-6...
Chris will now return to the NBDL Texas Legends in hopes of getting a shot at an NBA roster.

The LA Lakers held a public intrasquad game - a Purple & White game...
..and Bradley's Zach Andrews impressed!

Here's what was said about Zach on the official NBA Lakers site...
"Those that took the time to watch the L.A. D-Fenders open 6-2 in the D-League got to see Zach Andrews get all nasty on a bunch of dunks. He here added a few more, highlighted by a sick baseline reverse that came just after former NBA dunk champ Gerald Green missed his own attempted hammer dunk on the other end."

Other commentators said this about Zach...
"D-Fenders callup Zach Andrews impressed with his size, athleticism and defense. Andrews had the two best dunks of the afternoon...I wouldn't be surprised if Andrews made the roster with Derrick Caracter out."

and..
"Zach Andrews - Active, live big body. Nice offensive rebounding and hustle. If consistent, may have an outside chance to make this roster.
Andrews..had two really sick dunks..probably the highlight of the entire scrimmage."

The Philly press gives Bradley zero credit for fighting back last night and making the game close --
they just say Drexel let BU back in the game..
http://articles.philly.com/2011-12-17/news/30528930_1_samme-givens-drexel-dragons

Here's a great old video for anyone interested - BU vs. UTEP in the 1986 NCAA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOny-uUN09U&feature=player_embedded

In the NBDL - Zach Andrews' old team the LA D-Fenders absolutely annihilated Osiris Eldridge's team, Bakersfield.. 96-68 with King O scoring only 8 on 4-15 and only 1 asst & 1 rebound.
this comes on the heels of an incredible game for King O...
he put up 52 points against a Zach Andrews-less D-Fenders --
http://www.nba.com/dleague/games/20111216/LADBAK/gameinfo.html

Some people have been touting Osiris as an NBA prospect - and this game might open some eyes....but if he's going to play in the big league a 6-2 shooting guard is gonna have to shoot better than 32% from 3-pt range...

Here's a funny headline to a story...
"Surging Loyola Hosts Rockhurst In Final Home Non-Conference Game Of 2011-12"
http://www.loyolaramblers.com/sports/m-baskbl/spec-rel/121811aaa.html?source=rss_teams_Loyola-Chicago_Ramblers

Are they serious?? Loyola is doing terribly - they are 3-7 and have beaten only 3 really low-level opponents like Chicago State, they've been scoring in the 40-point range in some games, even losing to EIU, and the next game is against an obscure non-D-I Rockhurst!!
Nice spin on the situation, though...

Pac-10 continues to really stink big time...
Last night Arizona State lost to newbie D-I Northern Arizona and USC lost to Georgia.
Meanwhile UCLA finally finds someone to beat playing rebuilding UC-D.
Arizona lost as well.
Pac-12 current record as a conference is 68-46! Seven teams have 4 or more non-conference losses!

Indiana wins again - with 10 different players getting time - and Remy Abell getting a nice put-back at the halftime buzzer to send the Hoosiers to a halftime lead of 26-20 - however, Matt Roth never got even a second of playing time..what a waste --
Memo to MR -- you can transfer without any penalties!

One more interesting game yesterday -- Dayton was losing to FIU 30-22 at half then outscored Isiah Thomas' squad 39-10 the rest of the way to pull it out.

BTW -- for those who predicted Jimmer Fredette would fail in the NBA -- hasn't happened yet...
last night in preseason play he was 4-6 from beyond the arc, 7-11 overall, and finished with 21 points, 4 asst, 4 rebs.

Ex-Richwoods SG Mason Alwan still struggling - shooting only 29% from the field and 22% on 3-pointers...takes a ton of shots though for Lincoln Land - 16-18 per game!

Ex-St. Pat's SG who BU was pursuing, Jacob Williams, is hitting 50% on 3-pointers (11-22)

Lastly -- so Jim Les didn't recognize talent??
He was one of the only coaches in all of D-I to pursue and offer this kid who is leading all of Division I in scoring...
Damian Lillard of Weber State -
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/12/15/SPR31MC5US.DTL

The letter to the editor this morning in the local paper regarding the media's treatment of Tebow was written by the mother-in-law of an ex-Bradley basketball player!

Reknowned atheist dies...
..perhaps the 2nd most outspoken and widely known atheist just died
Christopher Hitchens -- everyone calls him an essayist, literary critic and journalist..but he's most well known for being the 2nd most visible (besides Richard Dawkins) atheist who was always on TV and writing pieces to attack God and people of faith.

He died at just 62 - of esophageal cancer..was a far left liberal -
his book "God Is Not Great" became the bible of the atheists the past few years...
BTW - esophageal cancer's two main external risk factors are drinking and smoking and Hitchens was prolific at both...

BUT -- he was not just an atheist -- he was a self-described ANTI-THEIST...
meaning he was so openly hostile towards God and anyone who believed in God, then he felt it was his life's purpose to try to attack and destroy anyone who expressed belief..
He even openly attacked and insulted people such as Mother Teresa (calling her a fake and a fraud) and saying about Ronald Reagan - "The world would have been better off had he been assassinated early in his Presidency" and was well known for his attacks on Jerry Falwell and even CHEERING Falwell's death on NATIONAL TV when Falwell died...saying if there is a HELL certainly Falwell is there and deserved to be there...
http://miamiherald.typepad.com/naked...lls-death.html

And he called organized religion "the main source of hatred in the world" and said...
"The real axis of evil and hatred is Christianity and Judaism..."

Watch this video of a confrontation between Hitchens and Al Sharpton where Hitchens cites religion and belief in God as the worst force in the history of the world..

"... God and religion is a malignant force in the world, citing numerous historical instances in which sexual repression and outrageous acts of violence have been committed in the name of God. At the same time, he proposed that science and reason could replace that..."
http://gothamist.com/2011/12/16/video_hitchens_vs_sharpton_on_wheth.php

Wow - is this guy misinformed....
does he not know that all of the world's worst murderers and tyrants were GODLESS people who slaughtered independently of any sense of faith or religion...
Hitler, Mussolini, Pol Pot, Stalin, Mao, and many others were all atheists or godless men...
..even the worst individual murderers in history were godless people - John Wayne Gacy, Wayne Williams (Altanta murderer), Gary Ridgeway (Green River Killer)..

In fact, this mantra the atheists babble about how religion can be blamed for gobs of offenses is so ridiculous that someone has to take a stance and expose it...

Pretty much anywhere in the entire world - wherever Christianity abounds, then the treatment of women improves, lawlessness and oppression declines, and the standards of living improve.
Without organized Judeo-Christian religion - we'd still pretty much be living in the dark ages with the likes of Attila the Hun, Saddam Hussein, Kim Jong Il, and Hitler ruling over our every move...

More major newspaper woes - gonna be harder to know what we can trust

2011-12-15T10:55:00.002-06:00

I have heard the argument many times and I bet you have too....
that newspapers are the supposedly best source for news and info because they are objective, fair, unbiased, and ethical! yeah -- rrrrright.....this is so easy to prove WRONG.

Then the same people who blindly follow and support everything written in newspapers as gospel, tell everyone else that every other source on the internet is unreputable and biased. Message boards and blogs are especially worthless, they say, because it's not required to be balanced, fair, or accurate -- it's just hype, opinion, and propaganda. but let's actually look at facts - read on...

Well - regardless of this age-old claim - I still have plenty of points to counter with ..

First - aren't people allowed to be smart and think for themselves and make the decision on their own? Why do we need others who claim to be unbiased tell the masses what they should read and believe - that's kinda how it is in Communist China and I don't want that here.
Let people just read and decide fot themselves! To heck with this claim that we need to reign in or regulate what people say on the internet....after all then the same rules need to apply to newspapers and yet those folks claim a Constitutional Amendment to protect them from any "regulation".

Second - most newspapers are really hurting and going bankrupt - this is hard to deny and they're getting way more desperate and making major changes that affect their accuracy.
And there's a whole lot more on that topic below...
So if they are going under and desperate for more money - then it is obvious and it is even being reported that they are making major changes in order to get more advertising revenue and make more money in other ways.

Along that line they are kissing up to advertisers, influential people, and the public in general so they can position themselves to make more money...and guess what -- they're changing to become more like blogs and message boards and posting way more info electronically...info that in THEIR CASE - is apparently way more likely to be erroneous and inaccurate as I have readily shown many times recently!
In fact some recent stuff in the "standard" press makes bloggers look like fact-checkers.

Just check the most recent entry in this blog and note how badly the local newspaper in Peoria mis-reported the information regarding Ka'Darryl Bell's injured wrist.
In Peoria it was reported as an injury to his non-shooting wrist - but everywhere else in the universe it was plainly being reported as his right wrist - his SHOOTING wrist - a fact which makes the story incredibly more important and different.
So why so wrong?? Wrong... like reports that John Wilkins signed with Iowa State and more recently a full story on a local high school basketball tourney that totally misreported who won the tourney and took home the trophy!!

So - it's obvious that their money woes force them to lessen their standards (what standards they had) so as to cater to more sources of income, and save money.

But back to the main point --- as newspapers, especially the print versions, lose more and more money - you have to ask TWO MAIN QUESTIONS??

-How CANey lose this much money regularly and repeatedly?? -- we're talking BILLIONS of dollars!!! Where's it going??? How many people does it take to write a few stories that they mostly just recopy off the AP newswire??
Maybe the biggest story they could cover is where's all the money going - after all they're laying off gobs and gobs of people and outsourcing all their work!! (see below)

Any other business that loses BILLIONS of DOLLARS gets writeups in the paper and someone questions where's the $$ going and could there be something more ominous to explain such huge losses that rob shareholders of their savings and employees of their pensions?? Maybe this does deserve further inquiry?? Wouldn't you think so?

-Then if they are this monetarily bankrupt then clearly that would affect their accuracy, reliability, and their motives!! They simply wouldn't have the resources nor help to get things right...and they kiss up to advertisers!

If they are that cash strapped then just perhaps money becomes a bit more of an influential factor in how they run things. Maybe the $$ end of it runs all their decisions!! Money has a way of changing things and changing people.

Even their own reports on their own economic failures state clearly that they are making CHANGES, they are reorganizing, going different directions, changing journalism, and they are trying things and doing things differently in order to appeal to advertisers and make more money! They're trying whatever sells - simple as that!

Whoa...you mean they are selling out more??? That's exactly what they're admitting - they're cowtowing more and more to those who might advertise so they can get more ad revenue.
How ethical is that???

At least bloggers and message boarders have no biases like that -- they aren't saying what they're saying to get more money. Greed and money-seeking has to be one of the single MOST powerful influences that would alter the content of the newspapers...but NOT bloggers and other internet sources. Just maybe the internet sources ARE the new journalism....the best source for the truth and the watchdogs of society.

And it fits with what I have witnessed...many hot stories that are RELEVANT to Peoria get reported elsewhere but in Peoria they are not even mentioned because they make the biggest local advertisers look bad!
Here are just two examples of MAJOR stories that somehow got missed by the local Peoria newspaper - and coincidentally these stories are NOT good news for one of the PJS's top advertisers!!

http://bubravesblogger.blogspot.com/2011/08/reuters-reports-on-financial-troubles.html

http://zimtribune.com/?p=6783

http://www.digitaljournal.com/pr/520530

And here's more on why newspapers are likely getting more desperate and sacrificing accuracy and truth for profit and ad revenue....

Just the past week....

-The Pantagraph's parent company is filing bankruptcy - more than $1.3 BILLION in debt!!!!!
http://centralillinoisproud.com/fulltext?nxd_id=216797

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-12-14/post-dispatch-owner-lee-wins-approval-of-bankruptcy-loan.html

Add to that, this Bloomington local radio station, WJBC-1230 - the FLAGSHIP station for ISU Redbird basketball also just filed for bankruptcy!! ($0.211 BILLION in debt)
http://www.pantagraph.com/business/local/article_1a83614a-256f-11df-82d0-001cc4c03286.html

Whoa - what's going down in Bloomington? - soon there'll be no place left to find out anything -- just maybe the unpaid bloggers and folks who run message boards will be picking up the slack? At least they aren't so totally consumed with money issues and making a profit!!

BTW -- the Pantagraph's parent company, Lee Enterprises, also publishes the St. Louis Post Dispatch!

One other major media mogul, Gatehouse Media - also just announced "changes to it organizational structure"... ..in hopes of avoiding the same fate!
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/gatehouse-media-unveils-new-organizational-structure-135253663.html

One local effect may be this...
that the PJ Star and Springfield newspapers are "outsourcing" more and more jobs...
before long all the reporting of Peoria news will be done by people in maybe Hong Kong?...
http://capitolfax.com/2011/12/01/report-sj-r-may-sell-its-building-as-parent-faces-a-billion-dollar-debt-payment/

Geez...just how freaking accurate can news and info in Peoria be if the reporting of some of this stuff is outsourced?? Do you even believe what you are hearing or seeing any more??

Here's more on Gatehouse...
"GateHouse stock, which sold for more than $20 a share during the initial public offering five years ago, is virtually worthless, selling for as little as four cents a share last week. The company has more than $1 billion in debt due in 2014."
http://www.illinoistimes.com/Springfield/article-9382-has-lincolnrss-train-left-the-station.html

So this isn't just the business of the newspaper people - it's cheating the commoner and average folks by stealing the value of their stock holdings!

So... Gatehouse is also going down the tubes, their stock is worthless, and they are billions in debt?? How did it get this way?? Their own greed has driven them to where they are -- they are profit making companies and their lust for profits have been obviously quite a bad influence on their ability to appeal to a public that just wants a fair and honest press!

I'd go so far as to say this...
of all the motives that might drive someone to be dishonest or unethical -- I'd count greed and money-lusting at the top! Obviously cash-strapped companies that are changing the way they do things to appeal to more advertising revenue cannot be trusted to be fair and accurate! They are obviously biased and some crooked - and likely way, way more biased than the very people that newspaper-defenders always attack - the bloggers and message boarders.

So just who, then, appears more reputable??
Is it the guy whose words are heavily influenced by profit, greed, and trying to appeal to advertisers and sources of revenue...

OR is it the guy who willingly - for NO profit motive nor any other unethical motive whatsoever - states what he knows to be the truth...? ...then leaves the rest for th reader to judge....
I think you'll have an easy time answering this question.

Ka'Darryl Bell injures his right wrist

2011-12-10T18:12:00.002-06:00

But how come the various reports differ??
All the reports coming out of Chicago and Oak Park say he injured his RIGHT WRIST - and that is his shooting wrist.

BUT...
In Dave Reynolds' statement in the PJ Star, he says the injury is in Bell's NON-SHOOTING wrist..
BUT - here is the proof all the other reports differ...so who are we going to believe?
Remember - several of the other people in Oak Park are quoting directly from the Oak Park head coach and some even saw the injury occur - so is the report from the PJ Star accurate??

but all the other reports out of Oak Park say it was his right hand and video seems to show KB is right handed...so I don't know...

Dave Reynolds said - 12/9 at 12:22PM
".. a torn ligament in his non-shooting wrist"

All the other sources in Oak Park such as this one say it was his right wrist...
Brad Spencer of the OakPark.com - 12/9 at 11:19AM
".. torn ligaments in his right wrist, according to a report by head coach Matt Maloney Friday morning"

http://www.oakpark.com/News/Articles/12-09-2011/OPRF_boys_basketball_starting_guard_Bell_has_torn_ligaments_in_wrist

Here are other reporters who also say it is his right wrist
http://oakpark.patch.com/articles/oprf-vs-york-basketball
riverforest.suntimes.com/photos/galleries/index.html?story=9235992

The Oak Park River Forest school FBwebsite says "right wrist"
www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=148221288613830&id

and this site says it IS his shooting wrist, not his non-shooting wrist
https://twitter.com/#!/OakParkSports/status/145194111396352000

But, I think the difference between someone's right and left wrist - and the difference between his shooting hand in a cast vs. his non-shooting hand is an enormous difference...so I am stumped...which is it and who do we believe??

Or...is DR saying Ka'Darryl is left handed - but elsewhere I have posted links where you can watch his games..

here's one such link - feel free to watch and confirm that Ka'Darryl dribbles a lot with his left hand but...shoots with his right hand..
http://www.highschoolcube.com/schools/st-patrick-high-school-chicago-illinois/video/saint-patrick-tournament-2011---varsity-basketball-st-patrick-high-school-vs-oak-park-and-river-forest-high-school-201221

The media is keeping us in stitches, some followup on BU players, and some really funny comments from the "experts"...

2011-12-09T11:31:00.004-06:00

WE WERE JUST DISCUSSING THE IDIOCY of some media "experts" who do not know and cannot figure out the difference between millions and BILLIONS!!

http://is.gd/Hmq3Ug

And note that this column was written a couple months ago and so surely they could at least correct the tremendous & graphic errors they have made.
PLUS - they must not have proof readers!

But -- Here's another entry in the "Anyone see anything wrong with this?"
and the fuzzy math column.........

Here are three separate quotes directly from the local paper - same section, same staff of writers - over the last couple days...

Dec. 5 ......
"Michael Berg put on a show Friday night. The 6-foot-5 forward scored 37 points and grabbed 31 rebounds" -
http://www.pjstar.com/sports/preps/x1712041946/Duvall-Henry-coach-glad-he-s-back-on-bench

Dec. 7 ......
"Michael Berg of Midwest Central is pretty good at basketball.
He’s latest effort of 39 points and 19 rebounds came in Tuesday’s 70-66 win.." - http://blogs.pjstar.com/prepsplus/2011/12/07/micael-berg-video-of-his-30-30-game/

Dec. 8 ......
"Michael Berg, Midwest Central: The Raiders senior is averaging 38 points, 20 rebounds ..in MC’s last two games" -
http://www.pjstar.com/sports/preps/x1719674549/Preps-daily-Thursday-Dec-8

Hmmm...wow, how can they not see their error? Did they add the rebounds, 31+19 and come up with 40 then find the average to be 20?
Or did they just think the average of two game that total 50 is 20?

Hmmm....at least they got half the simple math problem right - unfortunately a 50% score in my kids' school is way below a failing grade!

Here's some followup on ex-Braves players.......
Boogie had yet another fine game as Halifax beats Summerside 97-96
18 pts, 6 rebs, 3 blocks

AND -- Zach Andrews getting a chance!! He's been invited to the Los Angeles Lakers' training camp!! Congrats Zach...who is currently averaging 12 ppg, 9 rpg in the D-League
http://www.lockerpulse.com/News/Sacs-Zach-Andrews-invited-to-Lakers-camp-S2422505/

Nice article originating in the west coast press...on Jim Les
http://www.cbssports.com/collegebasketball/story/16367881

This kind of stuff is scarce in some markets that play to the hostile element of fan bases...
can you imagine the local press in Peoria ever writing a fair, complimentary story like this?? I sure can't...
..and I am sure Dick Lien, Phil Theobald, and Kirk Wessler never could either...

Here's the Cav's owner's own words... on the blocked trade that would have merged Kobe Bryant with Chris Paul in LA..

"It would be a travesty to allow the Lakers to acquire Chris Paul in the apparent trade being discussed.
This trade should go to a vote of the 29 owners of the Hornets.

Over the next three seasons this deal would save the Lakers approximately $20 million in salaries and approximately $21 million in luxury taxes. ..

I cannot remember ever seeing a trade where a team got by far the best player in the trade and saved over $40 million in the process. And it doesn’t appear that they would give up any draft picks, which might allow to later make a trade for Dwight Howard...

I just don’t see how we can allow this trade to happen.
I know the vast majority of owners feel the same way that I do.
When will we just change the name of 25 of the 30 teams to the Washington Generals?

Please advise…."

http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news?slug=ys-nba_dan_gilbert_email_lakers_hornets_trade_120811

Sad to hear this....Portland Blazers All Star Brandon Roy to retire??
http://espn.go.com/chicago/nba/story/_/id/7335092/brandon-roy-portland-trail-blazers-retire-due-knees-sources-say

I know we talked about this in a couple other threads....(see the message board thread on the Manual-Lanphier game being moved)

BUT based on an NCAA ruling that penalized Lute Olson at Arizona for hosting high school games on campus as a recruiting ploy...

Some have interpreted the NEW NCAA rule to prohibit using your own campus and home floor to host games as a recruiting tool...
...as also prohibiting all high school games that are held at your home venue.

Thus the University of Illinois' Shootout at the Hall - held in Champaign's Assembly Hall, and even the River City Shootout - this year called Riverfront Roundball -
have to be either cancelled or moved elsewhere because Bradley's home floor is at the Civic Center and somehow someone must think this is an unfair advantage for BU and has to be reigned in!!

BUT - here's where this argument is going to have many serious problems...

-1st - in many smaller cities with colleges, the college basketball floor may be the only good place to hold high school games, and if it isn't allowed, then games will have to be moved to horribly inconvenient places.

-also if this holds true for basketball, then what happens when we get to the HIGH SCHOOL soccer season, swim meets, or even golf tournies???

Bradley's home soccer field has been used by many local high schools -
http://is.gd/xsdIw0

..and lots & lots of colleges let high schools use their swimming pool for meets and tournies because so many smaller high schools simply don't have one.
AND - the college's own HOME GOLF COURSE might be the only one in town!!!
Where are high schools gonna play if they can't play there?? This rule is going to get ridiculous...

-Then - they're obviously going to have to make exceptions for Regionals, Sectionals, and the STATE TOURNEY because every kid that ever plays in IHSA's March Madness in Peoria in March is playing on a floor that says BRADLEY UNIVERSITY on it...so is that going to be a HUGE violation???

IHSA's latest listing of enrollments & classifications shows some interesting movement...
...and several area schools have changed classes....meaning they will now compete in a completely different class size come basketball state playoffs....

In boys basketball, here are the schools of interest that will be changing classes...

-Putnam County moves up from 1A to 2A
-Illini Bluffs (Jeremy Crouch's school) moves up from 1A to 2A
-Canton moves back from 2A to 3A
-Chillicothe/IVC also moves from 2A to 3A
-Rock Island Alleman moves from 2A to 3A

But here's the silliness of it - because of the new cutoff determination and waiver deal - many schools will be playing in different Classes in the same sport - between the girls & boys..

for example...
IVC is 3A in boys basketball and only 2A in girls basketball
Illini Bluffs is 2A in boys basketball and 1A in girls basketball
same with Putnam County...
Normal West is 4A in Boys basketball and 3A in girls basketball
Rock Island is 4A in boys basketball but 3A in girls basketball
Sterling Newman is 1A in boys basketball but 2A in girls basketball
Tuscola is 2A in boys basketball and 1A in girls basketball
Marian Woodstock is 3A in boys basketball and 2A in girls basketball
Chicago De La Salle is 4A in boys basketball and 3A in girls basketball

...and on and on....

I get a laugh occasionally out of what people say on message boards...everyone thinks they are a Rhodes Scholar...
I do read some other boards but don't usually give a hoot about what other people - in their totally uninformed and ignorant states - ever say...
but some sure do care what other people say on BradleyFans.....and you can kind of identify that those who care the most about what people say on the Bradley message board are the anti-Bradley folks...
... always looking for something to trash Bradley over - or the coaches or players or even the other fine fans. But most often they come out looking foolish...

But someone told me about one thing that some obscure and uninformed poster said about a recruit that's not real familiar to Bradley folks...so let's clear this up.

The kid is Tyler Brown - he's a juco kid who is now at ISU and he's actually one of their 2 or 3 best players - and perhaps their best outside shooter - something Bradley sorely needs. Wouldn't it have been nice if BU had a 50% shooter from the arc.
(Tyler Brown is shooting a remarkable 24-48! And he could have been a Bradley Brave!)

But this kid was all set to come to BU and wanted badly to come to BU and was a possibility to sign last spring with us - but...on March 6th, Jim Les was fired and all of that changed. Up until then ISU wasn't even in the picture but after Les was fired, the kid has now landed at ISU and actually is one of the Redbirds' bright spots and makes Jankovich look pretty good in landing him.

BUT here's what one really lame brain poster says...
..that he has proof that Tyler Brown was not considering Bradley and that he was leaning to ISU anyway...then guess what he gives as his proof...
he gives some article from April of 2011 saying ISU was one of Tyler Brown's favorites.

Duhhh..does this bozo realize what he's saying?? He's basically confirming the very fact he thinks he's refuting...
He's using an article from AFTER JL was fired to prove that Brown favored ISU before JL was fired.... ahem -- it just can't work that way as most informed people can easily see.

Thus you can add Tyler Brown to the lengthy list of fine players who would surely be helping Bradley had it not been for the events of the past year and especially last spring....players like Remy Abell, Sam Maniscalco, Sean Harris, even Tyler Les - who has said plainly he wanted to stay and play here had he been "allowed"...and now Tyler Brown. Can you spell F-A-L-L-O-U-T ?

Saw more on druggies, thugs, and crooks - ex-D-I basketball players getting arrested...
Can someone explain to me why every one of these guys hitting the news by getting himself arrested for drug and gun crimes is always an ex-player for the same few basketball coaches...
I just can't figure why???

