Bradley basketball gets more and more honors..
Top Academic Honors in the MVC
And still - well into Coach Wardle's 2nd season - everything's looking up, no black eyes, no arrests, no issues of any kind!
Especially in light of the almost incessant arrests, DUI's etc at ISU -
ISU's Deontae Hawkins arrested for DUI
A history at ISU of almost constant serious legal problems & arrests
In fact - notice last May when I was talking about all the arrests they were having last seaosn I said
"I predict more of this.....since the atmosphere hasn't changed."
That was a pretty easy prediction to get right!
Bradley is doing just what the fans have wanted and what Joanne Glasser had never been able to deliver. In fact, despite some of the off court issues under Glasser/Cross/Geno - still I do not recall Bradley EVER having a player with a DUI or an aggressive robbery, rape, or serious legal issue - certainly not in the past 2-3 dedades...while ISU is dealing not just with one constantly but multiple such arrests and suspensions on a regular basis.
Bradley is picked 8th this season - great chance to surprise everyone..
Go Braves!!
Tuesday, October 25, 2016
Thursday, May 19, 2016
Just pointing out an enormous difference
We are now one year & two months into the Brian Wardle era.
FOURTEEN months since Geno and most of his players left the building.
But in that fourteen months there has NOT been once single "off the court" incident whatsoever.
NO arrests.
NO DUI's.
NO suspensions.
NO discipline issues.
NO front page news stories about behavior, being benched, or lack of leadership.
NOTHING but good things, good behavior, and stories of hard work & good ethics.
Let's recap the issues from the past - and the change of course from the Geno era is incredible.
-back in the Molinari era there were a tiny smattering of behavior issues....an allegation of a issue with Kevin Clancy that was never prosecuted and isn't even on the record any more.
That was about it....the Molinari era was incredibly clean.
-then there were a couple issues - all minor during the Jim Les era - but the PJStar guys tried like hell to blow everything way out of proportion.
Again - a couple minor issues that went to deferral and were never prosecuted...
note that even the one the idiots point to as the big one...the Daniel Ruffin case...
that case is readily searchable in the Peoria County database and guess what...
Charges reduced...then...
FOURTEEN months since Geno and most of his players left the building.
But in that fourteen months there has NOT been once single "off the court" incident whatsoever.
NO arrests.
NO DUI's.
NO suspensions.
NO discipline issues.
NO front page news stories about behavior, being benched, or lack of leadership.
NOTHING but good things, good behavior, and stories of hard work & good ethics.
Let's recap the issues from the past - and the change of course from the Geno era is incredible.
-back in the Molinari era there were a tiny smattering of behavior issues....an allegation of a issue with Kevin Clancy that was never prosecuted and isn't even on the record any more.
That was about it....the Molinari era was incredibly clean.
-then there were a couple issues - all minor during the Jim Les era - but the PJStar guys tried like hell to blow everything way out of proportion.
Again - a couple minor issues that went to deferral and were never prosecuted...
note that even the one the idiots point to as the big one...the Daniel Ruffin case...
that case is readily searchable in the Peoria County database and guess what...
Charges reduced...then...
| 02/04/2009 |
|---|
| 02/04/2009 |
CASE DISMISSED - hmmmm...well, then I guess this is far less of a legal concern that the multiple DUI's that exist still on the record of some of the Jim Les critics - the ones who bitch all the time about the Les era and stick their noses and entire heads up the butts of Joanne Glasser & Mike Cross.
So the sum total of the Jim Les era amounts to a couple issues that were dismissed and a couple underage citations. If that's "renegade" then wait 'til you see what came in the following era!!!
The Geno Ford era...started right off the bat with suspensions...
Geno was known for his lax discipline and shoddy practice ethic. I have been to Geno Ford practices at Bradley and have also heard the exact same stuff from multiple people who have also seen his practices..and have even heard from people in the Athletic Department who saw it all for four years and knew his and his players' ethics were horrible.
Players showed up late routinely for practices, they were lazy, they griped, they talked back, the sometimes only responded to Geno getting in their faces and screaming at them. They hudded along sidelines and chatted & giggled with each other during practices about parties, girls, and adolescent stuff. Then even after they were dismissed they walked lazily to the showers without even picking up their trash.
But that was just the behavior Geno condoned & tolerated. There was plenty of crap off the court as well - signalled early on as I noted by suspensions at the very first exhibition in Geno's very first year. Then multiple other games had kids suspended....many games had multiple kids suspended...some kids were suspended multiple times for multiple offenses (Swopshire, Barnes, Jones).....
In total, there were at least 14 of Geno's players who were suspended or arrested, and several on multiple occasions...
Geno's players surpassed the SUM TOTAL of all the suspensions during the Molinari PLUS Les era combined (20 full years of Bradley basketball under those two coaches) - in just his first TWO seasons at Bradley - and yet the arrests and behavior crap continued....
Barnes got arrested for domestic battery and his case was NOT deferred nor charges dropped - he was CONVICTED!
Then there were the arrests and national embarrassment that went with the arrests of Warren Jones & Ka'Darryl Bell at Big Al's..
but it didn't end there....
Even after the season ended kids still got into trouble...
Brian Wardle was hired and a couple of the remaining players were sent packing for issues that were never made public.
But here's a little more...the Geno Ford guys still got in trouble even after Geno was gone!!!
Xavier Taylor begged to stay at Bradley but his work ethic was horrible. he was given chance after chance then even given a re-scheduled workout - but guess what, he didn't bother to show up and he was dismissed.
and we all know Warren Jones wanted to stay but he broke team rules over and over and was sent packing...
So...one by one the lack of discipline ended up haunting Geno and the entire program. Why wasn't Mike Cross overseeing this - or Joanne Glasser?? - after all they had their noses in the program constantly. Cross even bragged about how he even took notes during games so he could adequately assess the coach! (Although nobody ever saw him take notes when Geno was coaching - hmmm..)
Anyway - the responsibility for this terrible behavior really does rise to the top and it's part of why Cross & Glasser had to go first - then Geno.
But virtually every single Geno player had arrest and off-the-court issues - even several whose arrests were kept hush-hush and whose time spent in jail were never mentioned by Kirk Wessler & the PJS. (This is fact and can be demonstrated in the same Peoria arrest & jail database).
It's time to look forward - so that's the main reason for this summary - to point out that what was once COMMONPLACE under Geno - is now NON-EXISTENT under Coach Wardle.
No more arrests, no more issues......virtually all the Geno players have moved on & are gone along with Geno, staff, Cross, and Joanne....and PRESTO - problem solved...
Kirk Wessler simply doesn't have the guts to bring up the RENEGADE issue with regards to all the tremendous issues Geno had that dwarf the issues during the Les era when he used that term "renegade". Now what will Kirk write about? I guess he's become a Rivermen fan, but he writes a column about once every 3-4 weeks - pretty cushy job.
Wednesday, May 11, 2016
What the Hey? What is it with ISU players?
We have seen a long pattern of arrests and serious criminal issues with Illinois State basketball players. There have been multiple DUI's & 2am bar fight arrests since the Porter Moser era including Levi Dyer, Brandon Sampay, Tyler Brown, Quintin Brewer and many, many more. Plus the many drug arrests - Geoffrey Allen, Bryant Allen, etc...
and even serious criminal issues like Bobby Hill's rape of an underage child. LINK
But now it seems to be escalating again -
a quick search of the arrest and court database shows well over the team's roster with pending court cases, headlined by Quintin Brewer's multiple DUI's that were elevated to FELONY-level because he recklessly went out driving drunk while he had his charges deferred from the prior DUI and had a suspended license! He & Javaka Thompson still have alcohol cases pending.
But now even the players who leave & transfer are in the headlines for serious criminal charges.
ISU's Reggie Lynch- now in Minnesota - arrested for criminal sexual assault.
Let's make sure to note that NOT ONE SINGLE ARREST - not even for a speeding ticket or jaywalking - has occurred among the Bradley players since Brian Wardle was hired.
There were a few issues under Geno Ford- most notably the Auston Barnes assault charges and the Egolf arrest for buying drugs from a street runner, but if you go back to the Jim Les era...
you actually find almost NOTHING as well. That flies in the face of really ignorant people who play up the arrests and fall for the bullcrap that Kirk Wessler spewed about "renegade".
The very worst that those idiots can come up with to criticize Les are a couple underage citations and one charge against Daniel Ruffin when his drunken ex-girlfriend admittedly slipped and bruised her lip while trying to force her way, uninvited, into his apartment.
There was also another he-said/she-said argument with Jabbar Battle (who has been a model citizen ever since - unlike most of the ISU guys who go on and commit repeat offenses), Eddren McCain was in he car with a girl who had marijuana, and then the one real stretch- a claim that Taylor Brown had a feud with an ICC student over a girlfriend.
Oh, and you will find that in each of those cases, all the charges were NOT pursued as the players completed their deferral perfectly and again were model citizens.
That's it - hardly a thing going way back into the 90's as Molinai's kids virtually ALL stayed clean.
But getting back to the ISU players - the additional feature is that it all gets hidden & ignored and nobody ever gets disciplined.
Levi Dyer & Sampay would have never even come to light except that their DUI's were discussed on the message boards, they never missed a single game or even an exhibition. And fast forward to now - Quintin Brewer's multiple DUI's and felony has never been mentioned even once outside of the message boards, the media hides, it, the coaching staff hides, it and the players are never suspended even for a minute.
Their star Devaughn Akoon-Purcell was actually recruited and signed while he had felony charges being pursued against him in Florida, and he played most of the past two years after aguilty plea and while on PROBATION for the felony charges, and none of that was ever mentioned nor ever seemed relevant to anyone at ISU. But of course that kind of atmosphere and lack of discipline within their system is the reason that despite having the best players in te league, they always falter, miss the NCAA and make buffoons of themselves with early exits from the NIT or other AEIOU Tournament.
I predict more of this.....since the atmosphere hasn't changed.
and even serious criminal issues like Bobby Hill's rape of an underage child. LINK
But now it seems to be escalating again -
a quick search of the arrest and court database shows well over the team's roster with pending court cases, headlined by Quintin Brewer's multiple DUI's that were elevated to FELONY-level because he recklessly went out driving drunk while he had his charges deferred from the prior DUI and had a suspended license! He & Javaka Thompson still have alcohol cases pending.
But now even the players who leave & transfer are in the headlines for serious criminal charges.