Bruce Pearl always catered to the thugs and criminals..
http://www.tennessean.com/article/20111208/NEWS03/312080076/Former-Vol-J-P-Prince-arrested-DUI-Nashville?odyssey=mod%7Cnewswell%7Ctext%7CFRONTPAGE%7Cp

http://www.wvmetronews.com/news.cfm?func=displayfullstory&storyid=49670

I picked up a weekly news magazine that was sitting under some stuff on my desk......
...and began to read -- I knew it wasn't the most recent issue but...
The news seemed so current...

-Iran flaunting their nuclear capability and thumbing their noses at the rest of the civilized world..

-the president talking about how we need more stimulus handouts to spark the economy

-more and more street drug victims and crime...

-impasse in congress

-President talking more taxes

-scandal -- as top politicians are discovered to be getting rich with insider information and their connections to banks and investment firms..

-Hollywood millionaires going public with their loony statements about the environment and politics and acting like they are the representatives and spokespeople for all the rest of us...

-fraud and scandal as new info and new hacked emails reveal the global warming promoters are lying, falsifying data, and hiding the facts that they are lying..

-Barney Frank claiming he was not responsible for the failures and corruption in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (but he actually is)...

...such current news.....and so about 1/2 way thru the issue I thought to myself -- wow - this news is all so current - how can that be as this is not a new magazine...so I turned back to the front page and it was an issue from January of 2010 - nearly TWO full years ago...

Wow - how things have stalled out and this currently elected government and our choices to lead this nation have DONE NOTHING in the past two years -- especially those who have been in power for a long time --
I say vote all those crooks out!

Here's an interesting quote from today's Peoria Journal Star for those who think the Federal government's job is to run education in the country or to fund it ....
"A country spending twice as much per capita on education as it did in 1970 with zero effect on test scores is not under-investing in education. It's mis-investing."

Pearl Harbor Day - The USA is and should be all about freedom and not laying down our weapons!

2011-12-07T11:33:00.002-06:00

Today they re-ran the editorial from December 7, 1981 by Chuck Dancey -- you gotta read it...it is awesome and right on!

Past editor Chuck Dancey takes an incredibly STRONG, conservative, pro-strong defense position and says that the USA should never let it's defenses down nor yield their position as a strong WORLD power....

http://www.pjstar.com/opinion/columns/x1178220388/Our-View-Pearl-Harbors-aftermath

Yet contrast that to this modern Pearl Harbor Day speech by our current President...
telling the entire world that Freedom, free markets, individualism, encouraging people to work for themselves and SUCCEED, and the freedom for businesses to operate without intrusive government regulations
...HAS NEVER WORKED!!!

IT HAS NEVER WORKED and is a failure -- did you see that = freedom, he says, is a failure! We need more government intervention!!!!

Here are the exact words from the speech's text...
Speaking of a free market environment and economics that allow people to buy and sell without constant government regulation, intervention, and control...

"It's a simple theory - one that speaks to our rugged individualism and
healthy skepticism of too much government. It fits well on a bumper sticker.
Here's the problem: It doesn't work. It's never worked."

He takes this solemn day in our history to preach a message of how America is bad and what it fully stands for is bad and has never worked....and everything that it was founded on - the freedoms to pursue whatever endeavor people want - DOES NOT WORK -- it needs to have the government step in and make the decisions for folks!!
The government apparently think that people are just too stupid to think or function by themselves!!

http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/12/07/obama_in_kansas/

Our Constitution is all about the very freedoms that our government seems now to want to abolish...they want no more free market, individualism, or anyone who dares be skeptical of the GOVERNMENT!!!
BUT isn't that exactly what the American Revolution, the formation of our new & unique nation, and our entire CONSTITUTION are all about?

I say we are headed the wrong way...
Our nation swooned and voted for this guy once without using their heads - now I pray we do not do it again!

Joseph "Joe" Miles Chamberlain - a remarkable person and outstanding Bradley graduate

2011-12-01T10:27:00.009-06:00

Probably most will not be familiar with this name and also probably didn't note the obituary in the paper.
He passed away Tuesday at the age of 88 and a half..residing lately at Lutheran Home/Hillside Village.

BUT -- Miles Joseph "Joe" Chamberlain was not only a big Bradley basketball fan, he was also one of Bradley University's MOST distinguished graduates EVER!
So, who was he??

-First - he was an amazingly intelligent and productive student - born in Peoria, then serving in WWII contributing major advancements to Naval intelligence and navigational technology.

-After WWII Joe returned to Peoria and completed his studies at Bradley - graduating alongside his close, lifelong friend and Bradley Uhniversity classmate, Robert "Bob" Michel.

-He then went to Columbia University and got his doctorate in Astronomy and Celestial studies and was considered to be one of the top two or three most reknowned people in his field - later, in the 1960's Joe's name was often mentioned as one of the top two in his field alongside his close friend and Cornell grad Carl Sagan.

-Joe's skills and knowledge were in high demand and after a couple years teaching he was hired as the Chairman then Curator of the American Museum and Hayden Planetarium in New York.
When the same position opened at Adler Planetarium in Chicago he jumped at the chance to get back to the midwest.
After almost a quarter of a century as the Curator, President, and Director of the Adler Planetarium in Chicago - he retired in 1991 and has been living with his wife in Peoria ever since. For a while he lives right next to the Molinari's in a subdivision in North Peoria.
His stint at Adler made him known in Astronomy circles as literally being Mr. Planetarium and his efforts kept the planetarium successful and relevant while many other similar endeavors around the nation faltered.

-During his career he did research, published articles, helped make major discoveries, and worked alongside some of the world's top physicists and astronomers...including Sagan ..as this column & interview mentions....
http://www.aip.org/history/ohilist/23364.html

He authored MAJOR textbooks on astronomy, space, planets, and the like - some of which are still current and used today!!
http://www.amazon.com/Chamberlain-Nicholson-Astronomer-Museum-Hayden-Planetarium/dp/B000R8AIP2

-Joe was my wife's uncle and an amazingly interesting and engaging person to talk with and listen to. He was also a tremendous, humble, generous, and friendly man who never sought to make a name for himself but instead to help advance the causes for which he worked. He will be missed, and although his time at Bradley predated most of us, and his work worldwide has only rarely been noted anywhere in Peoria, nor acknowledged by Bradley - he was and is one of the finest, most accomplished, most successful graduates ever produced by Bradley in any field.

Hopefully Bradley University should see fit to honor Joe in some way.

http://campaign.bradley.edu/updates/oldfogies.shtml

http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/pjstar/obituary.aspx?n=joseph-chamberlain&pid=154838943

http://wwwdev3.bradley.edu/about/centurion_society.shtml#TB_inline?height=300&width=300&inlineId=Chamberlain

Other references of Joe's works...

http://www.oac.cdlib.org/view?docId=tf2p300278;style=oac4;view=dsc

http://aas.org/taxonomy/term/16?page=31

http://www.astronautical.org/about/history

PS -- Joe's sister is Barbara Abegg - wife of Dr. Martin Abegg - past President of Bradley University.
One of Joe's nephews, Martin "Marty" Abegg, Jr. is one of the top and world reknowned experts on the Dead Sea Scrolls - writing books and traveling the world speaking on the subject...

http://twu.ca/academics/faculty/profiles/abegg-martin.html

http://www.amazon.com/Dead-Sea-Scrolls-New-Translation/dp/006076662X

http://www.twu.ca/academics/graduate/biblical/dead-sea-institute.html

Joe's life spanned from the early 1920's - the tail end of the era of horse drawn wagons - all the way into the 21st century....a span of incredible advancement and achievement! And yet Joe always knew that no matter how powerful man may think he is and no matter how much man may think he knows, the amount NOT KNOWN is still infinite!

Even with all the advancements in technology & understanding, we seem to have gotten no closer to knowing all the facts....and the more we see discover and learn the more it proves to us how much we DO NOT KNOW!
Only an infinitely knowledgable and powerful intelligence can be at play here - and anyone who doesn't concede that fact is denying the obvious.

Even more familiar names showing up in the headlines

2011-11-30T11:41:00.003-06:00

Of course the one familiar name in the most headlines in Sam Maniscalco...

"Maniscalco is the Man" headlines say...
http://www.illinihq.com/sports/illini-sports/mens-basketball/2011-11-29/maryland-maniscalco-man.html

Paul Klee even pleads "mea culpa" to underestimating Sammy's skills and guts!
But here's a funny line from writer Paul Klee..........
""It's kind of hard to understand how he can get in there
and make layups," said Bruce Weber, whose program is fortunate
Maniscalco was available on the college free-agency market."

Hmmm...so is anyone else gonna come checking Bradley's roster for more "free agents"??? - LOL

And one more that hits home...
"Consider Illinois' fortunes so far if Maniscalco had stayed
at Bradley for his fifth season. Tuesday marked the third tight game
where he made the biggest plays.."

"We should be proud to wear this (Illinois) jersey," said Maniscalco,
..."It's a privilege to put on this uniform."

Zach Andrews is among the leaders and also blocks & double doubles..but showing his maturity as a player he's nowhere near the leaderboard in fouls!

Zach Andrews is 3rd in rebounding among the players who have played more than 2 games...

Ex-ISU signee Justin Dentmon leads all of the NBA D-League in scoring at 28 ppg, and Ex-Missouri State Bear Blake Ahearn is 6th at 26.7 ppg.
Osiris Edlridge is also in the top 30 at 17 ppg.

Dentmon is also in the TOP 10 in 3-pt shooting at 62.5%

Blake Ahearn is averaging 8 assists per game ranking him in the Top four.
Dentmon at 7 apg is 7th.

Ahearn at 32-33 (.970) is the leader in FT shooting...and he's also the D-League leader in Pts-Rebs-Asst combined.

Nice article on BU recruit Tanner Williams
http://qconline.com/archives/qco/display.php?id=571723&query

POB's team Kavala just knocked off the #1 team - Panathinaikos with POB playing a really key role!!
http://www.eurobasket.com/boxScores/Greece/2011/1127_8937_92.asp

Following up on some familiar names

2011-11-29T09:55:00.004-06:00

Several ex-Braves are doing very well in their professional careers...here's just a sampling.....

Patrick O'Bryant's current pro team, Kavala in Greece's top pro league, which was one of the bottom dwellers last season, wins again...
as POB had another solid game, 10 pts, 7 rebs..
..at 4-2, Kavala is just one game out of first place...and POB still leads the league with 2.8 blocks per game, and ranks 6th in rebounding with 7.3 rpg

Marcellus Sommerville also had another great game and his Le Mans team beat Poitiers 106-95, Cellus had 19 pts, 7 rebs, 5 asst, and a steal!

Eddie Cage had a fine game Saturday with 19 pts, 4 rebs - making all NINE of his shots including 1-1 from 3-pt...his Andorra team is tied for 1st place at 5-2

Lawrence "Boogie" Wright's Halifax Rainmen (Canadian National League) win again 115-111 - Boogie had 15, 3 rebs, 3 asst and they are battling for 1st place.

Chris Roberts' Fuerza Regia won yet again Sunday - with Chris getting 19 pts, 3 rebs, 3 asst..and are on top of the league.

Andrew Warren was the subject of this article...silencing critics who said he was inconsistent, but he's now doing very well.
His team, the Taipans, who have been a long time bottom dwelling team - is now competitive.
http://www.nbl.com.au/taipans1/news/article/2011/november/warren-silences-critics-as-cairns-taipans-get-revenge/

http://www.nbl.com.au/index.php?eID=tx_cms_showpic&file=uploads%2Fpics%2Fdrew.JPG&md5=03d69b73dd879b68843f2eac8adf7265459fea4e¶meters[0]=YTo0OntzOjU6IndpZHRoIjtzOjQ6IjgwMG0iO3M6NjoiaGVpZ2h0IjtzOjM6IjYw¶meters[1]=MCI7czo3OiJib2R5VGFnIjtzOjQyOiI8Ym9keSBiZ0NvbG9yPSIjZmZmZmZmIiBz¶meters[2]=dHlsZT0ibWFyZ2luOjA7Ij4iO3M6NDoid3JhcCI7czozNzoiPGEgaHJlZj0iamF2¶meters[3]=YXNjcmlwdDpjbG9zZSgpOyI%2BIHwgPC9hPiI7fQ%3D%3D

Bradley's two recruits for next year are also doing very well.
At Dodge City Community College - Tyshon Pickett is putting up double-doubles consistently and is averaging 14 ppg, 10 rpg, hitting 64% of his shots.

PG Ka'Darryl Bell just completed a big time Chicago area Holiday Tournament at st. Patrick's -leading his team won the Championship and playing three great games...
The games are available per online video at the link right below...
Ka'Darryl's averages are 13 ppg, 6 apg
http://bradleyfans.com/vb/showthread.php?t=19772

Here's a couple followups on other players..

-Andrew Bock - who was one of Dana Altman's premier recruits to Creighton -a Top 100 kid who was rated as high as 4-Star....a sure fire star - who flopped royally at Creighton and was ushered out to free up a scholarship.
He transferred to Pacific and after sitting out a year - and after getting the chance to start..he has now kinda bombed there as well.
He's playing now as a sub and getting a couple points per game.

-Michael Ocereobia is probably falling deeper on the list of possibilities for BU.
He's been hampered by injuries but he's not putting up great numbers..
6.2 ppg, 58% field goal shooting, 5.5 rpg.

-Robert Goff - a big man that was once on Bradley's radar screen - played his cards - held out and was at one time last year the hottest BIG MAN commodity getting big time offers from Big Ten, Big 12, & Big East schools.
But then most schools backed off a bit due to his academics and he settled for Marshall.
Surely he should be doing great at Marshall, right?
well...not really - 9.8 ppg, 5.2 rpg, and averaging 4 fouls per game.

-note the discussion on Reggie Hamilton...the point guard from Illinois in Class of 2007 who wasn't even listed inside the top 50 players in the state (others in the Top-10 just to remind you - Sam Maniscalco, Evan Turner, Demetri McCamey, Mike Tisdale..)
this kid is one of the best players in the nation now, scored 35 points last night to beat Tennessee, and yet was overlooked by everyone!
http://bradleyfans.com/vb/showthread.php?t=19810

-NIU is really woeful under new coach Mark Montgomery. At 0-6 they really haven't been in a single game yet...
They have a kid who was hailed as a BCS caliber recruit, a difference maker, Abdel Nader..
But Nader is struggling a bit - needing SEVENTEEN shots last night just to score 8 points!
Ex-BU recruit Tyler Storm - who doesn't get a lot of chance to play needed only 4 shots to make 5 points.
Nader's FG shooting is just 33%, and only 50% on FT. He's also averaging 4 turnovers per game.

-Hersey Hawkins' oldest son Brandon Hawkins - was listed as a walk on at Portland State but now he's no longer listed on the roster and is apparently no longer playing.
Hersey's 2nd son, Corey is sitting out a year after transferring to UC-Davis to play for Coach Les.
Hersey's youngest son, Devon, plays high school ball for West Linn HS in Oregon.
Here's a video of Devon
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDSEJIfArrs&feature=related

-Manual HS's Marvin Jordan - now at Niagara is averaging 11 ppg, 3 rpg, 2.5 apg.
Maybe 2.5 apg doesn't sound like a lot but consider this...
That figure would easily lead the main point guard at BU who is averaging 2.16 apg.

-Anyone recall Larry Anderson? He's a recruit that Bradley battled right down to the finish and was one of Anderson's final two choices before he decided on Long Beach State. At the time it was made clear that the facilities were the main deciding point and Larry Anderson spurned Bradley because of the the aging on-campus facilities.
At Long Beach State - all he's done is become the team leader in just about everything.
A senior this year - he's averaging 15 ppg, 5.2 rpg, 3.5 apg. He'd have been a ton in the Valley - too bad we missed on him.

-Big game tonight (6:30PM) Illinois playing at Maryland, part of the Big Ten/ACC Challenge. It'll be interesting to see how Sammy does.

-Evansville hosts Alabama State 0-4 - should be an easy win.

-One last followup...
Drake's Josh Young - the sharpshooter who always played well against Bradley - is in Germany playing professionally.
He has turned into a prolific scorer.

Last year he played in the Pro B division in Germany - the 3rd tier of professional play and averaged 26.7ppg, 6.4rpg, 3.0apg, 2.3spg, shooting 3PT at 45.3%!!
Pretty amazing stats that allowed Josh to negotiated with a bigger, stronger team.
..and so far this year at the highest level of Professional ball in Germany, with the WALTER TIGERS Tuebingen team, he's averaging 11 ppg, and 35% from 3-pt, and 82% on FT.

Bradley's now 3-1

2011-11-23T11:39:00.002-06:00

It was a winnable game last night but Bradley's lack of depth showed...no consistent shooters, and needing to use deep bench players and walk-ons...
But -- what did anyone expect....they were warned of the fallout and yet we still see some who must not have gotten the memo - laughing and mocking as if there is no fallout...
We are missing at least 3 solid players who would be helping us a bunch - SM, RA, and SH...but even an idiot can't miss that the attendances of only about 7000 are far, far below what we have seen at this point in every regular season since we moved to the Civic Center...
Even last year - when people were unhappy, there were complaints about attendance being down, and Bradley was losing - we drew over 8000 for a home game just before Thanksgiving.

And wonder of wonders.....Geno Ford loses one game and the same, chronically unhappy segment of BU's "fan base" is filled with rips and complaints...even to the point of turning on each other, calling each other names, and acting like children having tantrums.
But then what's to be expected - the name calling and infantile personal attacks are routine.

Did anyone think we'd go undefeated? Is 3-1 at this point in the season so far from what anyone would have thought we'd be?
We lost to a team where their guy was launching distant, fall-away shots that any other time would have been labelled ridiculous -- but they happened to go in.
Sometimes that happens...I am still happy our guys kept fighting and playing hard.
But then, I guess that's what clearly shows that I am a fan, I support the team, and I don't think just of myself and how I could have done it better, as some so-called fans rant.

Like it not, this loss is part of the fallout of making so many abrupt changes that we don't have the depth, the players, and have NOT had the time for Geno to get out on the recruiting trail and haul them in. His recruiting in the short time he's been here is as good as can be envisioned...but how can anyone see that Geno is hampered by the situation -- the fallout of the sudden changes.

And we are going to be big underdogs against Wisconsin - but it would not surprise me if we play them closer than UMKC did since we have better athletes.
Regardless - I am stumped as to how 4 games into the season we can have "fans" throwing Geno and his players under the bus already except that such is the character of the very people claiming to be fans but who seem to attack at every opportunity as if filled with intense bitterness...immaturely seeking someone to blame at every opportunity.
But then..given the past record of fans attacking every previous coach ...does it surprise that they're at it again already?

Here's a very interesting story developing around the sexual perversion issues at Syracuse involving one of the Syracuse basketball assistants..
Seems like the local police department is hindering the District Attorney's efforts to investigate...
so what's the deal? Do the police have some vested interest in protecting the Syracuse program and the perverts in it?

http://is.gd/cnjIf3

News alert for those who ragged on Wisconsin-Parkside and claimed they were a bad team because someone thought they would be last in their league..
They have NOT lost yet...they are 4-0 with an average margin of victory of 18 points and a couple of their vanquished foes are getting votes in the polls!
(Plus they almost beat UW-Milwaukee in their other exhibition!)

So how about Bradley's other exhibition opponent...
Well...Wooster hasn't lost yet either --
since the exhibition game at Bradley, they have won two straight averaging a 20 pt margin of victory!!

Lastly -- have to give a B- grade to Quick Change. I have now seen them at least 5 times as the halftime act and not only have they NOT changed or added to their act over the past 3-4 years...but I don't even think they are as good or smooth in performing it.
I still enjoyed them but several times we saw the other colored glove sticking out of the top hat and have to be cleverly pushed back in by the man, and we also saw the dress completely unfold from top to bottom one time when the covering that was meant to hide it from view failed.
Also - the corny fake flowers from the bottles and other hiding places are not even amateur-level trickery and need to be upgraded.
As for the guy on the message board who claims they accomplish their trick with some kind of high-tech fabric that changes color via electronic gadgetry -- take a hike -- that's not even the least bit plausible.

Getting back to the perversion/sports stories -- this should never be about sports or football or basketball...
this ought to be about finding, identifying, and nailing any and every pervert or predator in this or any other endeavor and keeping them away from kids.
This kind of story where Syracuse basketball coach Jim Boeheim is unconditionally supporting his assistant even if there's solid evidence that the guy is a pervert and preying on kids -- this is sickening.
http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/story/_/id/7270237/syracuse-orange-jim-boeheim-reiterates-support-assistant-bernie-fine

This kind of absolute crap reminds me of all the time after horrific murders - like the Caylee Anthony case, like the John Wayne Gacy case, like the mothers who drove their kids into a lake or drowned them in the tub, like the Columbine murderers or the Gabby Giffords shooter, like filthy-minded perverts in any profession who prey upon innocent kids....
and how right after the horrible facts and details of the crimes are revealed someone always comes forward and says...
"oh but he's (or she's) such a sweet person and I can't imagine anything like this happening" or "it can't be - I have never seen that side to him (or her)...
I guess it only shows a degree of stupidity that I cannot fathom.
Sadly - I think there's more of this to come - since everyone in the media, in Hollywood, and elsewhere preaches that "anything goes"...and that all forms of lusts and perversions aren't really bad at all.......this same kind of perverted stuff is the makeup of jokes and skits on Saturday Night Live -- like it's harmless and no big deal...

BU 3-0

2011-11-21T11:18:00.003-06:00

Nice start so far but 3-0 is where BU should be and was expected to be .. but a few nice surprises....Taylor Brown's production already, Jordan Prosser's scoring and rebounding, and Jake Eastman's contributions.
Sadly there are still folks who can't see Jake's benefit to this team...
Prosser is ranked among the Top 20 nationally in rebounding and FG percentage, and leads the MVC in rebounding.

The faster style of play has lead to a few turnovers but oddly -- BU is still averaging at this point only 13 TO per game - still not bad and hopefully should get better.
This team is fun to watch and any good Bradley fans will enjoy them - even if they don't win the Valley....
considering everyone is picking BU last - this 3-0 start kinda has many talking that BU should do better than 10th -- duhhh....as if the gurus were blind, deaf, and dumb and didn't know who Taylor Brown was, or that DSE, WL, JE, and JP actually had some talent!

One down side - and the most obvious evidence of fallout other than the missing 3 players who would have certainly helped us this season (RA, SM, and SH) - is that the attendance thus far is the lowest at this point in the early season as it has been since BU moved to the Civic Center! Way more empty seats than even I expected....
Sure, there are a few season ticket holders who failed to renew - I expected that...but seems the biggest part of the drop-off are the supposedly loyal fans who threw a tizzy fit about the one game being held on campus and proudly "boycotted" even bragging about doing so!
There are quite a few faces that I used to see at games that I simply do NOT see thusfar this year -- some kind of fan that must be....
So much for those guys laying claim to being good fans!

But, as I have always said there are different kinds of fans - some better and more loyal -- and nice that Geno gave some kudos to the former on the radio today for supprting this team think and thin and showing up when nobody expected BU to be 3-0.

Come on out and watch & support the Braves.....and keep logging onto the best and busiest fan message board anywhere in Central Illinois -
www.BradleyFans.com

Busier, more info and interest by far than all the other Valley sites, and busier by 160-3 margin on any given day like today! Check it out...and it's not a subscription site run by ISU fans! Just folks who have full time jobs and families but who still find and post all the most useful news and breaking info on Bradley basketball. Every tidbit of info or news on Bradley shows up there first thanks to the great informed fans base on BradleyFans!
Singlehandedly saving many people $250 per year trying to find any info somewhere else!

The Great Success at Renaissance Arena

2011-11-17T09:32:00.002-06:00

Bradley held their first Division I game on campus in 30 years last night and it was a tremendous success. In fact it was a TREMENDOU SUCCESS. Ticket sales were slow at first and a few people grumbled - none more prominently than one local newspaper sports editor who proclaimed repeatedly this was a bad idea.

BUT - it turned out to be wildly successful, much to the chagrin of those who have dissed on the whole idea since it was first proposed more than a year ago - and was announced as planned several months ago.

Here's just a little sampling of how successful it was..

-the players and coaches all unanimously agreed it was wildly successful and was a great idea. NOT one negative comment from anyone who was there at the game except one (see below).

-1400 Bradley students bought tickets and attended the game -- 1400 -- that's probably MORE Bradley students in one building that has occurred in many decades.

-1400 Bradley students may even be MORE than there are attending classes on some nice days in the spring!

-everyone who bought a ticket and attended - even season ticket holders, sat in a seat that was NEW to them - a new experience, with many new or different people sitting nearby from what they were used to. This was great as it gave a chance to see and meet new Bradley fans...and enjoy a NEW experience.

-the place was, of course, packed and tremendously loud. Loud enough so that you couldn't even stand face to face and talk to someone - you had to lean over and shout directly into their ear.

-the fans were wild, too -- standing and cheering - not just the students..very few blue hairs staying in chairs.

-the message boards are filled this morning with numerous threads discussing the success of this event - at least half a dozen different discussion threads - all noting what a great time everyone had and what a success this was right from the very idea.