ISU's Reggie Lynch- now in Minnesota - arrested for criminal sexual assault.
Let's make sure to note that NOT ONE SINGLE ARREST - not even for a speeding ticket or jaywalking - has occurred among the Bradley players since Brian Wardle was hired.
There were a few issues under Geno Ford- most notably the Auston Barnes assault charges and the Egolf arrest for buying drugs from a street runner, but if you go back to the Jim Les era...
you actually find almost NOTHING as well. That flies in the face of really ignorant people who play up the arrests and fall for the bullcrap that Kirk Wessler spewed about "renegade".
The very worst that those idiots can come up with to criticize Les are a couple underage citations and one charge against Daniel Ruffin when his drunken ex-girlfriend admittedly slipped and bruised her lip while trying to force her way, uninvited, into his apartment.
There was also another he-said/she-said argument with Jabbar Battle (who has been a model citizen ever since - unlike most of the ISU guys who go on and commit repeat offenses), Eddren McCain was in he car with a girl who had marijuana, and then the one real stretch- a claim that Taylor Brown had a feud with an ICC student over a girlfriend.
Oh, and you will find that in each of those cases, all the charges were NOT pursued as the players completed their deferral perfectly and again were model citizens.
That's it - hardly a thing going way back into the 90's as Molinai's kids virtually ALL stayed clean.
But getting back to the ISU players - the additional feature is that it all gets hidden & ignored and nobody ever gets disciplined.
Levi Dyer & Sampay would have never even come to light except that their DUI's were discussed on the message boards, they never missed a single game or even an exhibition. And fast forward to now - Quintin Brewer's multiple DUI's and felony has never been mentioned even once outside of the message boards, the media hides, it, the coaching staff hides, it and the players are never suspended even for a minute.
Their star Devaughn Akoon-Purcell was actually recruited and signed while he had felony charges being pursued against him in Florida, and he played most of the past two years after aguilty plea and while on PROBATION for the felony charges, and none of that was ever mentioned nor ever seemed relevant to anyone at ISU. But of course that kind of atmosphere and lack of discipline within their system is the reason that despite having the best players in te league, they always falter, miss the NCAA and make buffoons of themselves with early exits from the NIT or other AEIOU Tournament.
I predict more of this.....since the atmosphere hasn't changed.
Saturday, February 13, 2016
Wednesday, December 16, 2015
Hey- here's a global warming rebuttal...
Read this article touting these modern expert global warming scientists coming up with an ingenius idea...
http://cnsnews.com/news/article/climate-researchers-employ-tool-1800s-whaling-logs
They make it sound like FOR THE VERY FIRST TIME EVER...the climate researchers are looking at past history to determine how the climate or the ARCTIC SEAS were - frozen or open...
they make it sound like this is groundbreaking research!!!!
They even imply that this "new" research is gonna prove global warming and refute anyone who denies the politically correct mantra that the earth is warming severely, we are all gonna be wiped out and it's getting hotter than it's ever been!
BALONEY - this stuff has all been researched many times before - but the reason they DO NOT TELL YOU THAT.....
..is because the ship records from the 1500's, 1600's, etc...actually prove something very interesting that blows away the entire argument of the GLOBAL WARMING gurus......
For almost 300 years - 1500's thru the 1800's...
the passage called the NORTHWEST PASSAGE was routinely navigable and open even in some winters and EVEN to the little rickety wooden sail boats of that era!!!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northwest_Passage
BUT-- there wasn't much of a reason to go that way regularly since it was long, tortuous, poorly charted, often filled with some small icebergs that would destroy wooden ships of that era...plus there wasn't a lot of reason to even bother to go that way, since nobody but Eskimos lived there and the route to get all the way thru to the Bering Strait then down to China or India was just as hard & long as the route around the African Cape...where the water and winds were favorable and ports along the way allowed restocking.
PLUS all they had were sails and the unpredictable winds (different from the southern routes that had the predictable, prevailing winds) made it very difficult, plus there were no ports along the way to restock on food, etc. Had they had fuel or diesel power back in 1500-1800 then it would have been FAR more common...and likely used a ton.
BUT they could still sail in those waters as was documented in history MANY, MANY times!
We're talking the FAR NORTH route - north of Hudson Bay- all the way to the Bering Strait and down to the Orient!!!
Oddly the FACTS clearly prove that for 300+ years it must have been substantially warmer than it is even NOW!!! Because ships could go that route - but they almost NEVER can do it nowadays because of arctic ice.
So even tho temperature records cannot be used because nobody back then had standardized thermometers placed all over the world - we DO have a way of knowing that it MUST HAVE BEEN warmer then- even warmer than it is now...
....and that, of course, would blow the absolute HELL out of their most common argument that it is now getting warmer than it has ever been!!!
LOOK IT UP...the "Northwest Passage" (and remember that rickety old boats in 1600's certainly couldn't have withstood much ice of any size - unlike BIG steel-hulled icebreakers today)
the NW-Passage really hasn't been used much for the past 200 years as it was before that because ice has been there year-round.
Only recently - in the 2000's with giant STEEL-HULLED ICEBREAKERS is this route now navigable again after a couple hundred years..
AND JUST AS EXPECTED....the global warming enthusiasts are using this argument that it PROVES global warming and proves we are now entering a stage in earth's history where we are warmer than we have EVER BEEN
Here's an example
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2015/09/10/why-the-northwest-passage-probably-wont-be-ready-for-shipping-any-time-soon/
So..... explain to me why if many, many weak little wooden ships were able to go that way 300-400 years ago
JUST WHY is it such a big deal now that a few big 3-foot thick steel-hulled icebreaker ships can do it now? Kinda funny actually since they are banking on most people being ignorant and now knowing about the facts from the past.
Here is a global warming denier who makes the exact same argument I am making and it is a pretty danged solid argument that all the global warmers seem to completely ignore...
including a few years in the 1940's and 1950's that this passage was wide open and rickety old boats could make it just fine
https://www.skepticalscience.com/northwest-passage-has-been-navigated-in-the-past-intermediate.htm
FINAL CONCLUSION:
it is no warmer now than it has been MANY times & many years in our recent past 400 years...it is NOT getting warmer than it has ever been and if it WAS this warm back in the 1500-1800's and if we did have similar global warming back then....
... then by golly we got by just fine, we recovered, it got cold again then warm again in many repeated cycles, and that this current trend of a decade or two of warming is NOTHING NEW
http://cnsnews.com/news/article/climate-researchers-employ-tool-1800s-whaling-logs
They make it sound like FOR THE VERY FIRST TIME EVER...the climate researchers are looking at past history to determine how the climate or the ARCTIC SEAS were - frozen or open...
they make it sound like this is groundbreaking research!!!!
They even imply that this "new" research is gonna prove global warming and refute anyone who denies the politically correct mantra that the earth is warming severely, we are all gonna be wiped out and it's getting hotter than it's ever been!
BALONEY - this stuff has all been researched many times before - but the reason they DO NOT TELL YOU THAT.....
..is because the ship records from the 1500's, 1600's, etc...actually prove something very interesting that blows away the entire argument of the GLOBAL WARMING gurus......
For almost 300 years - 1500's thru the 1800's...
the passage called the NORTHWEST PASSAGE was routinely navigable and open even in some winters and EVEN to the little rickety wooden sail boats of that era!!!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northwest_Passage
BUT-- there wasn't much of a reason to go that way regularly since it was long, tortuous, poorly charted, often filled with some small icebergs that would destroy wooden ships of that era...plus there wasn't a lot of reason to even bother to go that way, since nobody but Eskimos lived there and the route to get all the way thru to the Bering Strait then down to China or India was just as hard & long as the route around the African Cape...where the water and winds were favorable and ports along the way allowed restocking.
PLUS all they had were sails and the unpredictable winds (different from the southern routes that had the predictable, prevailing winds) made it very difficult, plus there were no ports along the way to restock on food, etc. Had they had fuel or diesel power back in 1500-1800 then it would have been FAR more common...and likely used a ton.
BUT they could still sail in those waters as was documented in history MANY, MANY times!
We're talking the FAR NORTH route - north of Hudson Bay- all the way to the Bering Strait and down to the Orient!!!
Oddly the FACTS clearly prove that for 300+ years it must have been substantially warmer than it is even NOW!!! Because ships could go that route - but they almost NEVER can do it nowadays because of arctic ice.
So even tho temperature records cannot be used because nobody back then had standardized thermometers placed all over the world - we DO have a way of knowing that it MUST HAVE BEEN warmer then- even warmer than it is now...
....and that, of course, would blow the absolute HELL out of their most common argument that it is now getting warmer than it has ever been!!!
LOOK IT UP...the "Northwest Passage" (and remember that rickety old boats in 1600's certainly couldn't have withstood much ice of any size - unlike BIG steel-hulled icebreakers today)
the NW-Passage really hasn't been used much for the past 200 years as it was before that because ice has been there year-round.
Only recently - in the 2000's with giant STEEL-HULLED ICEBREAKERS is this route now navigable again after a couple hundred years..
AND JUST AS EXPECTED....the global warming enthusiasts are using this argument that it PROVES global warming and proves we are now entering a stage in earth's history where we are warmer than we have EVER BEEN
Here's an example
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2015/09/10/why-the-northwest-passage-probably-wont-be-ready-for-shipping-any-time-soon/
So..... explain to me why if many, many weak little wooden ships were able to go that way 300-400 years ago
JUST WHY is it such a big deal now that a few big 3-foot thick steel-hulled icebreaker ships can do it now? Kinda funny actually since they are banking on most people being ignorant and now knowing about the facts from the past.
Here is a global warming denier who makes the exact same argument I am making and it is a pretty danged solid argument that all the global warmers seem to completely ignore...
including a few years in the 1940's and 1950's that this passage was wide open and rickety old boats could make it just fine
https://www.skepticalscience.com/northwest-passage-has-been-navigated-in-the-past-intermediate.htm
FINAL CONCLUSION:
it is no warmer now than it has been MANY times & many years in our recent past 400 years...it is NOT getting warmer than it has ever been and if it WAS this warm back in the 1500-1800's and if we did have similar global warming back then....
... then by golly we got by just fine, we recovered, it got cold again then warm again in many repeated cycles, and that this current trend of a decade or two of warming is NOTHING NEW
Wednesday, November 11, 2015
A couple more followups and correcting lies..