-you practically can't find a single person with anything negative to say...practically - except for that very same local newspaper sports editor who has been dissing on this whole idea for months -- somehow he saw this game very differently from the thousands who were all there enjoying it...and his column had at least a dozen rips on this game, the students, and the whole idea.
Somehow he seemed to have a bad hair day with this game while over 4300 were having one of the best times of their lives.
Does this maybe say something about his perspective and how negatively biased this writer must be? What's the basis for his negativity and grudge against the school he claims to be a 3-generation devotee of?

Why comments like this about the surprisingly HUGE mass of 1400 students in attendance..
"a couple or three hundred students left at halftime and did not
return. Must have had to get to their 8:30 night classes. Or something."

And instead of a compliment to the BU administration for all the hard work in making this a success, he never mentions that and instead says..
"..it wasn't the mighty roar that drove generations of Peorians to
premature hearing loss from time spent at Braves games in old Robertson
Field House.
..they need the administration to care about the students again. The sad
fact for too long on the Bradley campus has been that the basketball program
is invisible."
"One game played in Renaissance, a campus arena much too small for the
season-ticket base, won't fix that."

I don't get it --- does this writer go to a restaurant and ask to be served - then when he gets a great meal JUST AS HE ASKED -- he responds..
"..This won't cut it -- this is only one great meal - I need something like this many more times before I am satisfied.."

Oh well......the people that Bradley did this for sure appreciated it...the students and the rest of the fans.......
I got a laugh seeing a 4-page thread on one message board about this game -
gotta see -
BUT -- the first three pages of posts are from BEFORE the game was played, and are gripes and complaints about this being a bad idea and even predictions that it'll be a flop!

Then one guy who I talked to at the game and who was having a GREAT time with front row seats....posts how everyone was wrong and they missed a great game - then the whole thread goes silent - nothing -- only 2 posts were made from after the game and neither actually discussed how great the whole game and event was!!!
I guess the certain negative aspect of the fan base there is stunned by the facts and doesn't have any more defense for their gripes.

Getting to the game itself......

We still lack a consistent outside shooter but Shayok Shayok nailed a couple outside shots and made the defenses pay.
Jordan Prosser filled the middle and nearly had a second double double with 15 pts, 8 rebounds.
Walt Lemon kept his fouls and turnovers down and contributed significantly to the offense.
The lack of depth at the post forces Prosser to avoid tight defense - giving opponents some pretty good looks down low...
I think using AT or even DH early in the game to lay some hard fouls on their post players might send the right message and keep them out of the paint.
Dyricus keeps having leg cramps -- I need to tip him off to a little traditional cure...

Even the cheerleaders came well prepared in older throwback uniforms.

Hot dogs were 50 cents...and there's plenty of concessions and restrooms so even a packed house had little to complain about.

All in all it was a 100% POSITIVE experience - so I am simply stunned that there are still a handful who find things to gripe about.
Some of the gripers say they do not read this blog but they always seem to know what I am saying - so I expect they will read this and know who I am talking about.
Misery loves company and bitterness destroys the vessel that holds it...
give up the griping and be a fan.....4300 people will tell you it was a truly great experience - sorry you missed it.

Lots of interesting Valley News

2011-11-16T10:34:00.007-06:00

There's a lot to talk about in the Valley, some good and some bad...First, the good!

Bradley returns to campus for a home game tonight. Although Bradley has played numerous preseason exhibition games on campus in recent years, this is the first regular season game since Bradley beat Illinois Wesleyan in the old Fieldhouse on December 1, 1993, an 81-63 win in front of 5205 fans.The last game against a D-I opponent on campus was March 18, 1982 which was a 3rd round game in the NIT.Bradley won this game over Tulane 77-61 on their way to the NIT TITLE a week later in New York.>>

The last time Bradley played a regular season game against a D-I opponent on campus was February 27, 1982 - the final regular season game of the 1981-82 season, a tremendous game that I recall well - but a heartbreaking OVERTIME loss to #8 ranked Tulsa 82-79 that hurt BU's chances of an NCAA at large bid...but set up a memorable run to the NIT Championship.>>

This will be an exciting game against decent opponent tonight, SEMO - who have some fine players. However -- I am puzzled why we have to pay them so much to come and play us in Peoria. This is a team that would have probably come for a dime just to "play up" against Valley opponent.$70,000 sounds like a lot of money - http://www.semissourian.com/story/1784881.html--

But Bradley also has some very fine players....with Taylor Brown, Dyricus Simms-Edwards, Jordan Prosser, and even a couple freshman excelling and standing out thus far. It's beginning to look like just maybe the players we had already in the fold at BU were not so bad as some whined about. It's becoming pretty obvious that it was just the injuries that hurt BU.--

AND TONIGHT -- we need a great crowd - but thus far crowds have been down -- obviously a part of the fallout from last spring that doubters simply don't want to see.

More good -- the Valley still is getting some pretty good press - some saying we're going to get multiple NCAA bids...and I certainly hope so....as long as the negatives coming out of the Valley don't hit the national newswires....http://is.gd/LuGjVt

The Evansville win vs. Butler and Drake win vs. Iowa State helped a bunch but we need some more BIG wins -- GO Aces tonight against the Hoosiers!

More good - for BU fans - after 5 games BU recruit Tyshon Pickett is hitting 65% of his field goal attempts, hauling down 10 rebounds per game, getting 2.2 blocks.

In the MVC stats - Jordan Prosser leads in rebounds and is 3rd in the NATION, while two of the top four scorers in the Valley are BU players (TB &DSE).

Now the bad - First - a mention of the passing of Bradley basketball legend Bob Carney -- a truly great player but also a great man and incredibly well loved by everyone who knew him - he has already been missed, as I have the pleasure of sitting two rows in front of his season tickets and have enjoyed many chats with Bob & his wife - and have already missed seeing them. RIP.

And the really bad Valley basketball news........I don't think I can recall a team in the Valley in any recent decade that is as bad as SIU looks right now.They lost on their home court to a bad, transitioning D-II team - a team that went the next night to another D-II school and got blown out.
BUT SIU lost looking really bad .....Then last night they not only lost to Saint Louis -- they embarrassed themselves and the Valley. They were never even close - they trailed by 20 early and the final score would have been a 25+ point margin had Rick Majerus not flooded the floor with deep subs.
And SIU simply doesn't play the kind of ball that's going to win games. Everyone just dribbles and shoots - no passing - totally selfish play. They had ONLY one assist in the entire game - how is that possible?

That may just be some kind of all time MVC or NCAA record - and if not it is only one away from the record!!!

BUT -- you haven't heard the worst -- as bad as SIU is - they do have two legitimate D-I players in Bocot & Seck - but both are seniors and will be gone next year. How are they ever going to find anyone they can schedule and beat next year?

Since the Rich Herrin era - SIU has had only 3 losing seasons and all three have now occurred under Lowery's watch and the spectre of several more loom large!
AND yet - the usual crowd who dissed on Jim Les used to praise Chris Lowery endlessly - even our local press did as if they'd have traded what we had in a heartbeat to get CLo! Can you imagine -- Lowery never even had injuries that might have accounted for his team's dismal performances. There's really nobody the SIU fans can blame except Lowery and whoever gave him a 7 year extension at 3/4 mil!

Then we have the two ISU players arrested for assaulting an apparent downtown bar patron at 2AM last Sunday morning..Now I don't want to get into a terribly big argument but this comes on top of numerous other alcohol issues and arrests, DUI's, robberies, player dismissals for arrests, even child rapes at - among the basketball players at ISU recently -- they even had a stretch with Levi Dyer & Brandon Sampay of TWO DUI's concurrently that Jank said he'd penalize strictly yet none of those guys ever missed a single game or even a practice as has been thoroughly documented.I agree BU players have had some issues - but all have FAR more minor and almost trivial in comparison.

Although I saw all this coming years ago - with the behavior and the poor scheduling, poor recruiting, and terrible performances - that ISU and SIU have clearly defined themselves as the BOTTOM of the Missouri Valley. Their fans have tried like crazy to fire slurs and insults at BU and the Bradley players and even the Bradley fans - but the facts clearly define otherwise. Where some fans were saying the Valley should dump Evansville a couple years ago - I think now we need, unfortunately to look at SIU & ISU...they're both scheduling and playing worse than D-II's and their criminal and arrest record is hard for the rest of the nation to miss. I guess I'd feel sorry for their good and loyal fans - but there don't seem to be very many. Thankfully most fan bases are more upbeat even when their teams falter or suffer through injury.

Here's a laughable bonehead comment by our President -- but here's the odd thing...If George Bush, Gerald Ford, Dan Quayle, or even Michelle Bachman had made this comment, it would have been on the front pages of newspapers and on Saturday Night Live for YEARS!!!And yet HERE is OUR President - who was BORN (supposedly) in Hawaii -- and he doesn't even know that Hawaii is part of AMERICA!!!He says Hawaii is part of ASIA!!!Is this profoundly stupid or what??
http://is.gd/IudeJV

Just as predicted - the Wall Street movement people are suddenly realizing how stupid their demands are -- that they want money handed to them and taken away from people who worked to earn it.Al a big blow to their cause - yesterday the New York Supreme Court ruled that they cannot "occupy" the public park - that it is illegal for them to claim as their own the property of the state!So most have packed up and gone - leaving behind their filth, waste, drug paraphernalia, condoms, and rubbish...and now there's only about a dozen of them left.BUT - never underestimate the wackiness of anarchists and lazy people who want others' money! They'll be back or they'll simply start taking over houses in your town!
http://is.gd/pvjUHs

Bradley 2011-2012

2011-11-14T11:36:00.003-06:00

I think this team is going to be exciting even given the shortcomings...
we signed 5 new players last spring and then two more this fall - and yet none seem able to help much in several key areas...

We are shallow in the post - with Jordan Prosser doing a great job then Anthony Thompson backing up, but Thompson is gone next year (and has been inconsistent thus far this year), Will Egolf is still uncertain at this time, Nate Wells isn't available this year and will be raw the next, and so we will remain shallow at the post.....
not saying we will be weak in post play if JP can have more games like yesterday's.

We still don't have a good outside shooter anywhere on the horizon. This is probably our biggest need.

Point guard play will haunt us -- need I say much about Walt Lemon having a bad game yesterday..
Donivine will help a bunch - lots more than most "experts" have said in their uninformed way. Then we do get Ka'Darryl Bell next year but he also will be brand new and raw.

Anyway - despite the areas noted, this is an exciting team with several top players..
I am surprised there were so many empty seats - but it's undeniable proof of the fallout from the last eight months.
I cannot recall a season opener with that few fans in the seats. Lots of the empty seats were people who never missed a game...but a lot were also the people who shoot their mouths off about how great of fans they are, then they rag on the team non-stop and are MIA at home games.
Yeah - right...tell me again how much BU needs more fans like that. But with a few more wins the fans will start coming back....

BTW -- the MVC stats now list Jordan Prosser leading the league at this early stage...also note two Bradley players (DSE & TB) among the top four in scoring..
http://www.mvc.org/mbb/stats/ind.pdf

In fact - Jordan Prosser is 3rd in the entire nation in REBOUNDING!
http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/basketball/stats/bycategory?cat=Fielding&sort=27&conference_id=NCAAB

I think people are missing a great opportunity if they have passed on the Bradley Braves Club...
membership starts very economically and at many levels you even get a parking pass to be able to park right across the street from the Civic Center.
Are you Fan Enough?? Membership does have its privileges... ;)

Ex-BU recruit Darius Smith who went first to UConn then to juco then committed to EIU -- seems to be MIA also -- he's not playing and not on the roster.
My suspicion is that he got booted.

One ex-ISU Redbird doing well on the court is Chicago State's Jeremy Robinson.
The kid never got a chance at ISU and was run out - now getting 20 ppg & 8 rebs and may the only bright spot at Chicago State.

But perhaps one reason not many schools went after Jeremy after he left ISU...he does have a pretty significant issue legally...
Not only has he never kept a few of his court dates and has some other more serious recent issues...

Even ISU legend Osiris Eldridge still has issues pending --
three and a half yearsand he's still never settled up.

But he's not the only Valley guy frequenting the legal system in Bloomington -- even SIU superstar Justin Bocot keeps getting into trouble when he's home from college -

Speaking of SIU -- the D-II team they just lost to went a couple days later to play University of Southern Indiana, where Ohio Dominican (whoever they are??) got clobbered 71-48!!
Remember - Southern Indiana is currently being coached by an ex-SIU assistant who many Saluki fans would like to have right NOW to replace Chris Lowery as head coach.

If you want just a sampling of how the SIU fans feel about their home team and coach -- then don't go to the Saluki message board -- I am afraid that would scar you for life -- it's taken a horribly negative and hateful turn - kinda like Valleytalk used to be and how a certain other Central IL board is currently headed at light speed...

Instead check out this article in the SIU campus newspaper - guys who are usually fiercely LOYAL to their team --
http://www.st-extra.com/extra/?p=536

And to think a couple of self-proclaimed BU experts had wanted us to go after the two juco kids that went 5-17 for SIU against D-II opponent.

Exposing fallacies in and outside of sports

2011-11-13T08:24:00.003-06:00

The one I hear all the time is that you can't blame the refs and that the refs are just doing their job and are unbiased.

BUT -- surely you've seen the NUMEROUS studies and statistical analysis proving otherwise.
Clearly there is rock solid proof that refs do show a bias based on the higher ranking team or who is the home team or who has had the most fouls previously...
Those studies are really hard to refute...so I believe that refs are biased and prone to using prejudice when making calls - I see little evidence offered objectively to back up the "unbiased" claims.

One more argument I have heard recently is that you can't judge someone else's "fandom" - but I think that's been debunked as well. Clearly fans have openly and freely identified themselves sufficiently so it IS easy to see there are different types. The main difference in my eyes is that some fans support their teams even if the outcome is unpleasant - and others require some kind of "stroking" of their own egos or requirements before they are fans.
Their own words on most occasions define them.
I also notice that the very fans who call themselves the BEST fans not only rarely ever support their team or institution financially -- but they go one step further - they launch attacks against those who are good fans. Heck -- all you have to do is go to a few message boards - and look at the Saluki one if you don't want to look locally - and see the immature and mindless attacks on the very people they claim to support...but then they also turn their rage on each other plummeting their message boards into the cesspool.

Here's a few that do not involve sports...

-"When people spend more money it's good for the economy"
...we are told this many times by many different sources - politicians, media, etc...
They use the example that around Christmas when people spend more, then the economy is better..
Even if they have to borrow or run up big credit card debt - they still tell us we need to go out and spend more.

But - first, they don't bother to tell you that all those extra people who get employed around Christmas are then laid off right afterwards.

Then they overlook the fact that not all spending helps the economy! Much of it pushes people further into debt so that all it takes is one unexpected crisis that overloads their ability and bankrupts them.
If just anyone spending more always helped, then wouldn't it be good for our economy if we had an epidemic and everyone had to spend more money on health care to get better?
and yet - unexpected medical expenses are often cited as the cause for personal bankruptcies. But - many if not most of those people claiming the medical costs bankrupted them were already on the verge of bankruptcy via their own irresponsible spending.

Or - another example - wouldn't Louisiana have been way better off after Katrina - since everyone who had damage obviously had to spend a whole lot of money to rebuild and get things back where they were?

Or how about this one -- if we just want to make everyone spend more because they say it's good - then just raise prices on everything by 50% (that's called massive inflation) then everyone will have to spend more and put MORE dollars into the economy. According to the BS we hear all the time - then we'd have a GREAT economy if we all started spending MORE.

Nope - the answer isn't for everyone to spend more - it's for everyone (government included) to spend less - but where needed, spend more wisely and then save more of what you then do NOT have to spend -- that would help people wipe out their debt and gain savings! It also requires people to work hard for what they earn - but that brings me to the next example of ridiculous fallacies...

-"People DESERVE to be paid a decent living" or stated another way "The Occupy people who are holding signs demanding a share of someone else's wealth have a legitimate point"
...wow - I don't know where to start on this one....

Throughout all of history, if someone wanted to get ahead or make money -- they went out and worked HARD. If they wanted to do better, then they worked HARDER.
And if they want to be the best in their field, the worked the HARDEST!
Throughout my entire life - nobody's handed me anything I didn't work for and deserve. Yet - if I wanted to earn more or have more - I went out and worked HARDER or produced MORE.
But now we have this insane philosophy where people gang up and hold signs saying..
"We want to be paid more - and while you're at it - we also want to work fewer hours and have less responsibilities"
Say what?? This is the exact opposite of how people earn a living throughout all of history -- seriously we now have gobs of people expecting to make more money by working less but by ganging up on the guy signing the checks!

BUT WAIT -- there's even now a new movement that goes infinitely further...
Now we have a bunch of violent loonies holding signs saying in effect --
"We don't even want to work at all -- we just want someone, preferably government, to take wealth from those who have earned it and give it to us even if we never did a thing to deserve it! In fact, if government doesn't do it - we'll show off a bit of our thuggery and violence and maybe we'll just take it ourselves".

Good luck -- but I have a sneaky suspicion that even if we took all the wealth in the nation and put it in a pot and then divvied it all up - what we'd have all over again in just a matter of a couple years - is exactly what we'd started with!
We'd have the hard working, well educated, and ingenious people earning it all back and becoming wealthy again. And the lazy, sloppy, selfish, demanding people who are unwilling to work hard and simply holding their hands out expecting someone else to do their work for them would find themselves right back where they were once they've finished greedily spending and wasting all that they unethically ripped off those who did work for it.
Life has a way of working out that way -- except in Communism -- but then many of the Occupy people openly identify themselves as Communists.

-as per the Penn State stuff we see endlessly - "failure to report such a crime makes those who fail to report JUST AS GUILTY as the perpetrator"
....well, I for one do not agree -- the guy who is guilty is the one who is by far MOST guilty....and the failure to report is sad but in most cases not illegal.

Anyway -- how about those coming out now 15 years AFTER the fact saying they now KNOW about Herman Cain committing harassment and abuse -- what about their failure to report for a decade and a half?
Could not the same things be said about them? If what they say is true - then could they bear part of the guilt by knowing something and having the responsibility to report to the proper authorities - yet NOT DOING SO?
Why does the press go so hard after so many at Penn State - yet the real perpetrator is barely mentioned in most of the news reports?

Let's be fair -- let's hit the nail on the head -- any adult who takes advantage of or who rapes or attacks children is the real, evil criminal here.
Why does the press seem to go out of their way to deflect the attention from the real criminal?
We have others in public life who have been similarly guilty of horrific crimes against CHILDREN - and who have been protected by the press....who seem to have been given a FREE PASS...despite serious assaults and sexual crimes against children.

Here's some examples -
Congressmen Gerry Studds & Dan Crane...who were found to be using an underage pages as their whores.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_congressional_page_sex_scandal

We still have one of these perverts in our Congress - Barney Frank...who doesn't even deny using underage male pages for his sexual purposes...
http://www.thepoliticalguide.com/rep_bios.php?rep_id=32707663&category=scandals&id=20100403123938

I guess by today's standards -- all those other congressmen who knew about Frank and his perversion are equally culpable and guilty?

Here are a couple more examples...

***Here's a very similar case but it is getting no attention from the media at all...

It involves little girls as young as 10 years old who are being raped - and when they go for HELP to a well known system of health facilities, Planned Parenthood,
their rapes are NOT being reported as required by law, and by common sense.
Does this NOT make every one of those people in the Planned Parenthood organization - who all know this is happening - JUST AS GUILTY of the RAPES?

But it even goes several steps further and involves major coverups and fraud by the health facilities and people in government.
When the facts and charges that 10 year-olds were telling the officials they had been raped, subpoenas were issued for the documents & records from Planned Parenthood, and the health facility declined and has fought the orders ever since.
But they did release a few heavily redacted and altered documents - enough that the judge pursued the order to get the rest of the relevant records.

When the health facility finally did comply and release what the courts asked for they released the documents to the Kansas Health and Human Services.
BUT - then those people in the government chose to destroy the documents to help hide the horrific crimes against children as young as 10 years old - and help protect their buddies at Planned Parenthood.

When they did finally have to release documents - it was plainly obvious that they had faked and simply made up & manufactured phony documents thinking the legal officials wouldn't know - but they did because the records were totally different from the ones already received and were obviously just falsely generated to hide the fact that they had illegally shredded all the real documents to hide their crimes.

And who was it that ordered the privately owned Kansas health facility & the Kansas department that oversees them to illegally shred the damning records?
It was Kathleen Sebelius - one of the highest officials currently in federal government now a Cabinet member!

...and yet virtually all of this story will likely come as a complete surprise to most because it is simply not being reported - apparently to hide the crimes of the organization that is enabling the rapists of 10-year-olds to get away with it!

Hiding rapes of children, allowing the rapists to go free and rape some more, falsifying medical records and shredding the real ones to hide the crime, lying to judicial officials to protect a HUGE, national billion-dollar health corporation, corrupt officials everywhere, providing false information per subpoena, and HIGH LEVEL politicians intentionally acting to hide the evidence of the crimes .. are an amazing case that should be getting the same press as this one at Penn State - too bad it's not.
Clearly by the current definition - these people -- all the way up to the President are also complicit in the rapes of children!
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/281511/shredding-kathleen-sebelius-michelle-malkin
http://www.worldmag.com/mobile/article.cfm?id=18794

This story has been dragging on since 2005 and yet virtually no attention - not even from Kansas press -- and certainly not from anyone nationally.

Here's another one -
It appears we have a little mini-version of the Penn State mess going on at Marquette basketball....

It dates all the way back to last season and at least 5 (or more) basketball players are clearly involved in at least TWO separate sexual assaults against women on or near campus...that are being covered up and whitewashed by the Marquette people.

However -- after all this time - the university has never yet released the names of the perpetrators...and even one of the assaulted women is now yielding her privacy to come forward with her pleas to stop the coverups...

The university has stonewalled every effort to try to charge or even identify the perpetrators...
Now the FEDERAL government is coming in to check on these assaults..
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/chi-us-education-department-investigates-marquettes-response-to-sex-assault-allegations-against-athletes-20111110,0,4852788.story

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011-06-21/sports/ct-met-marquette-sex-assaults-20110621_1_sexual-assault-sexual-attack-allegation-crimes

http://www.cbssports.com/collegebasketball/story/16076763

http://www.wisn.com/news/27345574/detail.html

I predicted elsewhere there'd be a complete whitewash and coverup -- and it goes on and on while the victim simply wants openness and justice...
I wonder how ballistic our press would be if this was happening locally at BU??

The coach and AD said the situation would be handled internally and that the players involved would be disciplined -- and yet NOT ONE player has missed even one game, exhibition, closed scrimmage, or anything -- sound familiar?

These stonewalled charges & assaults don't even include the assault & battery arrest Marquette's Vander Blue had last year...
http://www.ballinisahabit.net/2011/04/vander-blue-facing-assault-and-battery.html

These are all real assaults, real victims, some teenagers....not just a busted lips with trumped up allegations!
Where's the justice and the media coverage?

Low attendance numbers further explored...

2011-11-11T09:39:00.008-06:00

I guess I am a little puzzled as to why some didn't make a bigger deal out of this....
had it happened last year or the year before - it would have been the hot topic for weeks.

Bradley's exhibition at Renaissance Coliseum this season drew only 1800 while the first one last year - also held at Renaissance drew OVER 2500.
Bradley's first exhibition game at Carver Arena (part of season ticket package) had an official attendance of 6797, but in the PJS coverage the writer said he thought there were
no more than 4500 there.

Here are the attendance figures for the Carver Arena exhibitions in the past several seasons...

2010-2011 - there was none but there was a D-II opponent to start the season, Texas A&M-Kingsville, and that game drew 8014.

2009-2010 - Lewis - 7966

2008-2009 - Lewis 8100, and a 2nd exhibition at Carver - UW-Platteville - 8294

2007-2008 - Quincy - box score N/A

2006-2007 - Northwest Missouri State - 8093

..and so it goes....the attendance for every exhibition game ever held at Carver has been 8000 or so -- sometimes more....
So, isn't anyone at least a bit concerned about the Renaissance Coliseum exhibition drawing 30% fewer fans than other years? And the exhibition games at Carver drawing likewise around 30% or more fewer fans than the historical averages?
And haven't we also seen that game tickets for SEMO and other games are going slow?

And this comes at the very time Bradley is getting the most remarkably shining press and many, many fans are enthusiastic about the future and curious about the new players & coaches?
So -- why the low numbers? Could it just be that some who predicted this exact scenario were 100% right? That many fans - the ones who were faithful and loyal for years but who didn't spend time griping on message boards - that those fans are largely put off by all that has happened (call it fallout if you want)?
Of course we're gonna see the anti-BU crowd and anti-JL crowd reach way back and again try to drag out the coach that's now been departed more than eight months - and try to blame him.
Didn't we see a ton of anti-JL stuff in the past few days coming from the PJS?

Most of the best and most loyal Bradley fans are all still around -- I saw them Tuesday night -- and talked with many of them before and after the game.
BUT -- some were conspicuously missing -- some even, who I am told, did not even renew season tickets. (See the previous blog entry)

BUT -- this is a good young team despite the negative stuff many of the anti-BU people are spewing -- and they're fun to watch.
The attendance numbers will improve but it will probably take a decent run of wins to trigger it....
But again -- I think this simply proves there are DIFFERENT kinds of fans...
some who are intensely loyal and they are at every game regardless of the negativity. Others still need to be stroked....they need to see the team winning before they come. This is understandable -- all teams have fans like this. These are fans that are perhaps best described as semi-loyal and the team will have to win those fans back.
I think they will but it'll take some time.
Either way - there clearly IS a distinct difference - and NOT all fans are the same or are they equally as loyal. One can easily perceive the difference.
And the evidence of the fallout is also there - it would take a total ignoramus to deny it - but some of those exist also. ;)

A tremendous opportunity missed!

2011-11-09T12:37:00.002-06:00

There were a lot of empty seats -- it was an exhibition game -- but I think there was a lot of missed opportunity...

-First - a missed chance for folks to get virtually courtside seats - better than most people ever get. I needed some extra tickets so I got there early and there were seats not only in the lower bowl but at midcourt only a couple rows from the court...
and the reason some of those seats are NOW available is because there ARE people who did not re-up on their season tickets -- people who have moved out of town, or for whatever reason -- but the seats I got on little notice were INCREDIBLE.

-but even if people were further back in the lower bowl - there were still many unoccupied seats right down by courtside that they could have come down and taken and enjoyed.

-lastly a lot of people stayed home because this was an exhibition game....and I don't want to sound like I am getting down on fellow BU fans, but what they heck -- it's still a Bradley game and those "fans" need to show up!
As I said elsewhere - the low attendance and the slow sales for tickets to the other games and the games at Renaissance Arena are unfortunate -- the people claiming to Bradley fans but who are waiting to see how the team is going to do are missing out...

plus -- those folks who simply are going to wait and catch the games later may have missed the last chance to see Nate wells. If he redshirts then he is not going to play any more....look for Nate to stay on the bench and not play the next game and thereafter. There's a chance they still might use him but not likely he'll play in the next few games so that they can keep the redshirt option open.

Finally - a few of the folks who have loudly claimed to be the very best Bradley fans - are among those who were no-shows last night...so those folks really make it easy to support the argument they are NOT good fans.
They are fair weather fans.
That's OK -- every team knows there are fair weather fans and if the team does well enough they'll get some of those fans...some will buy tickets for upcoming games and some will be walk up buyers...
but I think it clearly shows there are different degrees of fandom.
If the shoe fits ....

And what's with a fan message board claiming to be a Bradley board not even having a SINGLE discussion thread about a home game - even well more than 12 hours after the game is over? Can you say demise???

More on failing public schools

2011-11-06T07:24:00.001-06:00

Yet another front page story on the failures of the Illinois High Schools - specifically Peoria District 150
http://www.pjstar.com/news/x251091028/Central-Illinois-schools-fall-short-of-increasing-No-Child-Left-Behind-standards

"Every high school in central Illinois - with the exception of Dunlap, which is one of only eight high schools in the state to make Adequate Yearly Progress -
has been labeled a "failure," according to standards .."

but here's the answer from the people who run this failing system...
"We are not failing. The system is failing us"
http://www.pjstar.com/topstories/x251091034/We-are-not-failing-The-system-is-failing-us

That seems a little like losing a basketball game by 50 points are then saying "we are not losing - the game is losing" or "the system we're using is losing"..
...although I fully agree that it is not the school personnel's fault entirely -- the lazy parents who do nothing but let their kids watch MTV and eat twinkies & the outside special interest groups who make their endless demands are partly to blame as well.

The print copy of the paper has an exhaustive list of the test scores of every area public school DISTRICT - which encompasses 250 different schools...
and only 16 public school districts out of the 74 listed - ranging from Macomb to Henry to Eureka achieved passing scores.

Lastly -- the social engineers in and outside of government have been tinnkering with the public school systems for decades -- banning anything that remotely resembles faith or religion - even teaching morality and right-and-wrong - encouraging promiscuity, softening anything that actually resembles discipline, and dumbing everyone DOWN & discouraging achievement, so the slowest students don't feel so bad about not passing...
I just wonder if those social engineers whose ideas have caused this failing mess (many of whom run teachers' unions and minority focus groups) will step forward and take responsibility...

Lastly - I have mentioned it before - there are schools - large & small - that are major successes and that get recognition nationally! And yet we mention them only in passing instead of looking closely at them and maybe modeling the rest of the failing districts after the ones that succeed. They mention Dunlap as a success but it isn't the only one locally --
Not surprisingly - most of the people who run or support the failing system claim that the answer is MORE MONEY -- when the facts prove otherwise as those local systems that are succeeding actually run their schools on LESS money per pupil than the failing public schools do....some on as little as HALF the funding as the public schools!

Can't tell which group of people are more loony...

2011-11-05T08:54:00.003-05:00

Some people compare the "Occupy" movement with the Tea Party movement...
Regardless of what you think politically - there are some vast differences between the unanimously peaceful but effective Tea Party movement that led to more than a 100-Representative swing in the last election compared to this new movement who call themselves Occupy Wall Street.

It has been hard to figure out what they want - as interviews with individuals rattle various thoughts all over the map - but mainly it's a demand by people to take away wealth from those who have it or who have earned it and redistribute it & give it away somehow to those who did not.

But here's where NOBODY can deny that this new movement differs VASTLY from most other political movements -- even the political movements of the 1960's that also involved arrests.
The big difference is that most of those other movements WERE PEACEFUL -- and the arrests were for peaceful civil disobedience.

This new Occupy movement is quite VIOLENT....and the press is being derelict (as usual, so what's new) in reporting the dark and ugly side to this movement.
Just google "Occupy" and "violence" and see what you get...
Of the 40 million hits you get that seem to connect the movement with violence - very few are the mainstream media.
BUT -- there's been violence in New York, Oakland, Portland and just about every site the protests have occurred...even the overseas ones.

The violence includes rapes, and sexual assaults that the NOW are very strangely silent about...

http://www.brooklyneagle.com/categories/category.php?category_id=4&id=47213
http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/home-news/woman-raped-in-tent-at-anti-capitalism-protest-1.1131436
http://nation.foxnews.com/wall-street-protests/2011/11/02/now-silent-occupy-wall-st-sex-assaults

These protests are now turning into total anarchy and lawless rage and crime...
and even some of the supporters like the Democrats and the liberals in Hollywood are beginning to back off their support (although I see millionaires Jesse Jackson and Michael Moore are still spewing their hate at the protests).

BUT have you seen the new "FACE" of this protest??

The protesters are all buying and wearing this mask....
.....it's a silly mask the Occupy people are using and it's from the movie & story that's called...

"V for Vendetta"
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/c/c0/V_for_vendettax.jpg/180px-V_for_vendettax.jpg

This is exactly the cause that LOONY guy tried to claim when he shot up the school board meeting a year ago in Panama Beach, FL
http://bubravesblogger.blogspot.com/2010/12/more-on-loony-guy-who-shot-up-panama.html

NOTE how this totally loony guy Clay Duke also takes the "V for Vendetta" logo for his own cause...
http://www.theamericanpress.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/Clay-Duke-300x300.jpg

And as you can see in my blog post from that time - the cause is a phony cause...and it's a laughably stupid endeavor that they think will help them, but in reality it just shows their complete ignorance of the very facts involved in their choices...

First - because it is really all fiction...comic book crap...although it's loosely based on Guy Fawkes.

But second - because at the time "V for Vendetta" was written - it was about the future -- the 1990's -- where supposedly government would become OPPRESSIVE -- which, of course, these protests alone prove is NOT the case -- as people today have MORE freaking rights than they have ever had in all of history...they can do just about anything thy want in the name of free speech and get away with it!!
Just look at all the damage, vandalism, and trashing of cities and parks committed by the Occupiers (plus the rapes, assaults, etc.) and they're pretty much getting away with it all at taxpayer expense.
So much for government oppression - sounds more like the diametric opposite of permissiveness.

BUT also - read on in my blog piece -- the model for the character was Guy Fawkes from the 1600's -- a totally self-absorbed person who did everything he did for PURELY selfish reasons - and NOT in any way to better society -- and used VIOLENCE to get it done -- how ironic that these protesters are also using VIOLENCE!

One repeating story you see in the news was the poor Iraq war veteran who was hit in the head by something -- possibly a brick that was thrown....and suffered serious injury...
Some have made the claim he was struck by something the police threw or that he was beaten BY police -- but that is highly doubtful -- the cops are not throwing BRICKS which is what some witnesses claim happened...and nobody whatsoever witnessed the guy getting beat -- they simply found him laying on the ground...already injured.

...but the story is being portrayed as if he's getting injured by the enemy for fighting YOUR CAUSE!!!!

Scott Olsen
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/update-iraq-war-vet-injured-in-occupy-oakland-awaiting-brain-surgery/

http://www.theblaze.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Scott-Olsen.jpg

It was almost certainly one of his OWN buddies and co-protesters who launched the brick that nearly killed him...as can be seen in the videos, the only people throwing projectiles are the protesters!!
In other words...he was severely injured and almost killed by the VIOLENCE of his OWN cause...

Here's another note about this "Iraq veteran" Scott Olsen...
....the guy is a pretty far left loony himself...
He runs a FAR LEFT anti-military web site that rips the US Government and cites the rapist-Wikileaks guy and also the traitor Bradley Manning - the gay serviceman who gave away US secret documents because he wanted to punish the military for it's stance on homosexuals.

As you can see from the videos.... with 20 different people standing right and with cameras rolling during this protest -- not one person -- NOBODY has yet offered any evidence of what hit Olsen in the head and who threw it!!

So - the Occupy protests are mainly lazy thugs and whiners who want something they never worked for nor earned. They want handouts.
They should learn from the Tea Party people and go to the ballot box if they want to get change....
And speaking of change -- the party MOST of them say they favor is the party that promised change, controlled every aspect of the government for two years but produced only bad change - huge handouts that were ineffective and ruined our economy.
Oddly - when interviewed, only 35% of the Occupy protesters claim to have voted in the last election -- and the truth is probably less than that!
They have zero credibility if they aren't even going to vote!

A few more notes...

A couple recent events caused headlines about UFO's being seen...

This one was from a video of a football game..
http://blacksportsonline.com/home/2011/11/video-ufo-seen-during-sunday-night-football-game-2/

...makes you wonder how gullible and stupid some people are!

Again -- OMG -- just this past week - the TV show "Fact or Faked" debunked just about every one of these TV camera streaks...

There's a zillion such claims that these are UFO's and yet they can be PERFECTLY re-created any time you want with a video camera, and a bright light..

They are bugs flying past the camera - tiny little points of reflected light that appear clear & sharp since they are small and won't blur, and thus they seem as though they are up in the sky or in space, but if you had a high speed camera you'd see for sure it is a bug -- but a regular video camera will only catch it as a streak - just as a movie/film camera would

THEN -- the writer gives us this old haggard line that sounds profound and smart and scientific...
"...but as a man of logic it would be unrealistic to
believe that this random planet is the only planet in
the vastness of the Universe to have life forms on it."

Really? -- then what evidence is the guy using???
Have they found life on any other planet??
The fact that they have found none - and that there really isn't much more than the tiniest bit of weird evidence like this tape causes the guy to jump UNSCIENTIFICALLY to the grand conclusion that there's intelligent life elsewhere and they have travelled to earth and now we're seeing them....?
How many more years before people will wise up and actually see the obvious -- there are NO aliens here on earth!!

SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) has been diligently looking for 50 years now -- endlessly searching - now using hi speed computers to analyze megatons of data...
and NEVER once has a single NON-RANDOM electromagnetic signal or "message" ever come from or been detected in outer space!!
NEVER!!
Keep in mind our planet generates trillions of electromagnetic signals and messages literally every MINUTE!!! - and has continued to do so for more than 75 years and will continue to do so....for eons into the future...
If even ONE evolving society of aliens anywhere in the UNIVERSE ever progressed to the point where they experimented with electromagnetism, radio waves, or electronic communication then they'd have generated exactly what would get detected elsewhere as non-random E-M signals...and yet there have never been any found -- NONE -- period!

The astounding ABSENCE of any such electromagnetic signals ever detected is incredibly STRONG proof that no developed society is or HAS existed within even several hundred or thousand light years of us...

This argument can't rule out amoeba elsewhere but with no evidence that life exists - isn't a bit unscientific to argue that it MUST? That's like me arguing that ghosts MUST exist because the universe is so big!!

EVEN the astronauts once thought some of the weird streaks and points of light that showed up in their pictures & photos might be mini-UFO's until it was proven that they were tiny bits and crystals of ice that had condensed on the outside of the spacecraft, then came loose as the people in the inside moved and caused vibrations...

Ultimately people can believe what they want but there are easy, logical answers for this stuff - but people don't want to accept them - they want to believe in UFO's..and those same people scoff at anyone who believes in God, angels, or life after death.

Here's another one... -- another classic story..

...people see lights -- they believe they are seeing unidentified flying objects...
then more people see them and a couple get them on videotape...
then the whole city goes bazonkers because there is apparently NO logical explanation -- OMG this MUST be aliens....right???

Then -- the helicopter pilot who was involved 15 miles away with a night-time parachute jump where they carried high intensity flares comes forward and gives all the details...
and...of course his story fits absolutely perfectly and gives the exact PERFECT explanation but...still people won't buy it they still think it was aliens!!!!!
http://news.discovery.com/space/phoenix-ufo-lights-mystery-solved-111104.html

It's amazing -- these people have already made their minds up they are going to believe the PREPOSTEROUS - all the while a simple and easy explanation exists and they are going to disbelieve that!
Boy -- with this degree of stupidity reigning here on earth -- even if there is some alien society somewhere out there -- they're going to steer clear of this planet!!

But the last argument is the most obvious -- if they are UFO's and if there really are aliens up there - and if they don't want to make themselves known or talk to us - or want us to catch them then why do they use bright lights all the time??

A few new items...

2011-11-03T09:45:00.002-05:00

Sorry to see Sam Maniscalco's ankles still bothering him -- he's a tough kid and will play through pain, but after all the time off and the surgeries -- it seems none of all that has helped his ankles as much as hoped.
Maybe Sam deserves an explanation from the ankle specialists surgeons in North Carolina as to why investing so much into the surgery has paid off so little....
Regardless, I still expect Sam to be a big help to the Illini.

Eddren McCain landed at NAIA Paul Quinn College in Texas, and had a fine year last season, with 14 ppg & nearly 8 assists per game leading all of college basketball.
However - Eddren is no longer on the Paul Quinn roster this year for his senior season - and I have read that he might have burned out on basketball.

Highland CC is about to open their season -- here's an article mentioning their starting center Michael Ochereobia...
http://www.journalstandard.com/sports/x1992153584/Highland-men-ready-for-big-year

Kyle Vogt has done well for himself and landed as assistant to Jim Molinari at Western Illinois...
http://bradleyfans.com/vb/showthread.php?p=239019#post239019

Boogie's first regular season game in the Canadian National Basketball League is tonight.

Ex-Bradley - even if only for a redshirt year - Jeremy Fears is one of the top stars of the top Austrian pro league - and leads his team in nearly every category...
..scoring (15.3), assists (5.0), steals (1.7), minutes played (32), and shoots 55%.

Ex-BU recruit Stan Simpson did OK last night in Memphis' exhibition game vs. Lemoyne - but so did everyone else as Memphis clobbered LeMoyne by 60.

Coach Cornelius of Yuba College has a really loaded squad this year and is expecting a good season...
http://norcalbasketball.blogspot.com/2011/10/2011-12-yuba-college-49ers.html

Wichita State folks were pleased that one of their recruits for next year had a fine opening game...
Cleanthony Early scored 35 points in Sullivan's (juco) win over Redemption Christian Academy.
http://twitter.com/#!/tropicalshox/status/131769541385654272
...BUT Redemption Christian Academy is a small, private high school - not a college at all!! So I might wonder how significant this accomplishment is for a talented D-I recruit who is a sophomore at junior college playing against a bunch of high schoolers.

Ex-Saluki Ryan Hare booted off the University of Southern Indiana team -- this makes at least 3 or 4 teams he's been booted from...
http://www.courierpress.com/news/2011/oct/31/no-headline---ev_01usimcclure/

Speaking of troubled ex-SIU players -- need I say more...
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?hl=en&gs_sm=e&gs_upl=2047l9001l0l9235l19l13l0l0l0l0l0l0ll0l0&safe=strict&um=1&tab=iw&q=cache:7GS2ArDS9RgJ:http://www.jailbase.com/en/arrested/oh-mcso/2011-04-15/kevin-dillard-1108130+%22mugshot+of+kevin+dillard%22&ct=clnk

ICC basketball is already 1-0 beating St. Ambrose JV and they play again tonight - against Lewis & Clark.
Their new schedule is finally up..
http://www.icc.edu/athletics/basketballM/players.asp
AJ Guyton is no longer assisting.

Ex-BU recruit Jacob Williams from St. Pat's played his first juco game for Vincennes - and scored 2 pts...
One other juco name to maybe be aware of - at Richard J. Daley College Jeremy Price (from Chicago Curie) - averaging 35 ppg & 9 rpg in the early going.

Ex-Iowa State center and Larry Eustachy player Jared Homan - playing in Italy - slugged his own coach and got kicked off the team for punching out his own coach!
http://www.eurobasket.com/Italy/basketball.asp?NewsID=247120

Excitement growing......

2011-10-31T14:46:00.004-05:00

While up on campus picking up my tickets I had a chance to talk with a couple people who have viewed some practices and there's a consensus on several things...
Yes, I know everyone is picking Bradley last but I am sure we don't have last place talent...
seems everyone who watches this team is impressed with talent, hustle, energy, athleticism, and effort.....
Most believe we are going to surprise people.......
Both TB and DSE bring back double digit scoring and other talents that could place them on the All Conference Team.
Then we have an improved Jordan Prosser and we saw that by late season last year he was more than serviceable - he was actually one of the better returning post players.
Add an improved Walt Lemon, Jake Eastman, and then some decent new talent with Shayok & DS - and I think we'll at least be able to compete with most Valley teams.
Those who have viewed the team playing all say we are loaded with speed, energy, and athleticism even if lacking good outside shooters.
If Geno can get them playing, having fun, and producing & developing - then I am hopeful we can win more than lose.
Anyway - we shall soon see..........
The main wild cards are depth - should we have more injuries, and that also means ability for the subs (Jake, AT, Milos..) can help out when others pick up fouls.
And then I expect the fans to be back -- many were there right at 9AM picking up tickets and all were enthusiastic for the games to start.

We all know that message boards are often the haven for the malcontents - and if you need any proof - go look at the SIU board.....
but a couple bad years at BU have brought out a few here as well.....but their rants about massive losses at the ticket office have thus far been wrong.
Note Bradley even after a couple down years ranks as the 6th best attendance among non-BCS schools...only Creighton, Wichita State, Dayton, Xavier, and Utah State did better...and Utah State is well within reach if we have a good year!

http://www.ncaa.org/wps/wcm/connect/bdf2030046a3609298bddcc110a6426c/2011_NCAA_mens_basketball_attendance.pdf?MOD=AJPERES&CACHEID=bdf2030046a3609298bddcc110a6426c

Lastly - for those who thought the SEMO game would represent an obstacle to Braves fans and season ticket holders seeing this regular season game - WRONGGG..
No obstacles at all -- but if any season ticket holder does not come to the SEMO game it will be willingly and because they choose not to come.
Plenty of tickets are available and not only plenty but LOTS of very good seats within a couple rows from the floor.
I confirmed that just a couple hours ago as I stood at the ticket window and the clerk quoted me what seats are currently available in various sections - some good seats within the first TWO rows, and good seats at courtside!

One guy picking up a lot of season tickets right ahead of me got a batch of 15 season ticket books.....he was picking up for a certain Peoria business....but he was asked if he also wanted tickets to the SEMO game and the guy picking up the tickets said - nope - that's a game he was going to pass on !
So this proves that LOTS of the season ticket holders are not going to grab seats at the SEMO game - thus freeing up0 plenty for everyone who wants one.
Hey -- this should make everyone happy - as it proves the sky is not falling...
but I already see people whining because the season ticket holders AREN'T getting SEMO tickets!
So -- this proves another of my favorite points -- people will gripe even if they don't have a reason -- they wanted to gripe because they thought season ticket holders would get shut out of the SEMO game - and now that it isn't going to happen - they find something else to gripe about!

BU Fundraising - some of the history seems to be lost (or erased)

2011-10-28T09:31:00.009-05:00

Bradley's fundraising efforts over the past few years have been quite successful -- and credit needs to be given to those responsible.
This recent campaign has benefitted Bradley greatly - giving us STATE OF THE ART facilities that benefit everyone involved from the students, to the fans, to the recruiting efforts!!

Here's the new PJ Star article...but recall it is a premium site and you may not get it so I have given the relevant quotes...

http://www.pjstar.com/news/x1769240061/BU-exceeds-capital-campaign-goal-brings-in-161-million

"Bradley tops fundraising goal by $11 million
Campaign for a Bradley Renaissance raised more than $161 million since 2008"

Later in the article it also says...

"..the most successful fundraising effort in Bradley University's history."
..Publicly launched in April 2008 ..."

But -- ..does anyone else have a disagreement with the dates cited here?
-- is there some reason these following facts, stories and dates are left out...?

-First - the first public event revealing the name "Renaissance" associated with this giving campaign that was already underway...was in 2007, not in 2008 as stated in the article...
"Bradley University’s faculty, staff and emeriti gather for the Campaign for a Bradley Renaissance kickoff event in November 2007"

...when the campaign that was already well underway was re-named "Renaissance"
http://campaign.bradley.edu/updates/givingfaculty.shtml

-BUT -- The campaign was already up and running - just not yet given the name "Renaissance" ............
and they received an "$8 million naming gift for the Markin Family Student Recreation Center"

....in 2006 !!...
http://bradleyfans.com/vb/showpost.php?p=11456&postcount=18

In fact - not only was the giving campaign already going by 2006, the groundbreaking and the building of the NEW structures - even the new arena...
..was also started and well underway as far back as 2007 (and possibly way earlier given the lead time needed to retain and contract architects, planners, and construction firms & contractors).

"ground was broken for the Markin Family Student Recreation Center in the spring of 2007"
..but the fundraising effort was already well underway and successful in getting the $8 million donation from the Markins in mid-2006

http://campaign.bradley.edu/donors/Individuals.shtml

-but the actual NEW efforts at fundraising, with the origination of the Braves Scholarship Society, and other efforts - even without the name "Ranaissance" attached - started back in 2005 and were very successful --

http://www.bubraves.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=3400&ATCLID=515906
http://bradleyfans.com/vb/showpost.php?p=7891&postcount=4

-The BU's fundraising campaign and the full plans for the new construction including the arena (that was later to be named "Renaissance Arena")
.. were the topic of discussion on our board as far back as 2005-2006...so obviously it was already underway then...

http://bradleyfans.com/vb/showthread.php?t=1250
http://bradleyfans.com/vb/showpost.php?p=7635&postcount=8
http://bradleyfans.com/vb/showthread.php?t=1085

So - credit needs to go where due as those DONORS and those fundraisers going all the way back to 2005 and earlier were not only instrumental in what Bradley now has - but they were the visionaries and architects of the plans - no matter what name we gave to them.

Northern Iowa Observations

2011-10-19T12:13:00.002-05:00

I think Northern Iowa is the toughest team in the Valley to gauge...
Almost all the preseason reviews are picking UNI from 3-5th in the Valley,
but I think it could be anywhere from 1-8th depending on a couple factors...

First, they have a lot of experience coming back -
Three of their best four players return --
Johnny Moran (10ppg, 65 three-pointers), Jake Koch (10 pts, 5 rebs, plus 35% on 3-pointers), and Anthony James, who always seems to play well against Bradley (12.4 ppg, 3.4 rebs, 41.3% on three-pointers).

If they can find some good point guard play and avoid any injuries to their fairly inexperienced front court (outside of Koch)..then they can challenge for the Valley title.
BUT -- Kwadzo was a ton and consistently put up good numbers...they might miss him a lot! Same with O'Rear even though Lucas didn't always put up good numbers.
Plus those two guys were their best defenders, too.
How they might do without these guys can be seen by how the team performed when O'Rear went out last February...
The Panthers suddenly turned an 8-game winning streak into losing 8 of their final 10 games!

Of their three best returning players, two had off season surgery - Jake Koch on his foot (bone spurs) and Johnny Moran on his torn labrum in the right shoulder.
This is his shooting side - so it is possible that the surgery may significantly affect his shooting. Time will tell.
But these two guys' recovery and the avoidance of injuries is key to their success this season.
They have only one senior so in that respect they are a fairly inexperienced team.

We will get to see UNI earlier than the other Valley schools - as they have the 1AM slot on ESPN's Tipoff Marathon (1AM Central Time but 11 PM in California where they're playing St. Mary's)...and their first game is being televised live on ESPN, Tuesday November 15.

I am going out on a limb and I will pick them lower than the other guys... I think more like 7th in the Valley -- I think they will not easily replace the intangibles that Ahelegbe, O'Rear, and Dunham gave them.

More from Bradley's Homecoming weekend

2011-10-16T02:49:00.003-05:00

First - a picture from the Friday night bonfire...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bradleyalumni/6247646458/in/set-72157627762415787

Then a few more tidbits from the talks by President Glasser & Geno Ford...