From 2011-
correcting the stupidity and lies about the fundraising and the fact that Renaissance Coliseum and the $160 million fundraising was NOT accomplished by Joanne Glasser
https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1213866806468167855#editor/target=post;postID=2629827392476746977;onPublishedMenu=allposts;onClosedMenu=allposts;postNum=190;src=postname
From 2011-
Joanne Glasser hiring by acting as "a committee of one"
..also a prediction by Dr. Cross of serious upgrade in our schedule - even naming Villanova and touting his east coast connections...which of course never happened..
https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1213866806468167855#editor/target=post;postID=813401176905421584;onPublishedMenu=allposts;onClosedMenu=allposts;postNum=148;src=postname
From 2012-
who's to blame for Bradley's horrible record...
to those who asked for the housecleaning and new hires... look in a mirror..
https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1213866806468167855#editor/target=post;postID=2131696760817277064;onPublishedMenu=allposts;onClosedMenu=allposts;postNum=158;src=postname
From 2014-
Bradley's astounding plunge in attendance (and it's gone downhill even from there) - and it's all on Joanne, Cross, & Geno
https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1213866806468167855#editor/target=post;postID=5918577626858656097;onPublishedMenu=allposts;onClosedMenu=allposts;postNum=63;src=postname
From January, 2015-
The call for sweeping, unprecedented change and clean out the entire mess...
They have failed miserably - and this call for change was just a small part of what actually got it accomplished
https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1213866806468167855#editor/target=post;postID=7699972609259158014;onPublishedMenu=allposts;onClosedMenu=allposts;postNum=52;src=postname
Certainly some of the most remarkable predictions of all time
We have seen a lot of accurate predictions made years in advance when it comes to Bradley basketball - especially the idiotic moves made by Joanne Glasser and Mike Cross over the past 5-6 years.
But here are just a few that were stunning...these are from early in 2011!
http://bradleyfans.com/vb/showpost.php?p=216529&postcount=10
"...if we fire JL, get a new guy in here who has to rebuild with all new players, I happen to believe even tropical weather won't keep us from dropping another 1000 on the attendance average -- "
We dropped 1000 right away!!! Then as time went on- plenty more than 1000!!!
http://bradleyfans.com/vb/showpost.php?p=216535&postcount=12
"Hiring a new coach will cut into the budget sufficiently that any new coach will be hampered for years in his recruiting."
"I shudder at the thought of changing coaches now and being just as bad for the next 5 years.."
...OMG - not only just as bad - but actually way worse - historically worse - worse than Bradley basketball has ever been - with attendances dropping by 5,000-6,000!!!!
...and of course that comment was rebutted immediately by one of the know-nothings who claimed...
"I do not see this happening. That seems like an awful pessimistic outlook. ...
Why the doom and gloom?"
LOL - so who was right...?
DON'T those idiots now see....
they were soooo dammmm worried that if we kept Jim Les - then we'd be bad - maybe even finish lower than 4th in the MVC or drop to the bottom half of the Valley and our attendance may drop by even as much as 1000!!
Those fans were so incredibly anxious and desperate that they ignored the obvious warning signs of impending disaster, they handed the reigns to Joanne Glasser and crew - someone who had shown no ability to hire winning coaches EVER - AND they hopefully figured SHE'D RUN JIM LES OUT AND BRING IN A GREAT COACH WHO WOULD LEAD BRADLEY TO THE PROMISED LAND.
OMG - how wrong and how stupid they were yet they still claim to be experts who know what's going on.
Heck, if I was that wrong on so many things so many times, I'd hang it and stop talking.
In the end Joanne chose unwisely, sent Bradley into the worst four years of losing, the worst dropoff in attendance and the worst alienation of the incredibly loyal and faithful Bradley fans base ever imagined - UNPRECEDENTED!.
Now it'll take years to undo and repair all that damage and Tens of MILLIONS of dollars that were required to buy out those idiots' contracts and get them the heck outta here.
THE TRUTH can now be told without fear of retribution or having your job or season tickets revoked....
On the way out the door, the clueless PJ Star gave them the open mike to claim they'd done so much good for Bradley - yet when Dr. Cross was asked to expound on what his greatest accomplishments were - his only three bragging points were...
-the development of Kaboom - LOL - $100,000 to develop
-the deal with adidas (which is actually a lousy deal and even apparel sales have plummeted and it's being written up that not going with Nike or UA can and has hurt recruiting)
-building the Ren-Col - which was supposed to be the Puterbaugh Center until Cross & Glasser's moves ticked off Puterbaugh and he yanked his $3 million pledge & cost us that much in funding (numerous others also yanked their gifts & pledges costing Bradley over $10 million) - but...
but the facts are that the fund-raising campaign started in 2004 (spearheaded by Dr. Broski, Jim Les, and Ken Kavanagh, 80% of the funds were already raised before Glasser was in place and much was already even completed - (see this article on the new MARKIN CENTER already completed and open in May of 2007)
http://www.bradley.edu/admissions/freshman/experience/studentlife/recreation/index.dot
plus....95% was collected and done before Cross was here) and even the name Renaissance was there before they were in place - and the entire thing was actually almost BUILT and DONE by the time Cross was in place.
He had NOTHING to do with it but takes all the credit - geez.
So all three of his top achievements are lies - they didn't happen!
Even more proof:
http://bubravesblogger.blogspot.com/2015/08/for-record.html
http://bubravesblogger.blogspot.com/2015/09/just-some-simple-accounting-for-those.html
http://bubravesblogger.blogspot.com/2015/08/correcting-errors-again.html
http://bubravesblogger.blogspot.com/2014/12/some-interesting-facts.html
But here are just a few that were stunning...these are from early in 2011!
http://bradleyfans.com/vb/showpost.php?p=216529&postcount=10
"...if we fire JL, get a new guy in here who has to rebuild with all new players, I happen to believe even tropical weather won't keep us from dropping another 1000 on the attendance average -- "
We dropped 1000 right away!!! Then as time went on- plenty more than 1000!!!
http://bradleyfans.com/vb/showpost.php?p=216535&postcount=12
"Hiring a new coach will cut into the budget sufficiently that any new coach will be hampered for years in his recruiting."
"I shudder at the thought of changing coaches now and being just as bad for the next 5 years.."
...OMG - not only just as bad - but actually way worse - historically worse - worse than Bradley basketball has ever been - with attendances dropping by 5,000-6,000!!!!
...and of course that comment was rebutted immediately by one of the know-nothings who claimed...
"I do not see this happening. That seems like an awful pessimistic outlook. ...
Why the doom and gloom?"
LOL - so who was right...?
DON'T those idiots now see....
they were soooo dammmm worried that if we kept Jim Les - then we'd be bad - maybe even finish lower than 4th in the MVC or drop to the bottom half of the Valley and our attendance may drop by even as much as 1000!!
Those fans were so incredibly anxious and desperate that they ignored the obvious warning signs of impending disaster, they handed the reigns to Joanne Glasser and crew - someone who had shown no ability to hire winning coaches EVER - AND they hopefully figured SHE'D RUN JIM LES OUT AND BRING IN A GREAT COACH WHO WOULD LEAD BRADLEY TO THE PROMISED LAND.
OMG - how wrong and how stupid they were yet they still claim to be experts who know what's going on.
Heck, if I was that wrong on so many things so many times, I'd hang it and stop talking.
In the end Joanne chose unwisely, sent Bradley into the worst four years of losing, the worst dropoff in attendance and the worst alienation of the incredibly loyal and faithful Bradley fans base ever imagined - UNPRECEDENTED!.
Now it'll take years to undo and repair all that damage and Tens of MILLIONS of dollars that were required to buy out those idiots' contracts and get them the heck outta here.
THE TRUTH can now be told without fear of retribution or having your job or season tickets revoked....
On the way out the door, the clueless PJ Star gave them the open mike to claim they'd done so much good for Bradley - yet when Dr. Cross was asked to expound on what his greatest accomplishments were - his only three bragging points were...
-the development of Kaboom - LOL - $100,000 to develop
-the deal with adidas (which is actually a lousy deal and even apparel sales have plummeted and it's being written up that not going with Nike or UA can and has hurt recruiting)
-building the Ren-Col - which was supposed to be the Puterbaugh Center until Cross & Glasser's moves ticked off Puterbaugh and he yanked his $3 million pledge & cost us that much in funding (numerous others also yanked their gifts & pledges costing Bradley over $10 million) - but...
but the facts are that the fund-raising campaign started in 2004 (spearheaded by Dr. Broski, Jim Les, and Ken Kavanagh, 80% of the funds were already raised before Glasser was in place and much was already even completed - (see this article on the new MARKIN CENTER already completed and open in May of 2007)
http://www.bradley.edu/admissions/freshman/experience/studentlife/recreation/index.dot
plus....95% was collected and done before Cross was here) and even the name Renaissance was there before they were in place - and the entire thing was actually almost BUILT and DONE by the time Cross was in place.
He had NOTHING to do with it but takes all the credit - geez.
So all three of his top achievements are lies - they didn't happen!
Even more proof:
http://bubravesblogger.blogspot.com/2015/08/for-record.html
http://bubravesblogger.blogspot.com/2015/09/just-some-simple-accounting-for-those.html
http://bubravesblogger.blogspot.com/2015/08/correcting-errors-again.html
http://bubravesblogger.blogspot.com/2014/12/some-interesting-facts.html
Monday, November 2, 2015
Geno's lawsuit appeals
Geno Ford's (and of course his lawyers') multiple appeals all the way to the Ohio Supreme Court have all been rejected.
Now what appears to be the final blow - yet another denial from the Ohio Supreme Court
http://www.co.portage.oh.us/pa/imageview.asp?A962E61EFAED3F6CB909BAFDD28BCD05C105E34E0C3D849E28ECDAFA0F77AFDA2629394F633CE6D6B38B22DA77B8681D22F6EC0C5DCD13C1680DC763CD2CCA6A232296BDEC3E1397239ED01B925F411C
It appears now that Geno will be liable for the $1.2 million in damages (plus interest since 2013), but he does have a little recourse.
This is terribly unfortunate and all the fault of the reckless rush by Glasser & Cross to find any warm body to take their open coaching position back in 2011 without as consideration for common sense and legal requirements - as they rode roughshod over all precedence and violated all kinds of legal requirements and contract laws.