-President Joanne Glasser announced that Bradley will place a statue honoring AJ Robertson in the new quad behind the Alumni Center.

-Coach Geno Ford called the new facilities on campus better than those at almost all MAJOR university - even better than most BIG TEN facilities! He says the new facilities are great for recruiting.

-Geno Ford said Will Egolf is doing great and even looks great. Hopeful for next year.

-Geno guarantees the fans will never say after a game...
"They didn't play that hard tonight."

-Coach Ford said we were very close to having a series (home & home) against Saint Louis but it fell through.

-Geno said Jordan Prosser's injury from last year seems resolved....and he joked that he told Pross he isn't allowed to get hurt again.

News from other Valley schools...

-At a press conference after their Maroon Madness, SIU's Chris Lowery said sophomore Davante Drinkard will redshirt this year. He was rumored to be going to sit out anyway due to academics.
Lowery also said PG Kendall Brown-Surles will be out 'til mid December due to grades. Rumors of this have been plentiful but Lowery has been reluctant to speak on it.

-Creighton announced a closed preseason scrimmage on Oct. 30 against Colorado.

-ESPN broadcaster Stephen Bardo said during their March Madness coverage on ESPNU that Creighton's non-conference schedule was WEAK. (NC A&T, Chicago State, Campbell, Houston Baptist - but also Northwestern, Tulsa, Nebraska, Iowa, San Diego State, and UAB!)

-At Drake - another big man goes down....Reece Uhlenhopp out for a month or two with a fracture in a bone in his foot....a typically difficult injury to hurry back from as Andrew Wareen knows. (so do Larry Bird & Michael Jordan!)

-The Terre Haute beat writer picks Indiana State 2nd and Bradley 8th..
http://l.wbx.me/l/?instId=b7149de4-042e-46ef-8a24-1c1b04c94336&token=46dc37de5eb4005d5bc8866515c7a9454cd8cd7600000132f519142c&u=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.tribstar.com%2Fdowninthevalley%2F%3Fp%3D502

Some BU news from Homecoming and ESPN has a nice writeup about Sam Maniscalco! -

2011-10-15T19:01:00.003-05:00

Bradley put on a really nice weekend with all the Alumni events...
I was able to get to the Meet Geno gathering Saturday afternoon - and there was a surprisingly small crowd.
He talked a little about himself, his background, and also a bit about the team.

One story Geno told I had not heard before (we heard the usuals about him outscoring Lebron in HS and how he's really closer to 5-6 than his advertised 5-8), and ...his first experience with Bradley and BU's fan following was in Hawaii about a decade ago...
while he was an assistant at Ohio in 2000-2001, and his team was in the Rainbow Classic.
He notes their first game was against Gonzaga and a total of only 50-100 people were in the stands since this was thousands of miles from either school.
Then their next game was vs. a TOP 25 team, Wake Forest...and again only 50-100 people in the stands.
Finally, they played Bradley, and he looked up and saw about 1500 people virtually all dressed in RED!
He knew then and has always known since that Bradley is a team with a truly GREAT and loyal fan base...and he plans to work hard to earn the respect of Bradley fans.

Then the "Tailgate" event was fun as well.......but Geno's only revealing comment on his first practice was that he really appreciates the hard work the kids are putting in to learn a new system and develop into players that he can use in his system.

BTW -- Bradley won the Homecoming Game -
http://bradleyfans.com/vb/showthread.php?t=19365

Here's a nice story on the Homecoming and unveiling of the new Alumni Center
http://www.centralillinoisnewscenter.com/news/local/Bradley-Celebrates-Homecoming-with-new-Alumni-Center-131923583.html

Too bad Coach Les isn't around to enjoy this - as he is largely responsible for it...
Speaking of Coach Les -
Here's a west coast ESPN guy saying they already love Jim Les at UCD
http://twitter.com/#!/billherenda/status/124999787555725312

And it sounds like Jim is excited to get going with his new team...
http://ht.ly/1f98U2

Some other news around the Valley...and elsewhere...

Early talk at Missouri State is that Mike Bizoukas, transfer from DePaul, will get the nod at point guard..

UNI's Johnny Moran will be returning from torn labrum surgery - and two big men - Austin Pehl & Chris Olivier are both out with foot problems - Pehl with a fracture.

Illini's first open scrimmage went this way according to a report in the Chicago Tribune.....

"Point guard Sam Maniscalco was the standout, making a slew of 3-point shots.

The Bradley transfer also had a friend in the front row as Evan Turner, a former Ohio State star, watched.
“I’m glad he’s here and getting the experience of what the Big Ten has to offer,” Turner said. “He can lead the team. He’ll be able to make some shots and play great defense.”

Sammy didn't miss a single 3-pointer in the scrimmage!

http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/college/chi-illini-basketball-scrimmage-warms-up-football-crowd-20111015,0,3683136.story

Sammy also got a nice ESPN writeup!!
http://espn.go.com/blog/chicago/colleges/post/_/id/4184/illini-counting-on-maniscalcos-health

Here's a Porter Moser story at Loyola
http://espn.go.com/blog/chicago/colleges/post/_/id/4156/moser-believes-loyolas-future-is-bright

Then in the area of ridiculous news reports we have plenty to talk about...

First one -- duhh...a mind-altering drug is actually found when looked at scientifically to impairs driving performance....well, I never!!
You mean all those years the potheads have been pretending it doesn't affect them, they were LYING??
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/700188349/Pot-use-may-nearly-triple-crash-risk.html

And yet another big duhhhh...
and some are acting like this comes as a surprise...

The occupy Wall Street movement turns VIOLENT...
throwing rocks and Molotov cocktails...
This scene looks more like the Palestinians rioting against the police ...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/occupy-protests-in-rome-turn-violent/2011/10/15/gIQAhwydmL_video.html

BUT -- don't just say this is isolated and won't happen here...
because it already is..."protesters" are attacking the peacekeeping officers.
One guy threw his legs under a police motorcycle - and the officer immediately stopped and got off his cycle so he wouldn't get falsely accused of running over the jerk...
the guy even tried again and again to jam his legs under the cycle -- likely trying to act injured and land a big lawsuit...maybe he wants to get rich quick and become one of the 1% instead of the 99%!
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/zuccotti_park_cleanup_postponed_7FyMGft7IABwkMxaEW1sYP
http://nation.foxnews.com/wall-street-protests/2011/10/14/wall-st-protest-park-clean-postponed-agitators-celebrate

Hmm...and I still hear claims from some that a Tea Party participant once hurled insults...pretty tame by comparison...

Oh and one other thing....I recall the media downplaying the numbers at other rallies...even trying to deny the 800,000 that appeared on the Washington mall...
and yet we keep hearing about the huge crowds down on Wall Street...but have you ever heard anyone yet say how many there are??

Bet ya haven't -- they seem oddly to be shying away from that...but Reuters isn't afraid to tell the truth...

I have actually tried and tried to find someone in the media who actually gives a count or says how big the crowds are...

The complete lack of even an occasional estimate is pretty telling...
I admit the number of different cities involved is surprising but even then - some of the crowds in even BIG cities like Chicago were CLEARLY less than 1000 - one estimate saying 800!

BUT... here's a REUTERS article that states clearly that there are about 1000 protesters...IN NEW YORK at the biggest of the protests!!!
ONLY 1000!!!!

Remember when the Tea Party had crowds of 100,000+ and even 800,000 on the mall in DC the media downplayed that and said there were only 60,000

Here's the quote...
"Roughly 1,000 protesters were on hand early on Friday at the New York park"
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/14/us-usa-wallstreet-protests-idUSTRE79A41E20111014

BUT here's the quote from a smaller city like Carbondale, IL...
"College students around the country are showing
their support for the Occupy Wall Street movement;
that includes at Southern Illinois University.

Thursday afternoon's gathering in front of Morris
Library certainly didn't bring out the large crowds as
seen in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago; only a
dozen or so students took part. "
http://www.kfvs12.com/story/15690529/occupy-siu-draws-small-crowd-with-big-hopes

ARE YOU SERIOUS???? Only a dozen protesters and they have an entire FULL article about it???
Gimme a break -- when I go out with my entire family -- we constitute a crowd of nearly a dozen!!!.....and we don't get writeups in the paper!!!
I guess we should try throwing rocks and molotov cocktails....

Some BU notes from homecoming and some good reports on Sammy Maniscalco..

2011-10-15T18:31:00.004-05:00

Evansville Preview

2011-10-06T10:32:00.003-05:00

Just a few quick thoughts about Evansville...

The Aces are being picked to finish in the top 4 or 5 this year in the Valley - but I have to believe that trend is not based so much on the Aces' STRENGTH as it is on the perceived weakness of the other teams that get rated below Evansville.
A top half finish might be a bit optimistic.

Here's what Evansville has this year...

This is Marty Simmons' 5th year at Evansville and his overall record there is 51-72 and Marty has never finished about .500 in the Valley.
They are coming off a 14-15 year but as in most other years - when the chips were down - over the final six games, the Aces lost five of them -

Of course their best scorer Colt Ryan returns, but I have always said that Ryan gets his points at the cost of being a gunner and a bit of a ball hog and that hurts the team's play. They'd definitly be worse without him but I contend his numbers are deceptive.....Ryan plays a lot of minutes, takes a lot of shots, but helps the team very little in all the other ways...
He's not much of a passer or ballhandler, only 2 apg despite being among the Valley leaders in minutes played and probably leading the Valley in touches of the ball....
He also led the team in turnovers, and among the bigger guards in the league, he gets only 3 rpg....recall Andrew Warren hauled down almost 6 rpg.
Ryan's production fell off in league play and he didn't even finish among the top 15 in the MVC in 3-pt shooting pct.
He only averaged 1.7 3-pointers made per MVC game compared to 2.4 for Warren.

Last year nobody else on the team averaged over ~8 ppg...but their real weakness will be their frontcourt...
they do not have a single player over 6-6 who returns with any experience at all!
Juco transfer Kenneth Harris and guard-turned-forward Denver Holmes are really the only players even over 6-4 who return or has more than 8-9 minutes per game playing in the frontcourt...and neither is going to be able to defend the average post player on their schedule.
They list Harris as a guard but he'll have to log some minutes as a forward given that they don't have anyone else except a couple really inexperienced freshmen.

One new player is a kid I like, Jordan Nelson from Lincoln High School in Lincoln, IL. he's a good shooter and might get some playing time...but Evansville's deepest position is already shooting guard.

They're schedule has Indiana & North Carolina - so we'll see if they can beat those guys with guards!

Given the bottom 6-8 teams in the Valley this season all have weak spots, Evansville might surprise, but I'd pick them for bottom half -- and I think the Valley teams have seen enough tape now on Colt Ryan that his production will stall at about 14-15 ppg.

Some thoughts on Indiana State and more...

2011-10-05T08:59:00.004-05:00

For starters - -
Look for some news on BU recruit Coty Clarke soon -- if he isn't coming to BU then we will soon begin hearing of other options...
Our staff is making a top flight push to land Coty Clarke -- if we don't hear anything soon, then I suspect our recruiting attention will turn elsewhere.
We need to fill that spot & that scholarship now or things get very busy in a couple weeks.

Thus far, this blog has had some preseason blurbs about all the non-conference opponents on Bradley's schedule....
http://bubravesblogger.blogspot.com/2011/09/summary-of-non-conference-schedule-and.html

And also we've looked at..

SIU

Missouri State

Creighton

and ISU

Today's look is at Indiana State...
most preseason publications are picking Indiana State to be in the top 3 or 4 teams in the Valley but nobody's picking them to be ahead of either Wichita State or Creighton.

I think everything has to go right for Indiana State to finish that high, and in numerous years in the past....injuries and other player losses, from David Moss, to Tyson Schnitker, to Adam Arnold, to Marico Stinson, to Jake Kelley, to Dwayne Lathan have caused them to finish lower than expected.

First - I think the loss of Aaron Carter will be more significant than many think...this kid always pulled out a big game when the Sycamores needed it!

Second - leading returnee Dwayne Lathan has been so injury prone (ankle, hand, arm) that it is worrisome. In fact, there's talk he is still struggling from last year's arm injury. He was pronounced fully cleared and 100% OK to play in early August, then by the end of August some symptoms necessitated another arm XRay, which showed some troublesome findings that maybe the fracture was NOT fully healed.
http://twitter.com/#!/TribStarTodd/status/108643422570684416

There's been little further word - in fact the lack of anyone seeing Lathan scrimmaging or playing is noted but I would be careful of drawing any conclusions.
If Lathan was 100% and ready to go don't you think they'd be saying so even if for no other reason than to help season ticket sales??
BUT NOTHING official -- except one tiny comment on a tweet by a Terre Haute TV sports reporter that Lansing said Lathan would be ready to go.
Some of these mid-shaft arm fractures can be tricky as noted when it happened to Dodie Dunson -- he took a full year to fully recover, and even then his arm still nagged him.

But compare to how when Taylor Brown was cleared, there's been tons of talk of him playing and scrimmaging since then - yet there's not much more than a single word on Lathan!

The Indiana State schedule is a little weird -- pretty soft early on with EIU, Ball State, and ULM then the Old Spice Classic with a game vs. Texas Tech and a chance to catch either Minnesota or DePaul (both winnable) in the next round, with the final round possibilities to include Dayton, Wake Forest, and Arizona State (also all winnable, non-Top 25 teams).
Then an odd placement of a silly guarantee game at home in mid-December with someone called Maryville College (of Missouri) - what the hey??
Their real test will be the game at Vanderbilt.

Then, believe it or not - a 2nd game in the SAME SEASON against Louisiana-Monroe -- playing them twice in the same season when they're a crappy 325 RPI team that won only five games last year! Sycamore fans are gonna love that!!
This apparently came about because senior Dwayne Lathan wanted a game scheduled down close to his home in Louisiana - so Indiana State complied and set a game at Louisiana-Monroe.
But apparently the ULM people also held out for a return game in Terre Haute just to nab a little more cash - given their horribly weak 2010-2011 season and their really weak prowess in scheduling anywhere that would make them any money!

They have ex-Bradley recruit Justin Gant -- and since the Sycamores are a little thin in the front court, he may get a chance at some playing time.

The other things that stand out to me are these........

-for a school with a rich basketball tradition, Larry Bird, Final Four, etc...
and they're centered in the hottest hotbed of basketball interest - right in mid-American & Indiana -- they still rarely draw more than 5000 for a home game.
Some of their early season home games are in the 3000's and even their home game last year against Bradley drew only 4037 and I guarantee it wasn't even close to that as many seats were empty and a few hundred of those counted were BU fans wearing red!

-Greg Lansing's stock has risen with the Syc's nice run at the end of last season and their NCAA bid....one or two more good seasons and he'll be getting calls from elsewhere - and THIS is the season to get it done.
Why?? - well because this season they'll have the stars all aligned with four of their best players, and top scorers, all playing (Lathan, Printy, Walker, Richard) their senior seasons at the same time!

The next year afterwards, in 2012-2013, they'll need help. As it stands right now, they will have only one senior, who has totalled only a handful of points at the D-I level.
Manny Arop - a little used Gonzaga transfer won't be eligible until 2012.

So - it wouldn't be a stretch that if the Sycamores do well this year and exceed expectations - or win the Valley - Greg Lansing will get some pretty good offers and bolt - even though he will not have coached a single game where any key player was one that he recruited as head coach!

-Lastly Indiana State has been and continues to be both weak and small in the frontcourt. Their strong guard play will help them any time they play another mid-major - BUT -----------
As was seen last year against Purdue, Syracuse, Notre Dame, and even Wyoming....they will get hammered big time by teams with solid post players and strong frontcourt talent.

-InSU hired Marcus Belcher in the off-season as assistant after he was let go by SIU.
He was canned after an aggravated DUI where he crashed his car and walked home, leaving the scene of the accident...then he missed court dates and fine deadlines and had warrants sworn out for him.
He paid over $1600 in fines and just last month finally completed his sentence, paid all his fines, & completed the year of supervision.

BUT ---- His hiring DID pay off though - as he was close to Charleston, IL's TJ Bell who then verballed to Indiana State after they hired Belcher.

Proof that few in government today have a clue...

2011-09-27T06:38:00.004-05:00

Two stories in today's news show how out-of-touch government is...

-First the EPA which prevents the economy from growing by outlawing lightbulbs, shutting down the American oil & coal industries, and similarly closing down other entire industries as well -- now says they need to hire 230,000 more government employees just to keep up with the enforcement of their own rules.
Thus they want to hire nearly a quarter of a million people JUST SO they can keep putting other millions of people in America out of work.
Is it any wonder that candidates like Herman Cain are popular? Unless you happen to be one of those government workers with cushy, overpaid jobs then you are sick and tired of the government people taking taxpayers' hard earned cash and wasting it on things that kill jobs.

http://www.redstate.com/aglanon/2011/09/26/epa-calls-compliance-with-own-law-absurd-or-impossible-and-requests-230k-new-employees/

-The other one is local -- government big wigs who claim to be the watchdogs helping you are handing out bonuses and raises to their buddies..

http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=news/politics&id=8368602

http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2011/09/26/business-us-comptroller-treasurer-pay-raises-illinois_8701142.html

While everyone else in America worries about their job and hardly anyone is hiring - guess what??
The number of people since the 2008 elections who now work for the federal government is up 7%!
In other words -- the recession sure hasn't stopped this administration and the government from spending more money and hiring more of their buddies and cronies.

I am ready to vote for anyone who vows to shrink government and get them off our backs!

Speculation on the starting lineup and some actual facts and a look into Geno's track record

2011-09-26T09:03:00.005-05:00

Let's talk starting lineup -- there's been some extra talk here and there ever since this comment was made in the paper...
"Shayok Shayok has stood out so far and appears destined for a starting spot"

BUT -- Bradley's starting lineup has historically been very hard to predict for a number of reasons...

The first and foremost reason right now is the fact that we have a NEW head coach and numerous new players.
How do we really know what's going on in Geno Ford's mind? We'll probably just have to wait and see....but if Taylor Brown makes a STRONG comeback, then he'd also be a strong consideration for a starting spot and he plays a relatively similar frontcourt position as Shayok Shayok plays....however neither plays a true center spot so you'd have to pencil in Jordan Prosser also as having a good shot to start.

But then, that makes three frontcourt players if all three of those guys start, and is Geno going to start with only two guards? Let's look at Geno's history in this area.

BUT before we do -- as most know we've done a starting lineup pick-em on BradleyFans for the past FIVE seasons, and the outcome has been pretty amazing and confirms how hard it is to pick the starting lineups.

This year's thread containing the starting lineup Pick-em - has 20 guesses so far and we're still several weeks from the first game, and eleven different player combinations have been guessed, and only ONE combination has been selected by more than THREE fans.
And that combination has two freshmen in the starting lineup - something I have my doubts about.

Then -- of the past years -- recall that every year we've had 35-40 different pick-em guesses and in ALL BUT one season NOBODY got the starting lineup right -- NOBODY!
In the one and only season that anyone got it right -- ONLY ONE GUY was right with his guess.
Of course unforseen injuries, player issues, and as happened one season - the unforseen use of four guards in the starting lineup - threw everyone off.

SO -- in the PAST four seasons - over 140 combined guesses have resulted in only ONE guy getting it right -- thus - I wouldn't look for a whole bunch of people to get it right again this year.

SO -- here's a look at Geno Ford's pattern of choosing starters. This is a fact-based look at what type of players have been his early season starters in the other years he's been head coach...and the findings going back over several seasons of Geno being head coach are pretty consistent.
That doesn't mean he can't change gears and do something different but let's be reasonable - most coaches don't make startling or major changes from what's worked in the past.

Just last season - in 2010-2011 at Kent State, their starters in the first exhibition game were:
3 guards - Sherman, Guyton, Porrini...one forward - Justin Greene...and one center - Justin Manns...ALL were juniors and seniors....none were freshman or sophomores.
Geno then went with the same starters in the first regular season game and those same five guys started the first dozen games, before a sophomore, Randall Holt, then took a starting spot.
Of Geno's four freshmen last year only two ever started any games and each started only ONCE, so it looks like Geno does not necessarily go big, and he does not look to start kids without experience.

Then in 2009-2010 at Kent State...
His early season starters were Evans, Simpson, McKee, Sherman, and Greene.
Later Singletary and Henry-Ala got quite a few starts for different reasons.
Again -- he mostly went with a 3-guard lineup and no true center.
And again - the newcomers to D-I got very few starts over the course of the entire season.

In Geno's first year at Kent State, 2008-2009:
First game starters were Sullinger, Parks, Singletary, Fisher, Mincy - again 3 guards, a forward, and a center.
Those same five remained starters most of the season...so again it can be seen that Geno favored 3 guards. Also - three were seniors, two juniors, and the underclassmen did not get many starts all season.

Before that Geno coached at Muskingum in 2005-2006 and 2006-2007.
Here's something interesting -- in Geno's first game coached at Muskingum (2005-2006), his team played Redlands - and the final score was ..
Muskingum 148 - Redlands 125....
yup that's no typo for you typo police.
Here's the box score --
http://www.muskingum.edu/athletics/basketball_m/2005games/GAME1.HTM

As one can see from the box score, the players who STARTED and played the most, and who also launched massive quantities of shots were:
Ady-guard, Ross-guard (19-23 from the floor!), Glass-forward, Todd-guard (15-18 from the floor!), and Pittis-center..and despite 85 shots taken ONLY ONE was from the 3-pt arc!
BUT again -- Geno's going with 3 guards...and he carried that pattern thru the season....and again NONE of the starters all year were freshmen!

In 2006-2007 at Muskingum, he again started 4 guards - Todd, Ady, Byrne, Scott....and one Forward - Dicken.
So year after year he plays a 3 guard or even a 4-guard lineup and the guards constitute most of his shooting and scoring...and they all tend to be juniors and seniors - very few sophomores and virtually never a freshman starter.

Now -- I do not mean to say that proves anything - as you can draw your own conclusions....
Geno Ford has a documented track record with three seasons at Kent State and two more at smaller Muskingum, playing 3 guards most of the way....and favoring the most experienced players
However - now at Bradley -- he does have some pretty solid and experienced frontcourt players in Jordan Prosser, Taylor Brown, but I still think he's gonna go with three guards and two front court players.....but time will tell.

Note that of the 20 guesses in the pick-em thread - the most popular combination has just two guards, and fully 12 of the 20 of them have 3 guys starting in the frontcourt and ONLY TWO GUARDS.
So it seems that even though I can't find much evidence that Geno has ever gone with just a 2-guard lineup -- our fans still largely think Geno's going to "go big" and use just two guards in the starting lineup.....interesting....

In the same context - the Bradley fans taking guesses in the pick-em thread, also largely think Geno will utilize freshmen early on.
Of the 20 guesses, 17 of them have at least ONE FRESHMAN in the starting lineup....
and NINE of them have TWO freshmen as starters! Will Geno make that bold of a move and change that much from his long held pattern of using guards and upperclassmen predominantly? It will be interesting......

ISU's latest verbal, Aaron Simpson - the 5-11 kid from Chicago who's not a true point guard but who seems to have a hard time passing up any available shot - is the focus of a Sun Times blog article...
The Sun Times writer calls him a 4-year varsity player but one other article I saw said he did not play varsity for the major part of his freshman year but was brought up to varsity for the final two games as a frosh.
Much of the coverage talks of Simpson's efforts to get qualified and suggests he isn't there yet and might have had his share of struggles in that area thus far.
Recall, ISU does NOT appear to have an open scholarship for Simpson anyway -- so does Jank already kinda know Simpson isn't coming but is taking a chance just in case someone currently on the roster bolts and Simpson surprisingly blows up and gets qualified?
Time will tell.
In North Chicago's two games at the Civic Center during March Madness last spring...
He took 40 shots and made only 12 (30% shooting) and his assist to turnover ratio was 2 to 9 (0.22)...with North Chicago LOSING both games..and finishing 17-15.

Lastly - this whole nit-picking gotcha-issue pointing out typos and blowing it all up into a federal case is a great side show. Especially coming from people whose posts use some of the most horrifically improper grammar and mindboggling misspellings. They never fail to amuse.
But then, folks at Bradley and others who are close to the team have found out the hard way that some who masquerade as "fans" are just the garden variety message board attack dogs who can't take a breath without going off on some tangent of attack about inane issues. They are not supporters of Bradley basketball as can be seen in other areas but are just trying to please their egos.

The brand new Athlon 2011-2012 Preseason Basketball Preview Issue - Verdict = thumbs down

2011-09-24T13:50:00.003-05:00

Now we have the ATHLON Preview....but I am going to start right off and tell you DO NOT WASTE a bit of time nor money on it UNLESS you are a BIG ACC fan or North Carolina fan...
Gotta wonder just who they are aiming this stuff at if half their issue really is devoted to just the players and coaches in one league.

Cover has Illinois' Brandon Paul, Notre Dame's Eric Atkins, and Northwestern's John Shurna.

Then of all the features in the 1st half of the magazine - as I said most have something to do with Roy Williams, North Carolina, Harrison Barnes, etc... and a little more about a few items in the Big East & ACC.

But here are a couple other items of interest --

One page listed the Top 10 things to watch this season...
-Of course #1 was to watch North Carolina and see them run the table and win it all
-#2 was watch Butler fall significantly and never even hit the top 25
-#3 was all about Calipari's stud players
-#5 was that Kansas loses too much and won't win the Big 12
-#8 will be that Florida will use a 4 guard offense this season - Brad Beal, Mike Rosario, then returnees Walker & Boynton.

Then the listing of coaches on the HOT SEAT has Carmody at Northwestern, Doc Sadler at Nebraska, Chris Lowery at SIU (for the 3rd or 4th year in a row), and again it has Bruce Weber of Illinois.

Among a page of Key Transfers are Anthony Booker at Iowa State and Sam Maniscalco at Illinois.

They give some 2010-2011 awards and one - the BEST NEW COACH is Indiana State's Greg Lansing. Dana Altman was 4th.

Then a bunch of TOP TEN's..
Marquette's Darius Johnson-Odom (who was very close to coming to BU) was #5 best scorer.
#8 among the BEST SLASHERS is Kyle Weems - otherwise there's barely a mention of anyone from a midmajor in anything at all so far in this preview.

Then they move to the various special articles, each covering something about this coming season but almost all of them dealing with players & teams east of the Alleghenies.....

Then the Preseason TOP 25 - all BCS schools no Valley teams nor any mid-major..
Then the 68 teams in the NCAA Tournament - and they give the MVC two teams - Creighton with the automatic bid as a #8 seed - beating Purdue then losing to UNC, while Wichita State - a #11 seed losing their first game to Texas A&M.
They slate UNI & Indiana State as NIT Teams.
and then the list of All Americans all the way to 3rd Team and Hon. Mention has not one mid-major player...

So -- now about 90 pages deep into this issue we finally get to the various conferences...
but guess which conference is not only highlighted FIRST but also gets about 40 pages -- yup the ACC with special articles on each player especially Harrison Barnes.

I glanced at the Big East section -= DePaul picked 16th...
Then the Big Ten - Wisconsin picked to win, Illinois 5th, Indiana 9th..
and in the one-page section about Illinois they do have a really nice blurb about Sam Maniscalco - a team leader, smart kid, should help Illinois.
Illinois is picked to get an at-large bid but lose their only NCAA game.

SO......finally - yawn -- I battle fatigue and get to the Missouri Valley section and REALLY am disappointed.
The whole Valley section is 3 pages long...
1st page just picks the finish, describes the overview of teams, and lists All Conference players, then nearly a page on Creighton, then a page for Wichita, UNI, & Indiana State, then the very next page is Mountain West Conference, - and you realize, that Athlon must think the MVC has only four teams !!!!
NOTHING at all - not a mention - of anyone other than the top 4 finishers!!

Their predicted finish:
Creighton
Wichita State
Indiana State
UNI
Evansville
Missouri State
Drake
SIU
ISU
Bradley - picked last - I guess I might have expected it.

In their overview they have one tiny mention that BU has a new coach and will be dealing with injuries as they note Will's knee and Taylor's uncertain status.

Then the final few pages rank the recruits for 2011, 2012, and 2013...no surprises but...
Remy Abell is #101 in 2011, Jabari Parker is #1 in 2013.

Overall recap -- worst preview I have seen yet in every regard - especially in regard to fairness to 99% of the NATION that are NOT North Carolina or ACC worshippers.
And even in regards to the info on the Valley - not one single tiny iota of news or info that I am sure ALL of you didn't know back in June.

A look at Creighton

2011-09-23T09:22:00.003-05:00

OK -- getting back to checking out BU's future opponents, today I will mention a few things about Creighton.
I am picking Creighton since I have been contacted by a Creighton fan who readily admits to poring over every single blog entry on this site, scouring every word for the tiniest of errors to refute, and then he has started his own sparsely used blog site dedicated ONLY to trying to debunk what he seems to think are gross errors made here on BUBravesBlogger. I won't give the link to this guy's blog, because it would surely multiply his traffic 100-fold - as his blog is so obscure and unvisited with so few readable entries except a couple aimed directly at me or someone he things is me, he must have to dust off cobwebs each time he posts a new entry.
One of his recent issues was to drag up Daniel Ruffin's arrest and completely mischaracterize it claiming things like choking and felony...so the guy had to be corrected that it was a simple misdemeanor and DRuff completed the deferred prosecution and charges were dropped. Not even on his record any more...and surely the guy has to know that Greg McDermott is by no means a stranger to player issues with drugs, arrests, and players kicked off the team -- in fact - over the past 5 seaosns (4 of which were at Iowa State) McDermott surely had to be the NATION's LEADR among D-I head coaches with players misbehaving and getting booted elsewhere - but that's not my point.

Which brings me to the main point of even mentioning him, that he started his blog six months ago and has only like four actual entries that challenge anything.... and all of his arguments are simple differences of opinion with zero references of any kind, and not any real issue with a single fact!
In other words - the guy claims to scour every word on this blog and over the past six months he hasn't found a single thing to bit*h about except 3 or 4 things I have posted such as that I said ISU would be better off without Justin Clark (a career 18% 3-pt shooter) on the roster or that their team are the "Bluejays" and not the "Blue Jays" - even tho I have never said they were ....NEVER!

So - I fully expect said obscure blogger will really go after me on this one - but here goes...

If you want to swallow a couple of the preseason magazines and previews hook, line, and sinker - then we might just as well cancel the 2011-2012 Missouri Valley Conference season and just go ahead and hand the trophy now to Creighton.

BUT I am not willing to do that just yet. Sure, Creighton has a good shot at being the best team in the Valley - but all TEN Valley teams are still undefeated in Valley Conference play so I would say just that about all TEN teams.

And I will agree that Doug McDermott is a fine player - and likely to get a lot of attention as preseason Player of the Year in the Valley (if, for some reason, anyone who votes happens to forget that Kyle Weems has not graduated nor transferred and will still be playing this year for Missouri State).
BUT here is my summary of Creighton for 2011-2012.

They had Doug McDermott last year and he was teamed with the 2010 MVC Preseason Player of the Year Kenny Lawson and other fine players, and yet Creighton did NOT win the Valley.
They finished 10-8 - middle-of-the-pack in the MVC, the exact same finish & record or within ONE GAME of what Bradley had in 2007, 2008, 2009, AND 2010 -- all four years of which the BU fans booed and hissed and said we need to do better or FIRE THE COACH!!
So if Creighton did no better than Bradley did in any of those four seasons that a segment of the self-proclaimed "best" BU fans were moaning and griping about mediocrity - then are now going to apply a totally different standard to a 10-8 record?
Hey - and Creighton did NOT have injuries to use as an excuse! NINE of their top ten players in playing time played EVERY single game that they were eligible for!
PLUS - the only player with an injury was a non-starter who averaged 5 ppg on 37% shooting.

PLUS - right at the end of the year when BU was wearing down, had lost three starters - with Jordan Prosser carried to the locker room, and were playing on fumes, yet we still played as many games into the MVC Tourney as Creighton did - losing to WSU - as they lost to Missouri State, and our best players did NOT get shut down like McDermott did (only 9 pts vs. MSU) - as Dyricus shined with a 26 pt/9 reb game and Andrew was steady and at least hit his scoring average.

BUT I do not deny that Creighton returns several good players and will be one of the teams to beat - and I am not simply here to trash any team - let alone Creighton - like the Bluejay blogger seems to do...
BUT -- let's see who do they have??

Greg McDermott's son, Doug, coming off a freshman season of 14.9 ppg, 7.2 rpg.
When translated to per-40-minute averages that's...
20.5 pts per 40 minutes and 9.9 rebs per 40 minutes.

Kenny Lawson - who didn't play anywhere near as much time on the court as McDermott - and who was barely mentioned by anyone as having a good season - his numbers work out to....
19.0 pts per 40 minutes & 11.34 rebs per 40 minutes -
so arguably Lawson did everything McDermott did but wasn't given the chance to run up his numbers by playing 35 minutes per game!

A couple more comparisons... here are the averages per 40 minutes for ...

- Missouri State's Kyle Weems - 20.64 pts per 40 minutes & 8.83 rebs per 40 minutes
(almost identical to Dougie's)

- ISU's Jackie Carmichael - 16.8 pts per 40 minutes & 9.3 rebs per 40 minutes - hmmmm not a whole lot different!

- SIU's Mamadou Seck nabs 11.03 rebs per 40 minutes!

BUT - don't get me wrong -- I really like Doug McDermott -- I see him as sort of a great athletic scorer/rebounder like Taylor Brown on his best days like this game when he had 27 pts and 8 rebs against - of all teams - Creighton - LINK

But also a heady kid whose hard work & attitude makes the most of his God-given talent -- like this kid -

The other players that will round out Creighton's starting lineup are..
-Antoine Young - one of the best point guards in the Valley
-Greg Echenique - 105ppg/5.8 rpg last year
-Jahenns Manigat started 16 games last year but he may be replaced as starter by one of the newcomers - maybe Gonzaga transfer Grant Gibbs or one of the freshmen.
-Then if they want to go really big they can use a true center like Will Artino or go with small forward Ethan Wragge if he's made his comeback from injury.

Echenique played this summer with his National Team from Venezuela, and in their 8 games this summer (4-4 in FIBA Americas) he averaged 6.1 ppg (7th best on the team) and 5.3 rpg (2nd best)...maybe a little of a surprise given the weakness of some of the opponents like Panama, Cuba,...and that his playing time was among the top 5 guys on the squad.

Creighton as a team, also went to the Bahamas on a summer exhibition tour and whalloped four pretty overmatched Bahamian club-team opponents by an average margin of victory of 27 points per game.
They played everyone a bunch and the best players on the tour were:
-McD 24 ppg, 9.8 rpg
-Artino 10 ppg, 10.5 rpg
-Gibbs 8 ppg, 3 rpg
-Young 8.5 ppg, 1 rpg
-Wragge 7 ppg, 1.8 rpg

So anyone can see, if you figure some way to stop Doug McDermott then you will have discovered something none of those short and slow Bahamian squads figured out.

Creighton's schedule this year has a lot of creampuffs like Chicago State, North Carolina A&T, Campbell (yup they're a D-I school) and Houston Baptist, but the Bluejays also have Nebraska (Big Ten now but still ordinary in basketball), Northwestern, Tulsa, St. Joe's, San Diego State, UAB, and Iowa.
Thus their overall schedule still ranks as one of the best among Valley members.

So I predict Creighton will be among the top three in the Valley - but injuries and other factors are going to play a part this year, as the two most valuable players they have - Young and McDermott - are among the returning player with the MOST minutes played per game.
Antoine Young's 36.2 minutes per game are 4 MORE per game than the NEXT closest player returning in Valley play!
Coach Mac has a long history of playing his main guys a ton and exhausting them, and it was why so many of his strong UNI teams tuckered out at the end of the season and failed to make a peep in the Valley tourney or post-season.

Time will tell - but I would be very surprised if they finished below 3rd - and so should Bluejay fans.

Nice story on TB by CBSSports and some other news..

2011-09-22T10:42:00.002-05:00

A few short things..

Taylor Brown is the subject of a really nice, long piece by CBSSports this morning -- a lot of info and video about Taylor we have not yet seen even from local coverage!
http://twitter.com/#!/xb7/status/116896244806332417

Some links to updated info on BU's pros playing internationally

-Chris Roberts -
http://bradleyfans.com/vb/showthread.php?p=236613#post236613

-Patrick O'Bryant -
http://bradleyfans.com/vb/showthread.php?p=236614#post236614

-Andrew Warren -
http://bradleyfans.com/vb/showthread.php?p=236608#post236608

Here's a lesson on discipline - one D-I has two players arrested for assaulting other students on campus -- and yet the school has said they are NOT going to suspend the kids and they are handing down absolutely ZERO discipline.>
This is reminiscent of SIU's and ISU's discipline on lawbreakers when a couple of their kids got DUI's and then played the next day!
http://rushthecourt.net/2011/09/21/quinnipiac-keeps-two-players-charged-with-assault-on-the-team/

Some info on Misouri State - plus it's gotta be global warming, right?

2011-09-19T10:44:00.006-05:00

How about a preseason look at Missouri State basketball....
They still have Kyle Weems but they almost didn't as he entertained thoughts of transferring.

But for a guy who is and deserves the Valley Player of the Year - he is still a bit inconsistent and he won't have much to team with him this season also - something I am sure most Missouri State fans are reluctant to see.

Here's a few examples of MSU's late season faltering...

Down the stretch run when Missouri State had the chance to literally put away Wichita State and run away with the Valley - they lose at Evansville by double digits (77-65) although this wasn't all Weems' fault but he did fail to get his teammates involved as he had no assists, and the rest of his team were just 15-36 and 5-19 from 3-pt.

Then a BracketBuster loss at Valpo that would have possibly had them in line for an AT LARGE BID from the NCAA - and Valpo comes away with a pretty easy 80-67 win, leading by 10-15 most of the last 25 minutes.
Weems going 7-21 (1-8 from downtown) really hurt them.

But the single worst stunner was in St. Louis - where Missouri State handed off a win to undermatched Indiana State with Kyle Weems pretty much taking the day and the entire MVC Conference Championship Tournament off.
Only 3 made baskets in 36 minutes might show how teams are going to beat them this year -- just guard Weems and the rest of the team simply can't help much.
Weems' shooting percentage over the final half dozen games was just over 31% showing he wore down carrying too much of the load, and it won't get easier this year.

In fact - in all of those THREE games I just cited, the entire bench combined for only 30 pts and 16 rebounds -- that just 10 pts & 5 rebs a game from what's left for Weems to team with this year because the rest of all the starters are all gone!

In the MVC Tourney loss the bench contributed a mere 5 pts & 4 rebs.....a scary sign of what the future is going to be like for Weems when he has to play this season without any talent on the floor except himself.

But right after the MVC Tourney loss then their coach, Cuonzo Martin bolts to become Bruce Pearl's replacement at Tennessee and the Bears dip back into the Purdue assistant pool to land Paul Lusk.

This year's roster has a lot of new names...and senior Will Creekmore was denied a special NCAA 6th year waiver for an extra year of college ball - as it should have been since the ONLY year he lost was due to transfer - not injury.

The addition of DePaul transfer Mike Bizoukas isn't likely to help a lot. Returnee Nathan Scheer (soph) is a good shooter but he won't be enough by himself...although maybe one of the newcomers (jucos Anthony Downing, Corbin Thomas, & Jarmar Gulley, and a handful of freshmen) will help a bit. They also have returning Caleb Patterson, who along with Isiah Rhine provide a tiny bit of frontcourt experience.
New head coach Paul Lusk with have a tough task.

One starter is certain - Kyle Weems and at least two others Scheer & Caleb Patterson return with a fair amount of experience from last year. But guessing the other two starters is tough. Bizoukas transferred from DePaul as a grad student (like Sam Maniscalco did so he's eligible immediately) so he's somewhat experienced but he didn't play much at DePaul and averaged just 2 ppg.
My guess is that Biz will start at PG and then the other SG might be Keith Pickens who returns from an injury...or maybe one of the juco kids could earn time in the starting lineup.
They are holding tryouts for walk-ons - so you never know...
http://www.missouristatebears.com/sports/m-baskbl/spec-rel/091311aab.html

They should struggle early on against one of the Valley's best non-conference slates, until they figure out who their best players are to go with Weems.
They do host Oklahoma State and Tulsa early on, and they go to New Mexico & Nevada, and also play in a tough Las Vegas Tourney where they'll face West Virginia and St. Mary's...

Here's one interesting tidbit -- Missouri State is doing something this year that D-I schools NEVER get to do...
They are playing THREE open, public pre-season exhibition games.
Ordinarily teams are limited to TWO such games but Missouri State has received special permission to play an additional exhibition against D-II Missouri Southern IN Joplin, Missouri to help benefit those who were hurt by the tornado's devastation.
http://ozarksfirst.com/fulltext/?nxd_id=474417

http://www.cbssports.com/mcc/blogs/entry/26283066/30168642

All this heat -- surely this has been the hottest year on record -- in fact prepare yourself because I am sure that's what everyone in the media is gonna say!
If you ask anyone in the entire state if this has been a warmer than usual year for Illinois, I am sure 99% will say yes and 95% will say they are 100% sure it has been.

BUT -- what do the actual FACTS say???
Here are the precise facts from numerous temperature stations in every county in Illinois - thousands of precise data points..(not the crap that the feds make up or hand pick to prove what they want)

It comes from this data bank...
http://mcc.sws.uiuc.edu/cliwatch/watch.htm#

Which tabulates data in Illinois from 117 different data recording and reporting sites. This data is precise and cannot be faked - Here are those 117 different sites throughout the state:
http://www.isws.illinois.edu/data/climatedb/

But let's look at the one figure they call "Departure from the Mean" which is the one indicator whether this year has been hotter than normal (or average).

Here we see proof that last winter we were way cooler than usual
http://mcc.sws.uiuc.edu/cliwatch/seasons/djf.tdev.png

Then in spring - again much cooler than "normal" throughout Illinois
http://mcc.sws.uiuc.edu/cliwatch/seasons/mam.tdev.png

Summer - yup it was hotter than usual..we all know that...
http://mcc.sws.uiuc.edu/cliwatch/seasons/jja.tdev.png

September thus far, however, is back to being VERY cool..as was the last part of August
http://mcc.sws.uiuc.edu/cliwatch/mtd/month.tdev.png

And if we just look at the temp departure last 30 days is -1 to -2 degrees (BELOW historical average) nearly statewide
http://mrcc.sws.uiuc.edu/state_climatologists/illinois/tmeandev-30days.png

So WHAT does the overall picture for Illinois in 2011 show???
....the temperature departure for the State of Illinois over the entire year of 2011.......is............
........ZERO...
http://mrcc.sws.uiuc.edu/state_climatologists/illinois/tempytd2.png

It has NOT been the hottest year ever, and it hasn't even been a "hot year" -- it has been precisely at the average or mean temperature here in Illinois if you actually look at the real and not imagined data!!!

So just as I predicted - even though everyone thinks it is hotter than usual this year - they are WRONG.
It was hotter than usual this summer but the cooler temps statewide the entire rest of the year cause the average temperature departure for virtually the ENTIRE State of Illinois to be ZERO.

So this is a classic example of someone using a short term factor to assume a long term trend when the real long term trend is that 7 of the 9 months we have had so far in Illinois in 2011 have actually been COOLER than usual and the long term trend therefore is NOT warming!

So how about other midwestern states? What you find is pretty amazing...
Iowa - for example - has had a relatively cool year - and even over the last 3 months, their temperature averages have been right on the averages with an average temperature departure of ZERO despite seemingly everyone saying it's record hot!
http://mrcc.isws.illinois.edu/state_climatologists/iowa/tmeandev-90days.png

Other midwest states are the same -- mostly right around the norm - despite the hot summer since the entire rest of 2011 was pretty cool.

So you cannot prove global warming with any data from the midwest - regardless of what you hear now or what you will hear from alarmists down the road.
Sure there were some hot spots in certain places like Texas - which we heard endlessly about on news reports, but there were other spots like Minnesota (which we never seemed to hear about) where the entire first 6 months of 2011 had almost all parts of Minnesota at 3-6 degrees below average over that entire span!
http://mrcc.isws.illinois.edu/cliwatch/seasons/mam.tdev.png http://mrcc.isws.illinois.edu/cliwatch/seasons/djf.tdev.png

BTW -- for those who might still think we have been having drought - the facts also prove that totally wrong...precip. departure - is above norm all over the state, AND way ABOVE for the Southern half of Illinois.
http://mrcc.sws.uiuc.edu/state_climatologists/illinois/prcpytd2.png

So I don't really care what people believe but they should check real facts, that's all. I guess I learned long ago that almost everyone in government and in media has a bias and has an agenda. So if your information or your beliefs come from such a biased and limited source then just beware of how wrong you might be.

BUT - here I have presented pure data -- facts from literally hundreds of separate and independent sites that are used and relied on for accuracy by all the Illinois farmers and other people. If you want to claim all this data is wrong - then feel free but you are making a total fool of yourself if that's what you believe.

Some early preseason thoughts about SIU

2011-09-19T06:44:00.003-05:00

SIU ended last season on a down note - something that was hard to do given how bad their season was...with poor shooting, bad play, and sparse offense.
BUT -- they beat ISU in the Thursday night game and then had TOP SEED Missouri State all but buried on Friday before horribly blowing a 9 point lead inside of the final 3 minutes to let Missouri State escape by scoring the final 11 points of the game, and put the final nail in their coffin of a bad year.

Of their top 12 scorers from last season...

--Three have graduated - Carlton Fay, Jack Crowder, John Freeman. Fay was their leading scorer and team leader.

--Four more have been dismissed or sent packing in one way or another - Gene Teague, Troy Long, Mykel Cleveland, Jordan Myers.

--And three more will start the season under suspension according to several reports - Diamond Taylor, Davante Drinkard, Kendall Brown-Surles - with the latter two possibly being ineligible all semester.

That means only their 2nd (Mamadou Seck) and their 5th (Justin Bocot) best scorers return from their 13-19 campaign to start this season.

The rest of their current roster shows -

- FIVE freshman (Tony Bryer, Dantiel Daniels, Treg Setty, Josh Swan, and Harry Whitt)

- and a few new juco transfers (Early, Lindsay, Goff)

- Plus even the bench will have a different look with two new assistants - Ron Smith and Anthony Stewart.

Lance Irvin - supposedly their lead Chicago area recruiter - has been sent packing as well in addition to one other assistant Marcus Belcher.
Irvin may well have been canned - perhaps in response to how terribly all the Chicago area kids like Dillard and Hare turned out. In fact - given that Irvin's specialty was to land the top Chicago kids - and since SIU never gets or keeps any of those kids, I guess Irvin was expendable, making SIU the EIGHTH D-I program he's left in just a little over a decade.

This all makes me recall when that hyped recruiting class was coming in with Hare, Dillard and Top-30 recruit Booker - more than a few Bradley fans wailed that they wish we could land players like that.....ahem -- yeah right.......still wish for that??

Thankfully, though, the SIU people saw this coming and scheduled according to the ISU plan - pencilling in such cupcakes and NON-Division I opponents as Ohio Dominican, Northeastern, Chicago State, NIU, and SIUE in the early going....
Only home games with Saint Louis and Western Kentucky should produce much challenge even to their weakened squad...

But they had better get their ineligible players miraculously cleared by Dec. 22 because they will face Kansas State then UTEP or Clemson in the ESPN Diamond Head Classic.

Plus -- just look at the last few seasons as well -
The number of key players & starters who have left with eligibility remaining is well into double digits.... (Dillard, Booker, Evans, Hare, Cornelius, Roundtree, Bone, Wood, not to mention Foster & Dale...)

So needless to say fans want some change but this year's prospects look pretty slim given the lack of recognizable players.
And their press hasn't been kind either -- just this morning this column appeared....pretty much equating SIU's reluctance to address all the rumors of ineligibility with the fact that they are true and SIU wants to delay the inevitable fan reaction as long as possible.

http://thesouthern.com/college/siu/article_96d12104-e1ae-11e0-90e2-001cc4c002e0.html

It's hard to pick a possible starting lineup with just two experienced players returning & eligible.
But here goes...
Seck, Bocot, Lindsay, Early, Daniels

Then I would have to say they are going to be just about everyone's favorite to finish 10th in the Valley - so I predict that's where they'll be picked and not much that I have seen nor heard makes me think they're going to surprise anyone.

Lastly - the SIU message board is a place that you really just don't want to go. It is so filled with infighting, attacks, and hateful criticism of their own team and players, that there are no other boards anywhere in the Valley - maybe even all of D-I that compare -- although one was headed that way before being recently saved from self destruction by a few hard-handed slaps on the violators.

Anyway - even some of the hateful and miserable threads from a year ago are being brought back and nobody dares say anything positive without getting ripped by the haters. SIU fans are vicious.

Just a few thoughts about ISU from a Braves fan

2011-09-18T08:02:00.005-05:00

Just a look at ISU and what they have from a Bradley fan's perspective...and I know the Redbird folks will disagree with most of my thoughts - but I have pretty good sources and references for what's here...

-THE SCHEDULE -- By virtue of having one BCS opponent, even though it is Rutgers (who are picked to finish near the bottom of the Big East), and the possibility that ISU might face Illinois in Cancun, then this is marginally the toughest schedule in five years for Jankovich.
The rest of the non-conference opponents are really awful so overall the schedule is still pretty bad -- SIUE, Fresno, Lipscomb, Bethune-Cookman, Chicago State, UNCW, Norfolk State, UALR, Morehead....wow -- most of then are also at home for ISU so they ought to actually breeze to wins in all of those games.

-Their roster this year is almost all guards - Allen, Blue, Brown, Clark, Cousin, Hill, Moore, Upshaw, Zeisloft, and even John Wilkins is listed as a guard (likely at his request).
http://www.goredbirds.com/sports/m-baskbl/mtt/ilsu-m-baskbl-mtt.html

They have 3 forwards listed (Carmichael, Ekey, and Jones - although we are hearing that Jones is not going to gain eligibility) and one center (Threloft).