As was demonstrated by the documents put into evidence and publicly available, Bradley University and Dr. Glasser & Dr. Cross, gave Geno written contractual assurance in his contract that Bradley would pick up the tab for his buyout & penalties up to $400,000.
So - now Bradley's on the hook for even more costs - $400K above and beyond all the legal expenses Bradley had to spend as well as all the costs incurred with the hapless search process, the massively overpaying of Geno (and his overpaid assistants) considering the ineptitude and lack of any real winning track record or NCAA bids, and the stupendous costs of cleaning house, firing Geno, replacing him, and then buying out his & Cross' & Glasser's ridiculously bloated contracts as well.
All in all, the 4 years from the time Glasser & Cross fired Jim Les - up to the firing of the whole incompetent bunch (2011-2015) cost Bradley somewhere in the realm of $20 million down the drain for the worst four years of Bradley basketball and the worst horrific fallout that was ALL completely predicted by the smart fans who clearly knew more than those bozos in charge (or the clueless fans who had their noses up JG's butt) - in 112 years that Bradley basketball has been in existence.
It is still gonna hurt Bradley for years into the future as more FALLOUT like this continues - but the proper steps are being taken now by competent people - quite unlike what we've seen for the past few years.
Go Braves!!!!
Now what appears to be the final blow - yet another denial from the Ohio Supreme Court
http://www.co.portage.oh.us/pa/imageview.asp?A962E61EFAED3F6CB909BAFDD28BCD05C105E34E0C3D849E28ECDAFA0F77AFDA2629394F633CE6D6B38B22DA77B8681D22F6EC0C5DCD13C1680DC763CD2CCA6A232296BDEC3E1397239ED01B925F411C
It appears now that Geno will be liable for the $1.2 million in damages (plus interest since 2013), but he does have a little recourse.
This is terribly unfortunate and all the fault of the reckless rush by Glasser & Cross to find any warm body to take their open coaching position back in 2011 without as consideration for common sense and legal requirements - as they rode roughshod over all precedence and violated all kinds of legal requirements and contract laws.
As was demonstrated by the documents put into evidence and publicly available, Bradley University and Dr. Glasser & Dr. Cross, gave Geno written contractual assurance in his contract that Bradley would pick up the tab for his buyout & penalties up to $400,000.
So - now Bradley's on the hook for even more costs - $400K above and beyond all the legal expenses Bradley had to spend as well as all the costs incurred with the hapless search process, the massively overpaying of Geno (and his overpaid assistants) considering the ineptitude and lack of any real winning track record or NCAA bids, and the stupendous costs of cleaning house, firing Geno, replacing him, and then buying out his & Cross' & Glasser's ridiculously bloated contracts as well.
All in all, the 4 years from the time Glasser & Cross fired Jim Les - up to the firing of the whole incompetent bunch (2011-2015) cost Bradley somewhere in the realm of $20 million down the drain for the worst four years of Bradley basketball and the worst horrific fallout that was ALL completely predicted by the smart fans who clearly knew more than those bozos in charge (or the clueless fans who had their noses up JG's butt) - in 112 years that Bradley basketball has been in existence.
It is still gonna hurt Bradley for years into the future as more FALLOUT like this continues - but the proper steps are being taken now by competent people - quite unlike what we've seen for the past few years.
Go Braves!!!!
Sunday, November 1, 2015
There is a trick to it
Bradley won the MVC Championship in both Men's & Women's Cross Country Saturday.
Kudos to the teams - great job - but there is one little trick to it. To win a team sport like XC you need depth & Cross Country has a limit on the number of scholarships you can offer.
What Bradley does is use ALL their track scholarships to recruit cross country runners.
If you don't believe it - then check the rosters for BU XC & BU Track - they are identical. So Bradley sacrifices any chance of winning track TEAM titles & always finishes last in track events - since we only do long distance.
This maneuver allows many, many more scholarships to offer in Cross Country than any other school offers - giving Bradley a huge advantage in recruiting. Huge.
It's a nice trick - and I am happy Bradley wins the Conference Championships - but one more thing..
not many of the MVC schools even takes XC that seriously or pays much to their coaches. Again - look at the performance beyond conference. Once our runners get to the NCAA Regionals then they do well but do not advance.
So for those who claim this proves anything about the last admin - well....remember there were sports winning titles under the last guy too - and a lot more regularly.
Facts are facts - the last admin was really, really bad for Bradley, but they're gone now.
Kudos to the teams - great job - but there is one little trick to it. To win a team sport like XC you need depth & Cross Country has a limit on the number of scholarships you can offer.
What Bradley does is use ALL their track scholarships to recruit cross country runners.
If you don't believe it - then check the rosters for BU XC & BU Track - they are identical. So Bradley sacrifices any chance of winning track TEAM titles & always finishes last in track events - since we only do long distance.
This maneuver allows many, many more scholarships to offer in Cross Country than any other school offers - giving Bradley a huge advantage in recruiting. Huge.
It's a nice trick - and I am happy Bradley wins the Conference Championships - but one more thing..
not many of the MVC schools even takes XC that seriously or pays much to their coaches. Again - look at the performance beyond conference. Once our runners get to the NCAA Regionals then they do well but do not advance.
So for those who claim this proves anything about the last admin - well....remember there were sports winning titles under the last guy too - and a lot more regularly.
Facts are facts - the last admin was really, really bad for Bradley, but they're gone now.
Saturday, October 31, 2015
Looking back 6 months
Here's the interview with Dr. Michael Cross at the time of his departure.
(and in compliance with the silly belief that I should not blog about opinions unless I state my affiliations - be it known I am a Bradley fan and supporter and have given a lot of money to the program. And I have given more during the Joanne Glasser & Michael Cross era than in all other years put together - But whether I had given none or a million bucks, that would not have swayed my opinions.)
http://www.pjstar.com/article/20150316/SPORTS/150319345
He looks back on the five years of his tenure at Bradley and says a few things that were - and still are simply stupefying. The guy must live in an alternate universe.
"Unfortunately, there isn’t enough patience."
(and in compliance with the silly belief that I should not blog about opinions unless I state my affiliations - be it known I am a Bradley fan and supporter and have given a lot of money to the program. And I have given more during the Joanne Glasser & Michael Cross era than in all other years put together - But whether I had given none or a million bucks, that would not have swayed my opinions.)
http://www.pjstar.com/article/20150316/SPORTS/150319345
He looks back on the five years of his tenure at Bradley and says a few things that were - and still are simply stupefying. The guy must live in an alternate universe.
"Cross:
"I walk out with a significant sense of accomplishment and appreciation for the opportunity to look back over the course of five years. There are numerous things we’ve done to change the culture of the department. We used to basically be a department that was the men’s basketball program and 13 other teams because we wanted to have a men’s basketball team in Division I. At this point, we’re at 15 teams that all buy into the mission of a distinctive education with a championship experience. Everyone does their best every day to try to live by the five core values of accountability, courage, diligence, integrity and respect."
You couple that with all the different things we’ve done, whether it be the opening of the Renaissance Coliseum, our best (Missouri Valley Conference) all-sports performance last year, the branding changes we’ve made, the establishment of a mascot. There are things we’ve put into place here that honestly will be here for generations to come. Our partnership with Learfield has resulted in record corporate sales. There have been a lot of positives here."
JS: Any regrets?
Cross: "From a process and decision-making standpoint, I don’t have any regrets. The regrets have to do with how this business works. Ultimately, winning and losing matters to a lot to people. I wasn’t here two weeks in 2010 when I told my wife, ‘No question in my mind, Bradley can be great. But I hope there’s enough patience for that to happen.’ Unfortunately, there isn’t enough patience."
He then goes on to justify and blow off his ridiculously unsuccessful, unpopular and ignorant plans to move all the men's basketball games to the on-campus arena, and totally ignores all the terrible moves & decisions he made along with Dr. Glasser that nearly sent Bradley to the DIII level and into bankruptcy.
But let's look and the things he said in those paragraphs above, and most of what is true about Cross goes double for Dr. Glasser.
He actually says he "walks away" from his five years at Bradley thinking he's done a great job, the University is so much better off because of him, and that his 5-year tenure was all positive!
OMG - Those five years were a disaster of epic proportions. And I am not alone in believing that as the basketball home attendance tanked to levels never seen since before Bradley moved into the Armory downtown in the early 1930's.
And when the Journal Star writer, Dave Reynolds, hints that there may be some cause for regrets - Cross blows that off, denies any regrets, and then ...
BLAMES THE BRADLEY BASKETBALL FANS FOR BEING TOO IMPATIENT!!!!!!!!!!!
YA THINK FIVE FREAKING YEARS with Mike Cross at the helm and fans watching every single aspect of Bradley Athletics go down the toilet - isn't patient enough?
Just who does he think he's fooling? He & Joanne gave Jim Les just ONE losing year before pulling the trigger - one losing year out of the prior six....
As documented elsewhere - it is virtually unheard of for a coach to get fired under those circumstances - immediately after the FIRST losing season in a six year span.
Anyway - how dare he blame the fans and claim ...
"Unfortunately, there isn’t enough patience."
I think the Bradley fan base was incredibly patient - how long did the Kentucky fan base give Billy Gillispie - answer- just two seasons and he was 22-14 at the time they fired him!!!
Minnesota ran Tubby Smith out after consecutive 20-win seasons (21-13 & 23-15!)
Nope - sorry Dr. Cross - you and your leader got run out of town when a very patient and loyal fan base simply had seen enough malfeasance and negligence in the way you did your job.You fired the best people and then hired the incompetent. then you blamed the fans and all along as Bradley was doing historically badly - you force-fed the public this preposterous notion that Bradley is doing better than ever before.Peorians aren't as dumb as you east-coasters believe. This time the fans got their wishes - we cleaned house and hired the right people and already we're doing better.
Every single Bradley fan I have met, talked to or read their opinions on message boards over the past six months agrees 100%. I haven't heard a single person say they were sad to see the whole bunch - Glasser, Cross, Ford - go...
When Ken Kavanagh was run out of town literally thousands of fans came to his reception before he left - and those same thousands still miss him and are sad he was run out.
What does it say that not one person - not ONE fan has ever expressed the same sentiment over the housecleaning we got last spring?
Nope - you're all alone in thinking you did a great job and that you left Bradley in better condition than when you got here.
You & Joanne were about as good for Bradley and a nuclear bomb is for Halloween party.
Thursday, October 29, 2015
Ridiculous
Saw several stupid comments by the clueless that one of the new Braves, Scottie James was homesick and likely to leave.
LOL - but here's the truth.
Could he leave or transfer? Sure, he could...anyone could - it happens all the time. But he's no more likely than anyone else on the team and likely nowhere close to as likely and 99% of Division I players. Come on - use some brains...
Every college kid looks at potential for playing time...
He just got here - hasn't finished a single semester. He has basically NOBODY on the roster ahead of him - where the heck would he go or could he go that he'd have any better chance at playing time than here?
Plus, I have heard he likes it here, likes his teammates, likes the coaching staff.
The rest of the players like Scottie, too - when he won the slam-dunk contest the players had at the Youth Clinic last week - the other guys mobbed him and were truly excited for him - even the dunkers he just beat! (btw- there is a vido of that dunk contest posted on the internet)
Also- remember - he turned DOWN an offer from FGCU (right down the road from his hometown) to come to Bradley. Sure doesn't sound much like a kid who expected to get homesick.
And thus far - NOT ONE player on the roster has played a MINUTE more than Scottie since he arrived here. So why would he leave.
That said - of course he still might leave - there hasn't been a single season this century that someone with eligibility remaining didn't leave - some quite unexpectedly, so as I said, it happens all the time. But the wild and immature speculation that I am reading is completely wrong and silly.
On a separate topic, the open practice showed several things that fans noticed.
First is the way the practice was run. Competently, professionally, and seriously - all business and no goofing off as many can confirm happened endlessly in Geno's practices....
Geno's practices looked like recess at a grade school sometimes, with kids doing their own thing, goofing off, and talking back at the coach - oblivious to any worries about losing playing time since Geno knew he couldn't win without those kids so they got away with it.!
The one kid who never goofed off was Nate Wells and he never got playing time, until Geno was forced, then Nate proved Geno didn't even know his own players.
Second- the players are fit and in shape -- no skinny 170 lb weaklings....
the smallest guy, Joel Okafor is ROCK SOLID and ripped...the skinniest guy, Davante Cooper, still comes in 30 lbs bigger than Anthony Thompson or Nate Wells did.
Then they all look like they can play - hustled, dived for loose balls, made some shots (can always improve on this) and weren't afraid to fight for rebounds.
Everyone is picking Bradley last for an obvious reason - youth & inexperience. This is what a true empty cupboard (gift of Joanne, Cross, & Geno) looks like. So we might finish last - but I knew we would last year even when the PJS guys were pompously bloviating about how much better we were and picking Bradley 3rd or 4th (Dave Reynolds picked Bradley in the Top four EACH of the last two-three years.)
But I still like our chances better than in any of the Geno years because at least we have kids who want to play, can play & develop, and who are good kids who will work hard for the team & for the fans.
Go Braves!
LOL - but here's the truth.
Could he leave or transfer? Sure, he could...anyone could - it happens all the time. But he's no more likely than anyone else on the team and likely nowhere close to as likely and 99% of Division I players. Come on - use some brains...
Every college kid looks at potential for playing time...
He just got here - hasn't finished a single semester. He has basically NOBODY on the roster ahead of him - where the heck would he go or could he go that he'd have any better chance at playing time than here?
Plus, I have heard he likes it here, likes his teammates, likes the coaching staff.
The rest of the players like Scottie, too - when he won the slam-dunk contest the players had at the Youth Clinic last week - the other guys mobbed him and were truly excited for him - even the dunkers he just beat! (btw- there is a vido of that dunk contest posted on the internet)
Also- remember - he turned DOWN an offer from FGCU (right down the road from his hometown) to come to Bradley. Sure doesn't sound much like a kid who expected to get homesick.
And thus far - NOT ONE player on the roster has played a MINUTE more than Scottie since he arrived here. So why would he leave.
That said - of course he still might leave - there hasn't been a single season this century that someone with eligibility remaining didn't leave - some quite unexpectedly, so as I said, it happens all the time. But the wild and immature speculation that I am reading is completely wrong and silly.
On a separate topic, the open practice showed several things that fans noticed.
First is the way the practice was run. Competently, professionally, and seriously - all business and no goofing off as many can confirm happened endlessly in Geno's practices....
Geno's practices looked like recess at a grade school sometimes, with kids doing their own thing, goofing off, and talking back at the coach - oblivious to any worries about losing playing time since Geno knew he couldn't win without those kids so they got away with it.!
The one kid who never goofed off was Nate Wells and he never got playing time, until Geno was forced, then Nate proved Geno didn't even know his own players.
Second- the players are fit and in shape -- no skinny 170 lb weaklings....
the smallest guy, Joel Okafor is ROCK SOLID and ripped...the skinniest guy, Davante Cooper, still comes in 30 lbs bigger than Anthony Thompson or Nate Wells did.
Then they all look like they can play - hustled, dived for loose balls, made some shots (can always improve on this) and weren't afraid to fight for rebounds.
Everyone is picking Bradley last for an obvious reason - youth & inexperience. This is what a true empty cupboard (gift of Joanne, Cross, & Geno) looks like. So we might finish last - but I knew we would last year even when the PJS guys were pompously bloviating about how much better we were and picking Bradley 3rd or 4th (Dave Reynolds picked Bradley in the Top four EACH of the last two-three years.)
But I still like our chances better than in any of the Geno years because at least we have kids who want to play, can play & develop, and who are good kids who will work hard for the team & for the fans.
Go Braves!
Saturday, October 24, 2015
Yet another Joanne Glasser/Mike Cross hire that needs firing..
Well, we got it done in men's basketball - and we're only 2 months into the first semester since Glasser & Cross were fired - yet we see another sport where Glasser's & Cross' tinkering have led to horrific results - and losing in ALL TIME HISTORIC proportions!!
Check out Bradley Volleyball. Glasser & Cross declared that the former coach Sean Burdette had to go - he was winning only 8-9 matches per season although he only was given 3 seasons then canned.
But he had some good recruits - that helped Cross' new hire Jenny Maurer - to 12 wins her first season but it was really down hill from there.
Whatever possessed Cross to hire a coach from Lehigh that had never had a winning season and really never competed well even in that lowly conference?
But in no time at all - just as soon as Maurer had recruited her own team and had all her own players - suddenly Bradley VB couldn't beat a junior high VB squad!!
Check the records the past two seasons.
Last year - 2014-15 - Bradley went 2-26, and just 2-16 in the MVC.
Now this year, BU just lost again to Loyola in straight sets - now they are 5-17 and 0-10 in the MVC.
That's a combined record over 1.5 seasons of 7-43 and 2-26 in the MVC - and it's gonna get worse.
BU could readily lose all their remaining matches and go 0-18 in the MVC, as they really aren't close in any match!
12 of the last 16 matches were lost in straight sets (5-48 in sets) and Bradley had a stretch last year where they lost a dozen matches consecutively by straight sets. In other words - nothing even close!
Jenny Maurer has already had two nearly full years more time to show progress than Cross gave Burdette, so it's time to go. I know VB isn't really a revenue sport but Dr. Chris Reynolds isn't gonna tolerate this kind of Glasser/Cross-caliber ineptitude much longer.
I am sure they are all nice people but that didn't stop Glasser & Cross from running a whole lot of nice people out - some of whom have gone on to great success elsewhere after leaving Bradley, while most of Glasser's hires have been truly abysmal.
Braves fans love Bradley athletics too much to stand for this and we trust Chris Reynolds to get-r-done.
Check out Bradley Volleyball. Glasser & Cross declared that the former coach Sean Burdette had to go - he was winning only 8-9 matches per season although he only was given 3 seasons then canned.
But he had some good recruits - that helped Cross' new hire Jenny Maurer - to 12 wins her first season but it was really down hill from there.
Whatever possessed Cross to hire a coach from Lehigh that had never had a winning season and really never competed well even in that lowly conference?
But in no time at all - just as soon as Maurer had recruited her own team and had all her own players - suddenly Bradley VB couldn't beat a junior high VB squad!!
Check the records the past two seasons.
Last year - 2014-15 - Bradley went 2-26, and just 2-16 in the MVC.
Now this year, BU just lost again to Loyola in straight sets - now they are 5-17 and 0-10 in the MVC.
That's a combined record over 1.5 seasons of 7-43 and 2-26 in the MVC - and it's gonna get worse.
BU could readily lose all their remaining matches and go 0-18 in the MVC, as they really aren't close in any match!
12 of the last 16 matches were lost in straight sets (5-48 in sets) and Bradley had a stretch last year where they lost a dozen matches consecutively by straight sets. In other words - nothing even close!
Jenny Maurer has already had two nearly full years more time to show progress than Cross gave Burdette, so it's time to go. I know VB isn't really a revenue sport but Dr. Chris Reynolds isn't gonna tolerate this kind of Glasser/Cross-caliber ineptitude much longer.
I am sure they are all nice people but that didn't stop Glasser & Cross from running a whole lot of nice people out - some of whom have gone on to great success elsewhere after leaving Bradley, while most of Glasser's hires have been truly abysmal.
Braves fans love Bradley athletics too much to stand for this and we trust Chris Reynolds to get-r-done.
Monday, October 19, 2015
Here's an interesting and yet predictable observation
I have been to numerous of the summer & preseason events with the basketball team, coaches, players and I plan to attend several more - starting tomorrow with the next Fan Appreciation Reception up at Ren-Col, then the open practice & scrimmages...
And - I have yet to see even ONE of the core group of Joanne Glasser brown-nosers...at any of those events so far.
Not that I care - kinda glad they're gone..they constantly try to bully other fans into joining their miserable bitterness.
You know - the Jim Les-haters & program destroyers who were so bitter going way back that they didn't get the candidate they wanted..... who kissed up to the former admin so much that their noses are permanently brown - the ones who dragged on their JG is the best Bradley President discussion for the past two years....many if not most of whom have serious moral and arrest records and horrible attack-mode demeanor both in public & message boards.
I know they still lurk because they still make schizophrenic and paranoid accusations that someone's reading their emails, hacking their message board and blocking them from seeing what's posted certain places on the internet. People who actually photograph random people at sporting events then post their pictures as if they feel doomed ......
Must be kinda sad to go thru life feeling so oppressed, downtrodden and constantly scared sh**less that someone out there is smarter or better.
But those fans come & go - they got their way in 2009-2011 and then had to live with the enormous destruction the program....but now we're on the rebound - things look great and looking up.