They have no seniors so on paper they have NO open scholarships until 2013 when Wilkins, Blue, Brown, Carmichael, Clark, and Cousin all finish up -- which means they will lose SIX players - all of whom will likely be key players by then who were getting decent playing time. So Jank has his recruiting classes really screwed up and unbalanced. You just can't lose 6 players at once - all of whom will be either starters or key rotation players and then expect in 2013 to be any good.

But that also means despite being picked LAST in the MVC this year by some preseason preview publications, then just maybe Coach Jankovich is looking forward to next year, 2012-2013 when he'll have all those guys as seniors, thinking that might then be the year with high expectations...if he is still around given brewing discontent with many issues.

BUT THEN...we know someone will be leaving (probably already Jones is gone) before then since ISU just got a verbal from Anthony Beane for 2012...

http://bradleyfans.com/vb/showthread.php?p=236107#post236107

BUT at least one ISU fans dares touch on the sensitive subject...what if ISU finishes poorly this year and Tim Jankovich and staff are fired?
Then that means that Anthony Beane's dad who is Jank's assistant will be gone, and of course so would the little A-Beane.

http://redbirdfan.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=78&start=75

As noted above - they should be able to sleep walk thru their non-conference season and start their conference season (incl. BracketBuster) at around 10-1 or 9-2...then let's say they go 6-12 and lose the first game Thursday nite in St. Louis - then ...if that happens - a 17-14 season - Jank might just be been canned with a 100-64 career record at ISU.
That would still place Jank among the all time best coaches ISU has had record-wise.

As far as recruiting - where Bradley has been getting top kids onto campus - Larry Austin, Peyton Allen, Nate Taphorn, and many more -- news of ISU's recruiting has been scarce - save for the announcement that one of the assistant coach's son is gonna verbal there -- something everyone and their mother already knew.
What I have heard behind the scenes about Jank & ISU's recruiting is that Jank relegates most of it to his assistants. And where Geno has been getting major inroads into the Chicago recruiting scene and other in-state kids, Jank and his assistants are struggling...and of course the lack of open scholarships for the near future hurts too. But since they'll have gobs of rides open for 2013 then why are they not at least lining up a few bigger names??

-OK let's have a little fun -- try to guess ISU's starting lineup. This is not easy as even Jackie Carmichael - who absolutely kills BU - was NOT a full time starter last year. Nobody started more than 25 of their 31 games...
And the tendency for Tim Jankovich to juggle the starting lineup just about every other game tends to show even HE has no clue who his best players are as subs led them in scoring almost all the time -- and this schizoid lineup changing surely must be hard for the players to settle in and feel comfortable. One bad game often meant some poor guy got dropped 5-6 places on the depth chart!! (Although JW sure seemed to always get a lot of playing time - maybe fulfilling a promise made)
Obviously this makes players pretty danged hesitant to take a shot or take any chance anywhere on the court for fear of paying big time in playing time loss.
They also experimented with different lineups and rotations on their Canadian tour.

But I will project Carmichael (PF), Ekey (F), Wilkins (SG/SF), Brown (SG), and Cousin (PG), as starters.

-And how will they do this year?? Unlike the preseason mags that have come out - I DON'T think they will finish 9th or 10th...I think they'll do a little better than that. Their shooting was atrocious last year - 42.5% overall and just 31.0% from 3-pt range.
They are solid in the frontcourt with returnees Carmichael (although Jackie averaged only 6 points per game in the final 9 games) & Ekey,
but lacking a bit in the backcourt despite the numerous rostered guards...and of course they lost their TOP SCORER and only reliable scorer and only guy who could create shots - Austin Hill.
Only one player (Cousin) has had any experience playing PG at the college level - and he got just 2 assists per game last year, and that means they might again be at the bottom of the Valley in assist statistics...unless freshman Nic Moore can surprise everyone - and he sure didn't on their Canadian trip where he was effectively a turnover-waiting-to happen.
There was lots of speculation that Jankovich would land a juco point guard but he did NOT and instead loaded up even more on juco shooting guards who can't hit three's...
Also - I just can't see anyone on their roster suddenly lifting their shooting statistics very much.
Why Zeke Upshaw is still on the team is a stumper - since now three years into his college career he still looks to be deep in the rotation...not scoring ONE single point last year over the final TWO MONTHS of the season!!!

Lastly -- I will carefully address something that's been hanging around as rumors for quite some time.....and that is that ISU has some serious "chemistry issues" and issues among their personnel that affect their play on the court.
This isn't rare - as it has happened at times to many schools - even BU.
This blends right in with the constant lineup changing as guys were janked from the lineup for issues that were not openly discussed in press conferences.

Note this one quote by Tim Jankovich when they got thumped on Thursday night in St. Louis by a woeful SIU team...
"We were not good enough offensively. We will have to get back to more like the teams of the past. That doesn't happen playing video games and lying around on the couch."

Apparently he is referring to some lazy work ethics that have been rumored to exist, players who dodge their assigned times in the weight room and play video games instead, and some players who simply don't want to do what the coaches ask of them - including players who refuse to play the position on the court they are assigned.
If this recurs again this season then ISU will finish last -- it just hurts a team way too much.

More Government Corruption

2011-09-16T11:51:00.000-05:00

Have you read about Solyndra...a company whose founders & owners are close buddies and financial supporters of the current President.
A company that wasn't even valued at $100 million but got a GUARANTEED loan from the federal government for well over $500 million even at a time that they were financially insolvent and the government's OWN REGULATIONS should have prohibited giving that much money to them because it was VERY bad risk.

Well -- that money is ALL gone, and the company just went belly-up.
This is a serious scandal -- had this been Halliburton or Dick Cheney - well you know it would have been dragged in the headlines for months & years - instead you have to check the deep back pages of some newspapers to even find the story.
This is classic government cronyism and corruption at its best - and it a far larger scale of what we saw right here in Peoria with Firefly...
Taxpayers' money being casually and irresponsibly given to crooked people because of who they know in government - then criminally spiriting the massive amounts of cash to who-knows-where - likely their own foreign bank accounts - then going belly up and filing bankruptcy!
The press is also complicit in this by NOT reporting major facts that do expose those both in government and at the corporations who have been negligent, immoral, and even criminal.

http://bradleyfans.com/vb/showthread.php?p=233359#post233359

Does anyone doubt for a second that all this new corruption mixed with horrific regulations and government red tape is what's killing jobs!
http://www.worldmag.com/articles/18621

Sean Harris immediately scooped up by perennial NCAA Tourney team without playing a game in three years

2011-09-15T08:25:00.005-05:00

September 15, 2011, 8:00AM-

Not a whole lot of news in college basketball but some thoughts...

Ex-BU recruit Sean Harris - a kid who hasn't even played a college basketball game in three years - just verballed to Utah State.
He visited their campus last weekend - they were tremendously impressed, they offered and Sean accepted.

"Harris is described as a skilled and “relentless” power forward with a good jumper and three-point range. He recently returned from an LDS Church mission, and visited the Logan campus last weekend. That, along with Utah State’s tradition, was enough to get him to commit.

“He loves that Utah State is a top-25 team almost every year,” Cornelius told the Tribune. “He visited there, and he thought it was a great fit. He got along well with the guys and he loved it there. He’s a big forward, the ultimate four man. He’ll be about 220 pounds by the time he gets to Utah State. The fans there are going to love how hard he plays. He’s relentless.”
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/sports/52585507-77/season-harris-cornelius-forward.html.csp

If you read the whole article -- it notes that Utah State - a team that finished inside of the TOP 25 RPI rankings each of the past TWO seasons and who went to the NCAA both years, and who have WON their conference and gone to the NCAA each of the past THREE seasons and played somewhere in the post-season NINE years running....expects to start Sean at their 4-position next year!

So with that info and with news of how impressive Sean was that led to Utah State offering - we'd have to conclude he might well have been a starter here, something that doubters are not going to like to hear.

It appears that Sam Maniscalco is going to be a starter for Illinois, and at the same time the talk at Indiana is that Remy Abell has been so impressive thus far in the preseason that he is going to be a starter there for the Hoosiers.
Seriously - if we lost those two players who become starters for Big Ten teams, then obviously they would have both been starters here, it's a no brainer.
The other player lost, Sean Harris, is, of course, open to debate how much he would have played - but with the absence of Will Egolf, and with TWO other potential starters (TB & Prosser) both ending last season unable to play and their status currently is still not determined -- then it is actually quite likely that had we landed the older, talented, high scoring 6-8 juco forward Harris - that surely he'd have played an important role this season also. He may have actually had to be a starter by default as we will begin the season thin or hobbled in our front court.

And some claim they do not see any evidence of "fallout" from the coaching change -- duhh.....how absolutely blind does one have to be to not see we lost possible THREE starters!

Each sport & every endeavor has it's all-time superstars....
Golf - Tiger
Baseball - Babe Ruth
Basketball - Michael Jordan
Hockey - Wayne Gretzky
Message boards - BradleyFans.com - ;)

But -- did you know there's a new, emerging all-time superstar in one sport that you may not have heard of.

In competitive bass fishing we have 20-year old Jacob Wheeler.
He's just a kid but racking up victory after victory - and cementing his name already among the best ever in his sport!

Who'd have ever thunk you can make a decent living just casting bait -- but Jacob just won a $100,000 tourney prize!!!

http://fishing.outdoorzy.com/20-year-old-is-youngest-bass-fishing-champ/

http://jacobwheelerfishing.com/about-jacob

Pretty soon young kids will be wanting his rookie card and pretending to be Jacob Wheeler out in their back yards....I just hope superstardom doesn't negatively affect Jacob like it has to Barry Bonds, Tiger Woods, and Manny Ramirez!

Summary of non-conference schedule and the disaster that is Peoria District 150

2011-09-14T09:04:00.004-05:00

FWIW - Here's the summary of all the preseason thoughts I have posted about our NON-CONFERENCE opponents:

UMKC .. and MORE
SEMO
North Dakota
Wofford
Wisconsin
BYU or Nevada
Wyoming
Northeastern
George Washington
Drexel
Western Carolina
Michigan

And I just can't ignore the front page story for the PJ Star the past two days running...
how badly the Peoria public schools are doing...

Here are the locations of those two articles...I did not make them a hyperlink - but you can find your way there:

http://www.pjstar.com/news/x948305928/Only-four-District-150-schools-meet-state-testing-standards

http://www.pjstar.com/news/x948306178/Look-at-test-scores-shows-District-150-making-some-progress

Basically they demonstrate that 22 of 26 Peoria public schools is FAILING -- or fall below the MINIMUM testing guidelines!!!

Remember this?? - LINK

That story pointed out how all those failing schools actually get rewarded by the government using tax dollars to buy free breakfast and free lunch for EVERY child in each of those failing schools!!
In other words...if they fail - let's reward them!!!

Someone needs to step up and be accountable. We have privately run schools locally that have WON national and statewide awards for their academic excellence.

http://www.peoriaacademy.org/news/view/congratulations-scholastic-bowl-team/
http://www.peoriaacademy.org/news/http://www.pjstar.com/news/x1742291335/Peoria-Christian-named-2009-Blue-Ribbon-School
http://www.pjstar.com/features/neighbors/x1192320142/Peoria-Christian-gets-award-from-ACT

So.....why are the people who run District 150 or the citizens whose children that distrcit serves -- still willing to allow such POOR performance to persist and such terrible leadership to continue to sit there and collect their HALF-MILLION dollar paycheck??
Nice job Grenita -- didn't you vow we'd see better than this?? Didn't you stake your reputation and career on it?
BTW - District 150 landed millions of dollars in Obama's stimulus money -- where'd it go??

And why are the terms of her million+ dollar contract being kept SECRET???
http://centralillinoisproud.com/fulltext/?nxd_id=182937

http://tellpeoria.com/peoriapundit/tag/grenita-lathan/

http://www.peoriamagazines.com/ibi/2010/aug/dr-grenita-lathan

Need I say -- just about everything associated with District 150 from the TOP on down is an embarrassment to the community.... how can kids who get horrible education ever be expected to get or hold a job or support their families?

Prediction - watch the finger-pointing continue...

Bradley's final non-conference opponent Michigan

2011-09-13T13:44:00.002-05:00

Just about everyone who follows Bradley knows by now that we got a nice deal to play Michigan there this year, then next year they'll be coming to Peoria!
I don't need to tell you they're going to be very hard to beat up there.

In 2010-2011 they were a "blue collar team" and won by beating opponents physically. They were 10th in the Big Ten in scoring - ahead of only Penn State (66.5 ppg)...and they were down at the bottom on rebounding as well.
They didn't lead the Big Ten in anything and were middle-of-the-pack in almost all other stats.

Their best 3-pt shooter was Zach Novak at around 38%

Michigan is picked to be in the upper half of the Big Ten. They lost only one player - PG Darius Morris and return everyone else.
Bradley has Pat Beilein as an assistant coach - and he's the son of Michigan's head coach John Beilein. Pat was introduced at the Bradley Community Event with his name pronounced...
"BEE - LINE"...not "BY - LINE"...just for those who want to know.

Zack Novak is a tough kid who Bradley recruited, and now he's become their team leader, a good scorer and their top rebounder.

Their PG Stu Douglass has a little of the same tough style as Novak.

Their best player and their guy that might have the best chance of being in the NBA is Tim Hardaway, Jr. - an explosive scoring guard - not a point guard like his father.

Their other two projected starters are Center Jordan Morgan (also NBA potential) - who had a nice sophomore season and then either Matt Vogrich (6-4 SG) or Evan Smotrycz (6-9 SF) depending on whether they want to big or small.

I would be surprised if Peoria Notre Dame's Max Bielfeldt, a freshman at Michigan, gets much playing time early on but I think he'll get into some games and do OK.
Here's a story from last week in the Michigan press about Max...
http://www.freep.com/article/20110905/SPORTS06/109050348/Four-U-M-freshman-hoopsters-work-game-over-summer

Here' some potential bad news for Max -- Michigan is making a big push to land Mitch McGary - a very similar player to Max - but ranked way higher -- inside the Top 5 NATIONALLY.
http://is.gd/cozTf1

Michigan's history - they have one National Championship in 1989 over Seton Hall - the year Illinois was also in the Final Four.
They have two legacies -- the Fab Five that everyone still seems to talk about, and then the scandal that ultimately hurt them for a whole decade when it was finally proven that those Fab Five guys were all paid big time.
They've had a lot of great players over the years - Cazzie Russel, Rudy Tomjanovich, Glen Rice, Jalen Rose, Chris Webber...and more but...
they've had a DEFINITE drop off in quality players over the past two decades...
They have not had an All American since 1994 (Jalen Rose), and in the last decade they haven't had a single player head to the NBA and much if any impact!

Here's the Hoopsreport preview of Michigan:
http://www.thehoopsreport.com/article.aspx?id=784

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

2011-09-12T09:09:00.003-05:00

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.........

The clear answer to a major medical "mystery"

2011-09-09T09:28:00.005-05:00

I am sure everyone has seen headlines like this...

"Life threatening Peanut Allergy..."
http://is.gd/j5s1r6

And even this...
"Teen with peanut allergy dies after kiss"
..after simply kissing someone who had previously eaten peanuts...
http://is.gd/Q91vbQ

And more...who'd have ever thought a simple allergy could create such chaos...
http://is.gd/0Erf6D

And I am sure you have also often wondered
...."where did this come from???
When I was a kid I never heard of peanut allergy but now it seems to be a major topic and it's all over the place"...
and ..."I never heard of anything like this until just the past few years..."

But I am going to give you some simple info and evidence for you to draw your own conclusions...
Wouldn't you think if some severe, life threatening condition like this was increasing rapidly in frequency and actually killing young people in their prime...that someone would express a little interest in ...
WHY IS IT HAPPENING??
...OR WHAT IS THE CAUSE AND WHY ARE WE NOT HEARING ANYONE SPEAK OF THE CAUSE???

I think the following links will provide the evidence you will need to find the answer and also find the reason the answer is being hidden.

--First - the standard "company line" or the answer coming from "experts" and government people is this...
"We just don't know the reason but it sure is NOT associated with childhood vaccines"

Also those experts will claim there's NOTHING associated with the many, many vaccines kids get and are REQUIRED to receive that would in any way cause these life threatening allergies.

--Second -- I think we can all easily agree that the single purpose of a vaccine is to trigger an immune reaction by the recipient and if given over and over it does indeed create a big immune boost and the ability for the body to vigorously attack the substance they're attempting to create immunity against - so that they become MUCH MORE immune to the ingredients in the vaccine. This is the whole reason they are given.

--Then - what is an allergy? -- simply put it is an aggressive immune action to attack and destroy some perceived threat entering the body - even if that threat is NOT DANGEROUS.
In other words....all allergies are because the host's immune system sees and does not like something that is perceived as a threat or an attacker and the immune system goes hard after that attacker causing the reaction.
It is truly unfortunate if the reaction then becomes FAR MORE dangerous to the host than the perceived attacker would have ever been.

In fact - the very word "allergy" was coined about 100 years ago as a term to describe the undesired immune effect OF VACCINES because they cause UNINTENDED immune boosts that backfire and cause problems.
http://is.gd/yB1Ojo

--OK - then how might we, as a society, be causing kids to develop allergies and even die - while at the same time someone is hiding or denying the cause and we keep right on giving it to the vast majority of our children?

I think your answers are clear - here they are...

--Peanut allergies historically were never seen nor heard of until 1921 when the very first such peanut allergy was described. This was 20 years after vaccines for many childhood diseases were being given. BUT STILL - such allergies were exceedingly rare all the way until the 1960's and 1970's when many states began mandating numerous vaccinations on a repeated basis for every kid -- until now every kid gets somewhere between 50 and 100 different vaccinations and immune boosts (by shot) before he finishes school. Many vaccines give up to 6, 8, and even MORE separate "immune boosts" with each single shot.
http://www.dukehealth.org/health_library/news/10188

--many early vaccines were not very effective until stabilizing agents and adjuvants could be found and added so that the active immune ingredient could remain stable in the bottle and after it was injected under the recipient's skin.
Over time many such additives to vaccines were tried but one of the most successful was peanut oil...or a derivative of peanut oil.
Deny if you want - but it is still used widely today and ....
BECAUSE it is NOT considered by the government to be an active ingredient - the government allows the vaccines to be marketed and dispensed without saying on the label that it contains PEANUT products.

--the industries that make vaccines are very thankful that governments have mandated the use of their products. Wow - that means MILLIONS of customers and clients automatically created by the stroke of a pen when legislation requires TENS of MILLIONS of kids to get these various vaccines every since year!
LOTS of money involved - so lot sof reason to downplay any potential negatives - right?
The amount of money in play here is in the BILLIONS of dollars so you can bet that both government people and vaccine industry people have a lot hanging in the balance.

--despite denials from the vaccine industry claiming there's nothing in any vaccine that could possibly have anything to do with peanuts...
The TRUTH is absolutely, 100% the opposite.
I guess one could conclude then that the vaccine industry and/or the government are lying - but you can draw your own conclusions - recall that we are talking BILLIONS of DOLLARS that make the vaccine industry profitable and similar billions that people in government may be able to have at their disposal through lobbying efforts of those giant pharmaceutical companies.

--SEVERE and LIFE THREATENING peanut and other food allergies that are killing kids - are tripling faster than every decade...
http://is.gd/Q4PFL0

--the rise and severity in peanut allergies is directly proportional to the increase in the number of mandated shots kids have to get that have the peanut products in them - despite the denials from the industry.
Let's face it - if the main purpose of these shots is to boost the immunity to the stuff that's in the shots, then every kid in AMERICA is getting many booster shots to make him more allergic to peanuts. It's a wonder we aren't all allergic to them but science has shown only that it is actually quite hard to gain allergy to certain substances but if we keep trying hard enough we might just achieve it!

Here's proof that the peanut products are in those vaccines even if the vaccine people and government people say otherwise...the evidence is pretty overwhelming...

http://is.gd/GeTru4
http://is.gd/qjR8QV
http://is.gd/s22iiH
http://is.gd/sqxoPF
http://is.gd/nPsbSo
http://is.gd/GNKop9

Here's a time line proving the rise in the allergies is so closely related to the use of the peanut products in vaccines that the correlation is virtually undeniable...
http://is.gd/TKZdcG

Now - I'm NOT saying just stop giving vaccines -- all I am saying is look at the evidence, consider the adverse effects of what we're doing -- demand the industry and government be honest and give us the facts, and make informed decision -- and demand safer products.
Peanut allergies - and other food allergies - have virtually come out of nowhere and are a REAL pubic health issue.
If baby car seats or air bags kill even one kid or if a toy has toxic paint or choke-able parts, the feds go bananas and it's all over the headlines. But here we have an issue that a lot of the very people who are making huge profits off the vaccines are also somewhat in charge of whether you know what's in those vaccines and what they are doing to people.
Certainly at the very least - the vaccines and boosters that are widely argued are NOT NECESSARY (the Hepatitis vaccine, chickenpox vaccine, human papilloma virus vaccine...etc...) should be the first ones to consider maybe you should JUST SAY NO.

Catching up with Mark Vershaw and recruiting ...

2011-09-07T12:31:00.003-05:00

I happened to bump into Mark Vershaw this morning -- his kids and my kids go the the same school...and we chatted.
Most know he grew up in East Peoria leading Robein Junior Hi to the IESA (8th grade) Championship game, and also leading his EPCHS high school team to prominence back in the mid '90's.
He then went on to a nice college career at Wisconin - playing for then coach Dick Bennett (who Mark still frequently keeps in touch with).
Mark has since been in the assistant coaching ranks with a couple years at ICC then Washington State (he was wearing a Washington State sweatshirt this morning), then Cornell, then four years as HEAD COACH at Monmouth College.

Now he keeps busy with his family, his wife Natalie (an avid runner and a teacher in District 150) and his daughter & preschool son. BUT -- he does supposedly have a new job in the works....

As we talked and discussed who's gonna win the Big Ten, how silly it is for the teams in the Big Ten to be in the "Legends" and "Leaders" divisions, and how the Valley will fare this year....
And he also talked about when he played off season/AAU ball back when there really weren't a lot of AAU teams...
He played for Coach Terry Knapp -- who many I am sure know, and whose son Nick Knapp was also on the team.
Others on that mid-90's AAU team included Richwoods' Mike Robinson (who averaged 30 ppg & 10 rpg his senior year and went to Purdue) & Ryan Schmidgall...
BTW -- Robinson also seriously considered Bradley -

http://is.gd/XhXzWT

Anyway -- then Mark revealed his new job that's in the works is on staff at Illinois State University as an administrative assistant.
Rules will prevent Mark from doing any recruiting, scouting, or on floor coaching but he and his new "bosses" hope that he can have some valuable input -- and leadership.
His name should soon appear on the ISU web site but currently it lists ten administrative assistants but Mark's name is not on the list as it exists now.

I also asked Mark how his brother Jim Vershaw is doing - Jim played two years for Bradley.
Ex-Brave Jim is doing just fine in the insurance business...
http://www.countryfinancial.com/jim.vershaw

In time Mark might even help a little in coaching some basketball at his son's school - but he figures that may be a way off....he also says he still rarely sees and keeps in touch with Coach Mo...who recruited him vigorously in high school - Link -
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1996-11-14/sports/9611140205_1_recruits-prospects-guard

Since he now lives here in Central Illinois and will be looking to get back into coaching, I suspect we will hear more on Mark. He's a great guy and I enjoyed chatting with him.

I saw some comments where people think Bradley has done a terrible job recruiting Chicago lately as compared to other area schools.
Well -- as usual people just don't do their homework and say silly things...
Bradley definitely isn't and hasn't been ignoring Chicago -- but as every other school in Illinois has experienced - it isn't easy for the downstate schools to land kids from Chicago for many reasons..
BTW - Of the recruits BU has landed since last spring - Shayok never played in Chicago - he's a Canadian kid and Hodges & Bell are suburban kids - not really Chicago kids....so I guess one issue is where you draw the line...

Actually, Bradley had 2 Chicago kids last year, which is more than a number of other D1 schools in Illinois.
And it's more than Coach Mo generally had on the roster as well.

Sure, I'd love to get the top Chicago kids - but wake me up when that starts happening regularly. I know Bradley hasn't had a lot of Chicago kids, but other area schools haven't fared much better....

Illinois did not have a single Chicago kid on the roster last year but they did have a couple suburban kids- and they notoriously until recently had big time trouble getting those Chicago recruits.

Loyola, which sits right in the middle of the fertile Chicago recruiting area, had only one Chicago kid, and it was a player named Jon Gac, a kid who certainly hasn't turned their program around and I suspect if he were at BU - we'd be hearing complaints about that as well.

UIC has several Chicago kids, but not a single one of them would have been on Bradley's radar screen - and if you differ, let me know which of the kids on their roster we'd have benefited from.

Northwestern has several Cook County and surrounding area kids, but not a single Chicago kid!-

Northern Illinois has only 3 kids on their roster that are even from Illinois, and only 1 from Chicago, an obscure kid who won't likely be getting any playing time anyway.

And the same is true for all the rest of the D1 schools in Illinois.

ISU has a couple and might actually be said among all Illinois schools they are one of the ones to have had the most success but only one was recruited right out of high school, and he is not a key player for the Redbirds.