And - I have yet to see even ONE of the core group of Joanne Glasser brown-nosers...at any of those events so far.
Not that I care - kinda glad they're gone..they constantly try to bully other fans into joining their miserable bitterness.
You know - the Jim Les-haters & program destroyers who were so bitter going way back that they didn't get the candidate they wanted..... who kissed up to the former admin so much that their noses are permanently brown - the ones who dragged on their JG is the best Bradley President discussion for the past two years....many if not most of whom have serious moral and arrest records and horrible attack-mode demeanor both in public & message boards.
I know they still lurk because they still make schizophrenic and paranoid accusations that someone's reading their emails, hacking their message board and blocking them from seeing what's posted certain places on the internet. People who actually photograph random people at sporting events then post their pictures as if they feel doomed ......
Must be kinda sad to go thru life feeling so oppressed, downtrodden and constantly scared sh**less that someone out there is smarter or better.
But those fans come & go - they got their way in 2009-2011 and then had to live with the enormous destruction the program....but now we're on the rebound - things look great and looking up.
Tuesday, October 13, 2015
Preseason Bradley Basketball Events in Full Swing
With the Itoo Supper and Auction so incredibly successful, it stands to reason that the Bradley Fan-Appreciation Receptions would also be successful.
These events to host season ticket holders and give them an inside look and briefing of the program & new players & staff are a great idea.
These events were first started a couple years ago - and I have to say they were one of the ideas by Dr. Cross (which, of course, he based on a few suggestions given to him like this..... LINK)
that was actually a very good idea to get fan interest ramped up leading into the season.
but - unfortunately for many reasons, the events in 2013 were very sparsely attended as detailed in the links below.
The one I went to in 2013 had tables set for 60 people but only a little over half that were actually in attendance.
http://bradleyfans.com/vb/showthread.php?p=283840#post283840
http://bradleyfans.com/vb/showpost.php?p=283896&postcount=6
However - the current AD and staff did a great job promoting these current events and they are off & running with tremendous success so far.
Here's what the Braves Club Room at Ren-Col looked like yesterday...
Here's a larger view
Many if not MOST of the best Bradley fans feel a lot like Cubs fans...
Both fan bases are incredibly loyal & faithful but I do admit the Cubs have faced futility a whole lot longer than Bradley fans have but it feels about the same for the Braves fans since the depth of futility and the lack of any real response from or effort by the people in charge was astronomical.
In case anyone even tries to interrupt at that point and claim Bradley had down years like that before - be it known that the tanking of the attendance and of fan interest in just the last couple years was totally unprecedented. NEVER in the worst of the Stowell years, the Albeck years, or Mo-years - NEVER did attendance fall anywhere close to the crowds were were seeing on a regular basis under Joanne Glasser & Michael Cross. Seriously - they drove fans away not just with putting poor product on the floor but with the attitude & atmosphere of neglecting and ignoring the fans and treating them like dirt - as if the fans' opinions and sentiments did not ever matter.
Anyway - the Cubs fans aren't just excited for being in the Playoffs - there's an extra degree of excitement and satisfaction that's simply due to the absence of such post-season success for so many years - as if they've been released from a LONG incarceration in a deep, dark dungeon - and then immediately are welcomed as they exit the living hell - and are presented with the rewards of great success.
Bradley fans haven't actually gotten to the success level yet, but we knew we NEVER would until massive changes took place and now we see those changes!
I predict we'll see more and more success at these preseason events, more and more excitement in a fan base that had all but died or given up, and then hopefully more success on the court and in the entire program.
The hope is restored.....Go Bradley!
These events to host season ticket holders and give them an inside look and briefing of the program & new players & staff are a great idea.
These events were first started a couple years ago - and I have to say they were one of the ideas by Dr. Cross (which, of course, he based on a few suggestions given to him like this..... LINK)
that was actually a very good idea to get fan interest ramped up leading into the season.
but - unfortunately for many reasons, the events in 2013 were very sparsely attended as detailed in the links below.
The one I went to in 2013 had tables set for 60 people but only a little over half that were actually in attendance.
http://bradleyfans.com/vb/showthread.php?p=283840#post283840
http://bradleyfans.com/vb/showpost.php?p=283896&postcount=6
However - the current AD and staff did a great job promoting these current events and they are off & running with tremendous success so far.
Here's what the Braves Club Room at Ren-Col looked like yesterday...
Here's a larger view
Many if not MOST of the best Bradley fans feel a lot like Cubs fans...
Both fan bases are incredibly loyal & faithful but I do admit the Cubs have faced futility a whole lot longer than Bradley fans have but it feels about the same for the Braves fans since the depth of futility and the lack of any real response from or effort by the people in charge was astronomical.
In case anyone even tries to interrupt at that point and claim Bradley had down years like that before - be it known that the tanking of the attendance and of fan interest in just the last couple years was totally unprecedented. NEVER in the worst of the Stowell years, the Albeck years, or Mo-years - NEVER did attendance fall anywhere close to the crowds were were seeing on a regular basis under Joanne Glasser & Michael Cross. Seriously - they drove fans away not just with putting poor product on the floor but with the attitude & atmosphere of neglecting and ignoring the fans and treating them like dirt - as if the fans' opinions and sentiments did not ever matter.
Anyway - the Cubs fans aren't just excited for being in the Playoffs - there's an extra degree of excitement and satisfaction that's simply due to the absence of such post-season success for so many years - as if they've been released from a LONG incarceration in a deep, dark dungeon - and then immediately are welcomed as they exit the living hell - and are presented with the rewards of great success.
Bradley fans haven't actually gotten to the success level yet, but we knew we NEVER would until massive changes took place and now we see those changes!
I predict we'll see more and more success at these preseason events, more and more excitement in a fan base that had all but died or given up, and then hopefully more success on the court and in the entire program.
The hope is restored.....Go Bradley!
Tuesday, September 29, 2015
Wonder if he kept his word?
"I ran across this old post by a self-proclaimed expert who is wrong more often than he is right...Back on September 3, 2010 he stated this in response to a discussion about that season's Lindy's Preview issue:
"I believe the Braves will finish 3rd or 4th--but I understand where 5th comes from.
I will give Lindy's $100 if Andrew Warren ends up First-Team All-MVC.
I would not be totally surprised to see his minutes decrease as the year goes on in the place of DSE in particular and, to some degree, Eastman. Andrew isn't exactly....tough..."
"...Sammy makes first-team."...
http://www.pjstarforums.com/viewtopic.php?f=63&t=81181&p=1092639#p1092639
Well, here are the results from the post-season MVC release-
http://bradleyfans.com/vb/showthread.php?t=17940
http://www.mvc-sports.com/media/2010-11/mbasketball/news/2011%20All-Conference.pdf
Of course Andrew Warren did have a fine year and WAS 1st Team All Conference!
He also has gone on to a fine professional career, and is still going...
Sam Maniscalco, as we all know, didn't even play that season and never played again for Bradley after he redshirted.
So, pony up "tribecalledquest" - this time you've been caught - you gonna send the $100 to Lindy's?
Actually, I'd prefer you send it as a donation to the Braves Club or Bradley University general fund - it'll finally get your name on the donors list for the first time!
Saturday, September 26, 2015
Bradley's freshman enrollment and a look back on some predictions
Here's the info on what underlies the biggest story about Bradley University in the past 2 or 3 decades. Frankly it is astounding that the local newspaper has not touched this story - although they have alluded to much of the fallout from this.
As most know, the sharp decline in freshmen enrollment has been a major issue at Bradley, but there is some good news....it appears to be turning around.
http://bradleyfans.com/vb/showthread.php?t=24344
The BU Scout has an article detailing this. (and as noted, this story has not been given any fair or accurate coverage elsewhere)
http://www.bradleyscout.com/news/low-enrollment-discussed-plan-in-action/
Freshman enrollment usually averaged around 1,050-1,075...this has been the case going back years....
http://www.eduers.com/University/Illinois/Bradley_University.html
Some years it was even slightly more...and enrollment was still pretty stable on the high end of that range at 1,080 in fall of 2013.
http://wglt.org/wireready/news/2014/08/02537_Bradley_065332.shtml
Even Dr. Glasser herself stated that and was aware by April of 2014 that enrollment was going to be down in fall of 2014.
Indeed - freshman enrollment took a huge hit in fall of 2014, dropping to 940 - way more of a drop than anticipated.
Then freshman enrollment dropped a little more this fall to 927, but that was less than anticipated and shows that the new moves by the people who REPLACED Dr. Glasser's administration are stemming the tide of decline.
Remember - Dr. Glasser was in place until May 31, 2015 so even this year's further slight drop in enrollment would have been due to her policies.
Administration, especially Dr. Glasser tried blaming national trends and the PJS bought that line and never even questioned it- but as one can easily see, that just is NOT the whole answer-
as many colleges are NOT seeing the same decline....most MVC schools are seeing enrollment increases.
https://www2.indstate.edu/news/news.php?newsid=4456
http://bradleyfans.com/vb/showthread.php?p=298168&#post298168
And of course the schools that now have our past personnel - UC-Davis & FGCU - are seeing enormous surges in enrollment! Whoa!
http://bradleyfans.com/vb/showthread.php?p=306338#post306338
Dr. Liberty, Bradley's current Interim President says the problem is ...
"The decreased enrollment can be attributed to Bradley’s inability to adjust old marketing strategies.."
..the university has been slow to use technology ..“Younger people are all mobile and into social media..“We got out of tune with that.”
“The marketplace is changing, and we haven’t adapted well to that,” Liberty said.
However, Liberty said the declining enrollment trend would stop after this year ...there will be a steady increase.”"
http://www.bradleyscout.com/news/low-enrollment-discussed-plan-in-action/
So Dr. Liberty seems to be disagreeing sharply with Dr. Glasser and he believes it was old, outdated policies that Bradley was using under Dr. Glasser's administration that were the whole problem.
There also is a ton of evidence that excessive and irresponsible over-spending under Dr. Glasser - especially in Athletics - drove the University to the brink of a financial ctastrophe, which then made the enrollment drop way more of an immediate issue.
Then the fact that everyone else on campus was blamed, and faulty was asked to cut back given smaller budgets and even asked to take pay cuts - really kinda rankled a lot since Dr. Glasser was getting excessively overpaid for the lousy job she was doing!
http://peoriapublicradio.org/post/report-bu-president-tops-salary-scale#stream/0
http://www.cinewsnow.com/news/local/Bradley-president-tops-college-executive-compensation-list-285648691.html
Remember this - when the morale was bottoming out in all the academic departments-
http://bubravesblogger.blogspot.com/2014/12/a-remarkable-letter-from-bradley.html
Nope, Dr. Glasser's reign was solely and uniquely responsible for all of the mess. Not just the drop in enrollment but the simultaneous financial crisis she caused with reckless spending to try to help her boy Geno win. Someone has to tell it like it is since the PJS sure isn't going to - they still have their noses up where the sun don't shine.
BTW - check out these predictions made back on January 2, 2015-
Hmmm...pretty close on all of them
http://bubravesblogger.blogspot.com/2015/01/predictions-2015.html
As most know, the sharp decline in freshmen enrollment has been a major issue at Bradley, but there is some good news....it appears to be turning around.
http://bradleyfans.com/vb/showthread.php?t=24344
The BU Scout has an article detailing this. (and as noted, this story has not been given any fair or accurate coverage elsewhere)
http://www.bradleyscout.com/news/low-enrollment-discussed-plan-in-action/
Freshman enrollment usually averaged around 1,050-1,075...this has been the case going back years....
http://www.eduers.com/University/Illinois/Bradley_University.html
Some years it was even slightly more...and enrollment was still pretty stable on the high end of that range at 1,080 in fall of 2013.
http://wglt.org/wireready/news/2014/08/02537_Bradley_065332.shtml
Even Dr. Glasser herself stated that and was aware by April of 2014 that enrollment was going to be down in fall of 2014.
Indeed - freshman enrollment took a huge hit in fall of 2014, dropping to 940 - way more of a drop than anticipated.
Then freshman enrollment dropped a little more this fall to 927, but that was less than anticipated and shows that the new moves by the people who REPLACED Dr. Glasser's administration are stemming the tide of decline.
Remember - Dr. Glasser was in place until May 31, 2015 so even this year's further slight drop in enrollment would have been due to her policies.
Administration, especially Dr. Glasser tried blaming national trends and the PJS bought that line and never even questioned it- but as one can easily see, that just is NOT the whole answer-
as many colleges are NOT seeing the same decline....most MVC schools are seeing enrollment increases.
https://www2.indstate.edu/news/news.php?newsid=4456
http://bradleyfans.com/vb/showthread.php?p=298168&#post298168
And of course the schools that now have our past personnel - UC-Davis & FGCU - are seeing enormous surges in enrollment! Whoa!
http://bradleyfans.com/vb/showthread.php?p=306338#post306338
Dr. Liberty, Bradley's current Interim President says the problem is ...
"The decreased enrollment can be attributed to Bradley’s inability to adjust old marketing strategies.."
..the university has been slow to use technology ..“Younger people are all mobile and into social media..“We got out of tune with that.”
“The marketplace is changing, and we haven’t adapted well to that,” Liberty said.
However, Liberty said the declining enrollment trend would stop after this year ...there will be a steady increase.”"
http://www.bradleyscout.com/news/low-enrollment-discussed-plan-in-action/
So Dr. Liberty seems to be disagreeing sharply with Dr. Glasser and he believes it was old, outdated policies that Bradley was using under Dr. Glasser's administration that were the whole problem.
There also is a ton of evidence that excessive and irresponsible over-spending under Dr. Glasser - especially in Athletics - drove the University to the brink of a financial ctastrophe, which then made the enrollment drop way more of an immediate issue.
Then the fact that everyone else on campus was blamed, and faulty was asked to cut back given smaller budgets and even asked to take pay cuts - really kinda rankled a lot since Dr. Glasser was getting excessively overpaid for the lousy job she was doing!
http://peoriapublicradio.org/post/report-bu-president-tops-salary-scale#stream/0
http://www.cinewsnow.com/news/local/Bradley-president-tops-college-executive-compensation-list-285648691.html
Remember this - when the morale was bottoming out in all the academic departments-
http://bubravesblogger.blogspot.com/2014/12/a-remarkable-letter-from-bradley.html
Nope, Dr. Glasser's reign was solely and uniquely responsible for all of the mess. Not just the drop in enrollment but the simultaneous financial crisis she caused with reckless spending to try to help her boy Geno win. Someone has to tell it like it is since the PJS sure isn't going to - they still have their noses up where the sun don't shine.
BTW - check out these predictions made back on January 2, 2015-
Hmmm...pretty close on all of them
http://bubravesblogger.blogspot.com/2015/01/predictions-2015.html
Thursday, September 17, 2015
Just some simple accounting for those who are interested...some opinions gathered from those who were there
Just had a couple interesting conversations with a former long-time member of the Bradley Board of Trustees.
So I thought I'd clear up a simple topic. If you want to claim it's hearsay, then fine, but it is what it is and I am just relating what was said by others.
Some who are extremely uninformed, credit the departing BU President for bringing in millions of dollars.
But there's really only one person who actually makes that claim and now she's gone and exposed. The gullible and lap-dog PJStar often just parrots what they hear from her - in the end some of those falsehoods get repeated and even bought by uninformed, gullible fans.
First, of the $160 million raised in the past decade - almost all of it is attributable to the people who were in place BEFORE Dr. Glasser got to Peoria.
I have detailed this unequivocally before - the Markin gift, the Caterpillar pledge & gift, the Puterbaugh gift, etc....
Mostly all collected and in the bank long before those currently taking credit got here.
http://bubravesblogger.blogspot.com/2015/08/for-record.html
But nobody talks about the HUGE loss of revenue that has HURT Bradley severely and it was all caused by personality clashes and directly attributable to just one person, Dr. Joanne Glasser. But some who have left the Board know ...
Simply put - NUMEROUS, wealthy, generous members of the Board of Trustees, as well as other wealthy generous donors have bolted and withdrawn their pledges and gifts as a direct result of that one and only person who was driving BU Athletics and Bradley University itself in an UN-sustainable direction towards disaster - the disaster that the Board finally woke up and saw late last year and then they embarked on an UNPRECEDENTED and highly unique & unusual mass housecleaning from the President to the Vice President to many other administrators, the Athletic Director and highest profile coach & all his staff.
Anyway - the list of prominent Board of Trustee members who have resigned due to Dr. Glasser is astounding....
Hersey Hawkins, Harry Puterbaugh, Brian McGough, even Robert Turner - who was the PRESIDENT of the Board of Trustees and quit mid-term while he was also in the midst of a $10 MILLION donation that he was handing to Bradley - but isn't any more.
Also the McCord family has obviously drawn back support....
all told, those pledges and gifts that those MILLIONAIRES were going to give Bradley but didn't - are thought to total in excess of $20 million!!
Yup - Bradley could and would be at least $20 million on the plus side of the ledger had our President simply treated the most loyal, faithful, generous, and honored of Bradley alumni, Board members, and donors with any respect at all.
People like Hersey Hawkins, Robert Turner, etc....they don't come along very often but now bridges are burned by an egomaniac who had to be the center of attention and ran off anyone else with a higher profile if they didn't cow-tow.
Take it for what it's worth....we're lucky the University has survived this mess. Thanks only to the great fans who saw the problems, caller her out and wrote letters, emails, and openly pleaded (in editorials, high profile message boards) and personally spoke to the Board and finally got their ear away from the others like Shaheen who led some down the wrong, destructive path.
Those fans finally got the ear of the right Board members who previously were listening to and duped by the but sniffing PJS crowd and squeaky wheel fans who never give a damn cent to Bradley University.
Someone asked where are all those fans who cheered on Dr. Glasser's bad moves and who hated Jim Les so much....they sure seem to have disappeared in a hurry along with all those other fans whose seats are empty for the Geno-coached games.
....and the answer is clear - just go find Geno & Glasser and then check a few inches south......they probably still have their noses stuck in a crack.
We're still deep in a hole and aren't out yet - but at least we have the lead anchor off our necks and have the right people leading us out of the hole.
Wednesday, September 16, 2015
Expect this to continue...
For years to come - the massive failures of the Glasser/Cross/Ford era will be blamed by the PJStar on others from the distant past.
It has been the constant effort of the PJS guys to try to shore up and promote everything over the past 4-5 years as great and everything else connected with Jim Les or Ken Kavanagh as the reason for any & all failures.
Recall- as recently as 2010, Bradley had sellouts & multiple crowds of 10,000-11,000, we were just coming off four consecutive 21-22 win seasons, post-season appearances, and a generally upbeat fanbase. But we all know the PJStar guys still lusted for Wayne McClain and hated Jim Les. They attacked him endlessly and tried continuously to get him fired.
Kirk Wessler actually admits that as far back as 2004, he began a policy of endless criticism to get Les fired...
http://bradleyfans.com/vb/showthread.php?p=825114917#post825114917
Now more of that dishonest effort to blame the filings of the Glasser/Cross era on others...
Just about everyone knows the TRUTH - that the Itoo Supper was held every single year without fail, all the way from the beginning of the Ken Kavanagh era thru the end and Ken had absolutely NOTHING to do with it being "phased out".
And yet when they wrote about Dr. Chris Reynolds, they lied & claimed it was Ken Kavanagh that "phased out" the popular Itoo Spaghetti Supper.
But it was NEVER phased out by Kavanagh - it was held every single year that he was AD/
It was even held one more time after Ken was gone - as planned by Ken in 2009 even though Ken had left Bradley and Virnette House-Browning was acting as AD.
But here's where we catch them in their lie -- the editor of the Sports department at PJStar actually said this just a few weeks before this column ran...
Here's a statement directly from Kirk Wessler stating that he KNEW it was Mike Cross that phased out & discontinued the Itoo Supper - plus Wessler even describes how OBVIOUSLY Cross also knew that this was a very popular event, and that a lot of fans still wanted it even years after it was discontinued, and that Cross was defiant and still said in effect...
"screw all of you - that doesn't matter, we will not have the Itoo event"...
It is a statement posted in June of 2015 by Kirk Wessler talking about an encounter he had with Mike Cross in the fall of 2011....
Wessler says...
".... I don't think Mike Cross ever experienced
an ITOO supper, because the first year Geno Ford
was coach (fall of 2011), they staged several
"community" events - at Hickory Grove, at Five
Points, at the Avanti's Dome, etc. - and I did a
column re the missing spaghetti supper.