WIU, EIU, and even SIU have flirted with a little success but all their Chicago kids stay maybe a year then bolt or get booted...so in the end really no success at all...
In fact I recall all the whining a couple years ago when SIU landed Hare, Dillard, etc...
People raged with "hey, why can't we get those kids and be as successful as SIU is gonna be..."
Hmmmm...look what it got them -- the three worst years of bad play and turmoil in their D-I history!
sorry -- can't use them as an example of someone doing a better job landing the Chicago talent.

Chicago State has a lot of Chicago kids, but I wouldn't particularly want a single one of them as a Bradley recruit, would you?

So instead of just criticizing Bradley and our coaches for not getting kids from some certain area - it would be nice to see folks throw their support UNCONDITIONALLY behind the coach and the team NO MATTER where they hail from.
I'd like to hear an example of who we've missed on from Chicago that ended up going elsewhere and causing us woes...
If we get a whole team of Chicago kids we'd hear complaints that we are not getting the downstate kids. If we get the downstate or Peoria kids, then some complain that we aren't recruiting nationally or that we're ignoring Chicago.
No wonder it takes $ a million to get a guy to want to come here and coach ....geez...

PS - there is one Chicago kid that did get away, DJ Cooper - a great point guard that Geno knows well....and oddly - Ka'Darryl Bell is described by some as a bigger version of DJ Cooper -- so then I guess we all ought to be happy we got KB!!

Some great lockeroom bulletin board material for Bradley & other Illinois teams

2011-09-06T11:03:00.004-05:00

The very first of the fall College Basketball Preview editions is out...
and I will give a simple Valley-centric review of it....
The Sporting News 2011-2012 College Basketball Preview Edition can currently be found at Peoria's Barnes & Noble, but the cover sure won't boost sales any. I guess they figure the Illinois market might be swayed by a Big Ten cover - but some player from Iowa won't give their Central Illinois sales much of a boost.

They start with a lot of coverage of the best teams for 2011-2012 and they rank the preseason Top 25 -- no Valley teams included.
Here's their top ten...
1- UNC
2- Kentucky
3- Ohio State
4- UConn
5- Duke
6- Syracuse
7- Florida
8- Memphis
9- Baylor
10- Vanderbilt

In their preseason 1st Team All Americans - they list pretty much all players from the top 10 teams including Kentucky's Anthony Davis out of Chicago.

The 2nd Team All Americans include a couple Big Ten players John Shurna & Jordan Taylor.

3rd Team includes Creighton's Doug McDermott...a nice honor for the Creighton sophomore. But this is an indirect way of saying they don't think Missouri State's Kyle Weems is going to be the Valley POY.

In their picks for the NCAA Tourney - they do project the Valley getting two teams in.
Creighton is their pick to get the automatic bid but the Jays land just a #9 seed.
Also listed and getting a #10 seed are the Wichita State Shockers.

The only other conference besides the Valley that I looked much at was the Big Ten. They don't rate the Big Ten very highly and outside of Ohio State, the seem to suggest every other Big Ten team will struggle outside their conference.
Here's how the pick the Big Ten --- so I think a lot of fans are going to be unhappy - especially Illini, Michigan State, and Tubby Smith fans...

1- Ohio State
2- Wisconsin
3- Michigan
4- Purdue
5- Michigan State
6- Indiana
7- Northwestern
8- Minnesota
9- Illinois - Illini fans will have their bulletin board material as well
10- Iowa
11- Nebraska
12- Penn State

Among other schools in Illinois - WIU, NIU, etc...this preview doesn't appear to give any of them much of a chance this year.
Then as you will subsequently see, the three Valley teams that reside in Illinois are also lumped conspicuously all at the bottom of the league.
They don't pick any of the D-I Illinois schools to do diddley-squat this year -- so I sure hope they're wrong!

Now on to the Valley...

The MVC section was written by a guy named Tony Jiminez, a writer for the Topeka Capital-Journal. Maybe Tony wrote this piece back in April or maybe he doesn't know much about any team outside of his own state - but whatever - he makes many, many GLARING and ridiculous mistakes. Some of his errors simply have no explanation except that he didn't do any homework and simply went on what he remembered from his summer reading.

Anyway -- I won't pick apart every mistake the guy makes but I will list a few of the significant errors since maybe not knowing who got severely injured over the summer or who got hurt or suspended could be accepted.

Here's how he picks the Valley to finish.......

1- Creighton - he seems to think they've got the Valley going away

2- Wichita State - he really likes Toure Murry

3- Indiana State - (I expect the recent Lathan injury was subsequent to his press deadline)

4- UNI

5- Evansville - the writer kinda thinks they're going to be a scoring machine with Colt Ryan

6- Missouri State - glosses over that they lost 4 starters

7- Drake - seems to hint at chemistry issues

8- Illinois State - picks Nic Moore as best newcomer

9- Southern Illinois - says despite not returning anyone who can score, their defense and rebounding will win games

10- Bradley - basically says Geno has nothing to work with - an empty cupboard. I sure hope the BU players and staff cut this column out and paste or tack it up in the lockeroom and read it every day!

Yup - that's right, he calls Bradley at 10th place just a bit below ISU & SIU.
I sure hope he's way wrong, and I honestly think he will be since his reasoning is quite flawed by his inaccurate knowledge.
Given he's a Valley beat writer - he surely should know things like..

- Jalen Crawford is NOT the only incoming freshman that Bradley has

- Justin Clark will not be one of ISU's top returning players and potential starter. He left the team over 2 months ago

-saying UNI's Johnny Moran is one of the Valley's all time top career 3-pt shooters - he's a great kid but his career 3-pt pct. is 33% - below the national average of all players

- Taylor Brown is NOT really a 5th year senior - he's only been in college for four years, although his clock runs out this year

Anyway - back to the preview...
Their 1st Team All Valley - Doug McDermott (about whom roughly half of the entire MVC section is about), Toure Murry, Jake Odum, Kyle Weems, Antoine Young.
Can't argue, but I sure hope Dyricus has something to say about this.

They list a few other honors - but none mention a Bradley player. In reality - Taylor Brown is one of the top scoring and top rebounding players who is playing in the Valley this season, but the writer apparently thinks TB will have a completely lack-luster year as he barely mentions him.
They do rank ISU's Nic Moore as the Valley's top incoming freshman,
and SIU's Chris Lowery is the "Coach on the Hot Seat".

The teams picked at the top of the Valley get a bit more text in their sections - actually quite a bit.
The teams at the bottom get very little as is the case with Bradley...
But not knowing about Will Egolf's injury and saying things like this...

"Geno Ford was able to sign just one recruit, Jalen Crawford"
...means this writer simply does not know much about Bradley or know that Geno landed a FIVE man recruiting class and three of them WERE landed and SIGNED by Geno!

http://is.gd/vJ7x4z

All in all, it's about on par with most preseason publications -- spending an inordinate amount of ink on the top teams and very little of any benefit on everyone else. But - since it's the first one to hit the market - I at least had to read it...but, ahem, I enjoyed the ambiance and some hot chocolate at Barnes & Noble while reading it but I saved the $8 and did not buy the magazine.

Some discipline thoughts and more on Labor Day

2011-09-05T07:55:00.004-05:00

We've seen a lot of issues lately with kids on D-I basketball teams getting suspended for legal issues.
Just about everyone has an opinion but most that I have seen are very inconsistent...very hypocritical..but I have been consistent for as long as I have followed college sports.
I go by two separate reasoning points -

-First that any violation of team rules needs to be identified and disciplined right away. So many fans and coaches use the "let's see how this will play out", or "we'll let the legal system run its course", or "we will handle this internally" excuses...
And of course those lines are just another way of saying...
"we need this guy bad enough that I really don't want him to miss any games".

Also as we have seen at places like Mississippi State, SIU, and just about anywhere Bob Huggins is - that non-essential players get strong discipline or get booted, but the stars are coddled and pampered...rarely ever missing any games or even exhibitions.
Lastly on this - coaches who hide the info about players' violations then who only discipline the players when it comes to light publicly or when a blogger mentions it (as has happened at ISU & SIU) are not to be trusted in this realm. They are clearly NOT good disciplinarians.
I can still recall the public statement a couple years ago by the ISU head coach when one of his underage (19 year old) players got a DUI -- he said the player was immediately and totally suspended from all team activities...
BUT -- the very next day the local news reporter went to their practice/"boot camp" and the video shown on TV displayed that very player fully participating in all activities -- exactly what the coach had said was NOT going to happen.
How can you believe or trust a guy who does this?

-Second - every kid, if his violation is not a premediatated attack on someone, deserves redemption and another chance.
Petty crimes, arguments, he said-she said issues (especially when no injury occurred or where the worst thing is a "bust-lip"), and substance use issues fall into the "give them a 2nd or even a 3rd chance" realm - but raping underage girls, repeated drug use or peddling, and brutal attacks & bar fights should be grounds for instant dismissal.
All too often we see players doing these big time crimes getting off with little or no discipline.
Despite all the wailing and whining by the bashers, not one single issue at Bradley has ever fallen into the 2nd category - not one.
So point fingers if you want - but BU thankfully has never had to deal with a serious issue...not even a DUI or drug arrest at any time.

Then back to the Labor Day thought....
Labor is being celebrated because hard work pays off and is the foundation upon which this nation is built.

So what's with this program that's touted on the front page of the paper like it's really great for this nation??
The article is titled...

"More than a free lunch" - LINK

I won't bore you - but in short this US Dept. of Agriculture handout program is summed up in this one short statement...
"Nearly 11,000 students in Peoria District 150 are receiving free breakfast and lunch at school thanks to a pilot program introduced by the U.S. Department of Agriculture this year.
The program allows schools in which 40 percent or more of students qualify for free or reduced meals to provide daily free meals to every student regardless of need.
Twenty-two of the district's 28 schools are part of the program."

11,000 kids whether they need it or not get free lunch & breakfast. 11,000 every day at a cost of at least $15 a week (that's their claim) - that's at least $165,000 a week!! If the school year is 40 weeks long, then just do the math -- Peoria alone costs taxpayers almost $7 million.

So even if Donald Trump's kids were at one of those schools, then the taxpayers would still have to foot the bill to provide FREE BREAKFAST and FREE LUNCH to every single kid in the entire school??

Are you serious?? I don't remember getting free lunch when I was in school, and almost everyone in my class did fine and graduated!
We didn't even get free milk -- we had to bring our milk money - so why do kids need FREE LUNCH?
Some say it helps them perform better in school. Yeah - right - where the heck is the evidence of that?? These schools for the most part are doing terribly.
In fact in almost ALL the schools where this is being done -- separate studies show the kids are performing quite poorly!
The typical liberal line is then we need to give them more help - more freebies, maybe even free clothes, a free calculator, a free computer, heck - why not just give them the day off and some money to go shopping for whatever they want??

Has anyone given thought to the concept that we are creating an entire generation of lazy kids who expect freebies and handouts?
If we create millions of lazy school kids who are always expecting a FREE lunch "regardless of need" then could it JUST POSSIBLY BE that those kids won't bother to try very hard on their own -- at anything??
Are we not creating the very problem these ill intended programs are claiming to target? I am convinced we are -- these federal programs are locking kids into a handout and welfare mentality.
If any kid of mine was in one of those schools (a premise that makes me giggle to begin with) I would either take them out or send them with their own food and teach my kids we don't need handouts, we will work for what we have and we won't be a lifelong burden to others who are working (Labor Day, remember) and paying taxes!

If you read that article they actually seem to be saying it IS GOOD if those schools have more than the 40% minimum of qualifying kids - so that the whole school can eat for free. Yeah -- that's really GREAT!!!! Nice job Grenita -- keep up the good work!!

I might not have said a word if the kids who qualify for free meals were the only ones getting them - but this is an insane idea that if just 40% of the kids qualify then we'll give the freebies to everyone!!

BUT -- are these lunches really free??
Of course not - someone pays for them and the price is staggering...
first someone pays the cost of the meals, and we all know how efficient government spenders are -- what with their $1200 toilet seats...
BUT - even worse is the multilevel web of government agencies that cost taxpayers BILLIONS of dollars!!
Just the manual that says who qualifies for free meals is WELL OVER 100 pages long...
http://www.fns.usda.gov/cnd/Governance/notices/iegs/EligibilityManual.pdf
...the actual law and all the accompanying regulations is over 1000 pages!
This bureaucracy costs more than anyone can calculate!

So in the end that carton of milk probably cost $10, and the banana the kid gets was $15...and that doesn't include the cost of this kind of crap -- that one kid gets sick and sues the entire school district for MILLIONS!!!
It is happening everywhere!
http://www.wthr.com/Global/story.asp?s=11287249&clienttype=printable

The final question I have is how can some schools (mainly private ones) educate their kids for less than half the cost per pupil that public schools spend, and yet those same private schools have nearly 100% graduation rates and ACT/SAT averages that are 20-40% better on average than kids on public schools?
How can they do it for half the cost but end up with FAR, FAR better results?
Main answer is that they are NOT letting the government and social engineers do it for them. But sadly the feds don't care how others are getting it done - because they always think they know better.

Sadly parents already kinda know all this but still send their kids to those schools where their kids are given a bad education...

"Despite 18 months of press love, yesterday's Gallup/Phi Delta Kappa poll shows Americans completing a resoundingly negative report card on Obama's education initiatives, with a mere 34 percent giving the president a "B" or better, and 59 percent giving him a C, D, or F.

With similar clarity, the public overwhelming rejected point by point the aggressive, market-ideological thuggery comprising Duncan's arsenal of "school reform" tactics: paying students for grades, mass firings, using punitive funding schemes, etc.

So far the main result of Obama and Duncan's adventures in school reform is that now a startling 80 percent of respondents believe the federal government should play no role in school accountability."
http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/10140

Some Labor Day Thoughts

2011-09-02T18:18:00.004-05:00

Labor Day - a day where we celebrate LABOR -- which I guess is the freedom to work and earn a living and support yourself & your family..
But it just doesn't mean what it once did -- as nowadays "labor" means wheeling and dealing to get a handout from the government...

But are we headed in the right direction??
I say we are not and I am prepared to give reasons. And they are not selfish reasons - since I am maybe in the extreme minority in that I am doing just fine in this economy. But my reasons are because the direction we're going is hurting everyone - although I can show my own personal reasons that prove this direction is sure to fail.

OK -- now I don't ever in my life recall this kind of thing happening...

We are in an unprecedented mess and we're going to soon be seeing very hard times and lots more of these kinds of headlines --

--Lots of post offices, some locally are closing, out of money...

http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/Felsenthal-Files/August-2011/Post-Office-Closings-in-Chicago-Will-Low-Income-Neighborhoods-Bear-the-Brunt/

--Locally, the Carver Center is closing, OUT OF MONEY despite getting millions of dollars over the past decades from United Way and government sources.
The PJ Star reports only 40% of its budget came from the United Way.
http://www.sj-r.com/breaking/x386670757/Peoria-community-center-to-close-hopes-to-reopen

--Many states are closing state parks, museums, and other facilities that have benefited citizens for many decades... OUT OF MONEY
http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20110831/COMMUNITY/110839859?Title=Bennett-

--Of course many private companies and firms are closing as well - some that have been in business for well over 100 years...some newer...all way, way out of money.
Oddly - some of these firms got big time gifts of hundreds of millions of dollars from the government as part of the "stimulus" and handouts & "buyout"..

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/solyndra-closure-affects-foundation-linked-to-obama-donor/2011/09/02/gIQAkjF4wJ_story.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/21/business/worldbusiness/21iht-exec.4.16344270.html

http://www.pjstar.com/business/x1514353900/Firefly-CEO-blames-economy

http://automotive.speedtv.com/article/autos-half-of-gm-dealers-pontiac-to-close/

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2010/02/24/g-m-to-close-hummer-after-sale-collapses/

--Even schools are closing - OUT OF MONEY
http://money.cnn.com/2011/02/22/news/economy/detroit_school_restructuring/index.htm

Yet people won't go to work because the government thinks they have enough money to keep paying those who are NOT working...the President wants to increase and extend jobless benefits! MORE HANDOUTS!
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2011/08/31/EDLP1KTOK7.DTL

The government is out of money - so they cannot hire anyone else, which is just about the only way over the past couple years that the President has been able to keep unemployment at 9%. They have to hope private employers can hire -- but they are NOT!!!

So why are businesses NOT hiring??
Well -- I am a small business owner so I can speak for not just myself but likely for others as well...
You want some reasons??? I can give you as many as you probably would like to hear...

1- Taxes - I am taxed to death and the President & Democrats in government wants to raise taxes even more on anyone earning enough that might be able to hire anyone new.
This brings to mind the old saying "I have never been offered a job by a poor man".

2- Mandates for health insurance - - Guess what?? I have no idea what the feds will demand of me if I hire someone. It appears they will force me to provide COSTLY health insurance to anyone I employ. So of course I have to take that into account.
NOBODY (except me) pays for the health insurance I have or that I provide for myself and my family -- I pay for it myself and it is very expensive even though everyone in my family IS and always HAS BEEN extremely healthy. I have to pay terribly HIGH PREMIUMS however because others are so irresponsible about their health and the costs of their illnesses.

3- Regulations -- I work in the industry that might well have the most regulations of any industry. Nobody can even blow their nose in my office without checking first which waste basket to throw the tissue into. Seriously - this constitutes medical waste and legally if it is thrown into a standard waste basket, I could face fines of up to TENS of thousands of dollars!
So I have to buy special, expensive, waste receptacles to follow the rules and regulations even though nobody in all of history has ever gotten ill emptying a waste basket in my office or any office like it anywhere in the world!
And there are tons of other silly rules and regulations.
This is just the beginning - our office is regulated by over 1000 different state and federal laws - it is mind boggling.
Here's another example -- in waiting area that's just 12 by 12 feet, there are TWO exit doors and yet I am required to post a sign telling people where the exits are!

4- New legislated requirements..... instead of letting people in small businesses do things the way it's always been proven effective - the government has to constantly meddle and make you buy expensive new things in order to comply with the latest trendy requirements. And God knows, next year before I even get this year's crap paid for, they'll change the regulations again!
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m3257/is_3_59/ai_n13487252/

5- The government arbitrarily chooses what some businesses can charge for their services. They arbitrarily limit what can be earned just because they want to.
I know nobody sheds any tears over someone else getting their income tampered with - but a hardware store can charge whatever they want for a hammer. And a restaurant can charge what they want for a bowl of soup. BUT a few certain businesses are FORCED to charge what the government mandates they charge for their services.
Again -- I am not asking for sympathy -- just noting that if the feds want us private businesses to hire and help them and the rest of the nation out - then consider how deeply and how often you poke your nose into certain businesses and tell them what to do.
How does anyone know what's coming next? I can't take a chance and hire if the feds might repay that step by laying more penalties on small businesses.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/06/medicare_reform_its_the_price_fixing_stupid.html

6- Government meddling has simply made it harder for everyone to make a living and be satisfied. They force prices up in every industry with their programs and projects, and regulations that cost everyone money in the hope that just maybe that government meddling might just help someone that'll vote for those government folks who are making a killing in that government job.
Then -- if you happen to have a good year and actually do well enough to maybe expand your business or hire new people - then they aim their sights at you to hit you harder with TAXES!!!!
Their meddling and failure to produce a plan has also destroyed the value of countless people's retirement accounts and funds.

I will stop there...but today's horrible jobs report is only a trickle down from what this administration has been doing for two and a half years.
I am going to do OK... I will have a job no matter what the President does, since my job isn't a handout, it isn't dependent on kissing anyone's a$$, or holding my palm out to the feds....
So I guess that gives me the freedom to say it like it is because they cannot fire me!
....And since I don't have anyone but my clients/customers to please -- I don't give a dang what the feds think...

BUT others are suffering...does anyone remember what it was like at the end of the Jimmy Carter administration???
Double digit unemployment, double digit inflation, AND double digit interest rates.....horrible economy and they didn't have George Bush to blame it on!!
This current president has taken us down the exact same path of killing the people in private business, and tremendously multiplying tax burdens, regulations, and all the while spending the nation into poverty that forces the feds to talk of even MORE new taxes!

I have one simple suggestion - fire the people we have and get people into office who stop the spending.
The guy in charge simply DOES NOT HAVE A CLUE. Almost 3 years into office and he still doesn't have a plan. He keeps telling us he's working on a plan and that he'll have a plan -- and he's apparently still scamming some but not me.

Listen or read my lips --
HE DOES NOT HAVE ANYTHING EVEN CLOSE TO A PLAN!
And apparently he's not even bothered about not having a plan --
after all -- this was his plan - to spend the USA into oblivion and help out all his buddies with trillions of stimulus money mostly aimed at people who voted for him!

If some who are dependent on government handouts don't like hearing this TRUTH - then let them vote for whoever they want and of course let them know that when they had it the way they wanted it and they had the presidency and BOTH houses of Congress -- all they did was increase the National Debt by close to $5 trillion dollars and get virtually NOTHING in return!!!!!.

But some of his buddies came out OK...check these out...

These buddies of the President got $500 million in federal handouts.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/solyndra-closure-affects-foundation-linked-to-obama-donor/2011/09/02/gIQAkjF4wJ_story.html

And we know these guys got tax breaks and ended up paying ZERO in taxes...none, nada...nothing - not even a penny..and even landed $3.3 billion in federal handouts....
yet their CEO -- Jeffrey Immelt -- a very close friend of President Obama and the guy who runs msnbc liberal network -- this guy earned a $15 million salary!!!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/31/ceo-taxes-company-income-study_n_943063.html

On 2nd thought - maybe I am backing the wrong party -- where do I get in line for some of these Obama handouts??
http://freedomeden.blogspot.com/2009/10/detroit-woman-obama-money.html

Some interesting info on Bradley's basketball opponent Western Carolina University

2011-09-02T10:22:00.007-05:00

Bradley hosts Western Carolina on Tuesday December 20 - only two days before heading to play Michigan, so I hope our guys focus on WCU and don't be looking ahead to the road trip.
This game with Western Carolina is the completion of a 3-year 2-for-1 deal where we will have played them twice in Peoria (12/07/09 & 12/20/11) and once there (11/30/10).

WCU calls themselves the Catamounts - another name for a mountain lion or puma.
Prior to 1933 they went unofficially by "Mountain Boomers" - a nickname for a type of squirrel.

This past season we lost there 66-65 in a game we had won then let it slip away.
It was the first game after it was announced that Sam Maniscalco would join Taylor Brown on the "walking wounded" list and not play the rest of the season.
Sadly, little did we know then that we would never see Sammy in a Bradley uniform again...
WCU finished with RPI 172, 18-15 and they won the North Division of the Southern Conference.
They were 11-1 at home but just 6-11 on the road.

This year Western Carolina starts with their first seven games away from home with two road games (at South Carolina & Presbyterian), then they go to Northern Iowa & Iowa State as part of the South Padre Island Tourney, then two more games on South Padre Island, then at Samford.
Just immediately prior to playing Bradley on December 20, they host Kent State there in Cullowhee, North Carolina...where their home arena (Ramsay Athletic Center)that holds 8,000 has only once had a sellout and only twice ever had a crowd over 4,700.
Their average home attendance is 2,000....as football is still the big draw there, about 9,000 per game, although they just played in front of about 45,000 fans at the Georgia Dome last night in Atlanta against Georgia Tech.

The Catamounts lose their best scorer Mike Williams (15.4 ppg), and their 3rd best Richie Gordon (10.2 ppg), but return everyone else and some new guys..
Their most recognizable name will be Harouna Mutombo - a Canadian kid who already has hit their 1000 point club, and averages 10 ppg, 6 rpg....and who is the nephew of NBA'er Dikembe Mutombo.
2nd leading scorer Trey Sumler also returns, he was the Southern Conference Freshman of the Year last season...11.5 ppg, 4 rebs, 3 asst.
BTW -- Mutombo was the 2008-2009 conference Freshman of the Year.

In the one-point win for them against Bradley last season, Mutombo had 7 pts, 8 rebs, and 6 assists...
In that game Bradley had a 58-47 lead with only 9:51 to play and were outscored 19-7 down the stretch ...with Bradley going MORE THAN nine minutes without a basket until Dodie scored with just 46 seconds left.

Western Carolina has had a couple players make it to the NBA

-Mel Gibson - no NOT that Mel Gibson -- this guy who played just 9 games for the Lakers in 1963-64 - http://is.gd/UGupPy

-Kevin Martin -
http://basketballreference.com/players/playerpage.htm?ilkid=MARTIKE02

-Jarvis Hayes - who transferred to Georgia then made it to the NBA -
http://basketballreference.com/players/playerpage.htm?ilkid=HAYESJA01

-Henry Logan - the first Black athlete to play on any college team in North Carolina - http://basketballreference.com/players/playerpage.htm?ilkid=LOGANHE01

Lastly -- they have one other famous basketball player....something that I guess they can forever brag about!!!

Ronnie Carr - who is credited with having made the first three-point field goal in College Basketball history on November 28, 1980.
http://www.catamountsports.com/genrel/011205abc.html
http://www.catamountsports.com/sports/m-baskbl/spec-rel/052107aaa.html