Cross was asking me all kinds of questions about it,
and while I was interviewing him,
several people briefly interrupted us
at various junctures to request that the spaghetti
supper be reinstated."
So they knew all along it was Cross who phased it out but they said otherwise anyway.
Sunday, September 6, 2015
Some myths that were propagated for years now blown to smithereens
Myth Buster
Myth #1- Geno's teams would be much better when he finally gets all his own players. Reality: the talent level did not improve as time went on - it actually got worse as the Jim Les players left, and we did not gotten better. In year 4, BU was nowhere near ready to compete in the MVC, and Year 5 would have been an intolerable disaster since Geno had absolutely zero recruits and no interest from anyone in coming to play for him.
Myth #2- Walt Lemon was a selfish player and hurt the team. Bradley will be much better when he is gone. Reality: another myth busted. Some predicted over and over again that Walt would be greatly missed, and now we see he is. The team did not have any other reliable scorers, no toughness, no leadership (despite what the PJ Star kept fibbing about), and poor perimeter defense (see below). Walt provided all those things.
Myth #3- Geno is a good defensive coach. Reality: we gave up 86 points to Texas-Arlington and they had their way with us because of some of the worst defense, interior and perimeter, I have ever seen. There are gobs of other examples, no need to list.
Myth #4- Bradley will be better offensively under Geno. Bradley was at or near the bottom of the MVC in every offensive statistics for the last 4 years, and would have been again this year. We shot 37.5% against Augustana, and to prove it was no fluke, we shot 38.2% against UTA.
Myth #5- Bradley's inside game and big men will be improved. Sorry, this was also a delusion creted by Kirk Wessler. Josh Cunningham may have some promise, but he shot poorly and spent a ton of time roaming the 3-pt arc where he shot around 20%. Xzavier Taylor was worse, Morgan and Shaw were non-existent. Myth busted.
Myth #6- Bradley is much deeper- year after year the media tried to sell this, but with all the players suspended all the time, we barely had enough to compete and even when we did, nobody even gave a half effort.
Myth #7- This year's recruiting class is one of the best ever. Year after year, the media tried to sell this myth, too. wonder how they'd have portrayed Geno's 2015 recruiting class that did not exist at all.
Myth #8- Mike Shaw will dominate in the MVC. Yup - Dave Reynolds actually said this - that he'd score 4 times out of every five times he touched the ball!! Reality: there was a reason he never played at Illinois. Now we are seeing why. Shaw is a great guy but deep sub at best unless Wardle can get more out of him than Geno ever did.
Myth #9- Joanne Glasser is the greatest president in Bradley history. Yeah, right. Not even Mike Cross thinks this now.
Myth #10- Mike Cross is a good AD. Reality: not one single hire he’s made has produced a winning program since he’s been here. Bradley teams’ cumulative records since he was hired in January, 2010 is the worst in Bradley’s history.
And the 5-year span he was in place nearly destroyed 110 years of GREAT Bradley tradition.
Lastly - wonder what would have happened if Kirk Wessler wasn't out of town and had been at the local HS football game where on of the Bradley recruits got into a bit of trouble.
He'd have splashed in in the headlines for weeks with exaggerations and lies about choking, ligature marks, and kicking & screaming...
But even the teams picked last in preseason polls are winning - BU VB in particular - incredible what a change of leadership will do.
Myth #1- Geno's teams would be much better when he finally gets all his own players. Reality: the talent level did not improve as time went on - it actually got worse as the Jim Les players left, and we did not gotten better. In year 4, BU was nowhere near ready to compete in the MVC, and Year 5 would have been an intolerable disaster since Geno had absolutely zero recruits and no interest from anyone in coming to play for him.
Myth #2- Walt Lemon was a selfish player and hurt the team. Bradley will be much better when he is gone. Reality: another myth busted. Some predicted over and over again that Walt would be greatly missed, and now we see he is. The team did not have any other reliable scorers, no toughness, no leadership (despite what the PJ Star kept fibbing about), and poor perimeter defense (see below). Walt provided all those things.
Myth #3- Geno is a good defensive coach. Reality: we gave up 86 points to Texas-Arlington and they had their way with us because of some of the worst defense, interior and perimeter, I have ever seen. There are gobs of other examples, no need to list.
Myth #4- Bradley will be better offensively under Geno. Bradley was at or near the bottom of the MVC in every offensive statistics for the last 4 years, and would have been again this year. We shot 37.5% against Augustana, and to prove it was no fluke, we shot 38.2% against UTA.
Myth #5- Bradley's inside game and big men will be improved. Sorry, this was also a delusion creted by Kirk Wessler. Josh Cunningham may have some promise, but he shot poorly and spent a ton of time roaming the 3-pt arc where he shot around 20%. Xzavier Taylor was worse, Morgan and Shaw were non-existent. Myth busted.
Myth #6- Bradley is much deeper- year after year the media tried to sell this, but with all the players suspended all the time, we barely had enough to compete and even when we did, nobody even gave a half effort.
Myth #7- This year's recruiting class is one of the best ever. Year after year, the media tried to sell this myth, too. wonder how they'd have portrayed Geno's 2015 recruiting class that did not exist at all.
Myth #8- Mike Shaw will dominate in the MVC. Yup - Dave Reynolds actually said this - that he'd score 4 times out of every five times he touched the ball!! Reality: there was a reason he never played at Illinois. Now we are seeing why. Shaw is a great guy but deep sub at best unless Wardle can get more out of him than Geno ever did.
Myth #9- Joanne Glasser is the greatest president in Bradley history. Yeah, right. Not even Mike Cross thinks this now.
Myth #10- Mike Cross is a good AD. Reality: not one single hire he’s made has produced a winning program since he’s been here. Bradley teams’ cumulative records since he was hired in January, 2010 is the worst in Bradley’s history.
And the 5-year span he was in place nearly destroyed 110 years of GREAT Bradley tradition.
Lastly - wonder what would have happened if Kirk Wessler wasn't out of town and had been at the local HS football game where on of the Bradley recruits got into a bit of trouble.
He'd have splashed in in the headlines for weeks with exaggerations and lies about choking, ligature marks, and kicking & screaming...
But even the teams picked last in preseason polls are winning - BU VB in particular - incredible what a change of leadership will do.
Friday, August 28, 2015
Check for yourself - is there now a news blackout?
I have repeatedly pointed out how vastly differently the PJ Star staff covered Geno Ford compared to Jim Les -
but now even though we only have five months of experience we can also see a huge difference in the way they are covering Brian Wardle & his Bradley Braves (or lack of coverage) compared to how they covered Ford.
Go back to 2013 in the Geno era - between July 4 and Labor Day Dave Reynolds had at least 4-5 columns about BU basketball...and a couple about recruits...
...this was the year they went to Bahamas so it might be understandable - and also Bobby Parker blogged about 20 times, and there were lots of tweets praising Geno, the team, the superior recruiting, etc...
Then in 2014 again Dave Reynolds had 5 columns between July 4 & Labor day...mostly recruiting...
but even tho Austin Barnes had been arrested - Dave was almost completely silent on that -- the only coverage of Barnes was from unnamed Sports Department writers called..
"Journal Star Staff"
http://www.pjstar.com/article/20140919/SPORTS/140919001
Reynolds also tweeted FREQUENTLY in 2014 about how Bradley was doing
https://twitter.com/DaveReynolds2/status/509342686374285313
and when he did write about Bradley and had the chance to address the Auston Barnes arrest - oddly he mostly ignored it...seemingly acting only as PR-agent telling us gobs of great stuff and hyping BU basketball under Geno endlessly. The spin was so over-the-top dripping positive that no way Geno'd be ably to live up to it so they were unknowingly setting him up for a fall.
http://www.pjstar.com/article/20140909/SPORTS/140909203/12701/SPORTS?rssfeed=true&utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter
http://blogs.bradley.edu/bloggingwithbp/2013/08/
http://blogs.bradley.edu/bloggingwithbp/2014/08/
http://bradleyfans.com/vb/showthread.php?t=24206
Now it's like a blackout - the only info on Bradley basketball coming from BradleyFans.com
Even BOBBY PARKER hasn't blogged at all since May 28, and not one blog entry about basketball since Brian Wardle hired.
http://blogs.bradley.edu/bloggingwithbp/2015/05/
So why all the complete lack of coverage?? You may like it or not, but if you say the PJS staff has treated Jim Les, Geno Ford, and Brian Wardle equally then please show me the tiniest evidence - since I see enormous evidence to the contrary.
They went so far overboard to build up Geno, exaggerate whatever good there was, make up plenty more good that didn't exist, overrated everyone, and ignored all the bad stuff - almost sweeping the discipline issues, arrests, and suspensions under the rug - even totally ignoring some of the suspensions.
I swear - it was almost as if they had money or their jobs riding on helping Geno (and thus Cross & Glasser) succeed so they hyped everything as success and if anything negative happened they distorted fact to try to blame it all on someone from the past.
BTW - this distortion and rewriting of history is still their #1 ploy as they just tried to pull it again and fabricate some argument that it was Ken Kavanagh who discontinued the Itoo Supper - when that was totally false. Ken himself saw this lie as worthy of contacting the Journal Star staff and demanding a retraction - which did happen.
Now under Brian Wardle, lots and lots of good things are happening - despite having an incredibly young group - perhaps the youngest team in the US - and despite that they look good & Dave even admits he's seen them work out & practice - there's nothing.
And when yet another Geno player stepped out of line and had to be booted (Jones) - again virtually nothing more than a short concise statement. No effort to dig or come up with the police report or exaggerate and lie about ligature marks or choking with hands...
What's up - they're shootiong themselves in the foot - the loyal Bradley fan base would love decent coverage of Bradley basketball and yet they're not getting it except from BardleyFans.com
There's no wonder the traffic & page views at BradleyFans trump the entire PJS web site - people know...
There was one really nice column on Dr. Chris Reynolds although it didn't even touch on basketball.
But then, every other new outlet also has covered Chris Reynolds extensively - HOI news, WMBD, even WMBD radio....so that Chris Reynolds column was just a little catch-up.
The other news outlets have had gobs or other pieces on Bradley, their summer workouts, their community service, their work on and around campus, etc...
So be prepared for scant coverage and tepid assessments of the really great stuff happening. I would laugh my *** off if any of the coverage compares our recruiting class to the best Bradley has ever had - or likens our big men to Donald Reese or Bayo - or talks about a 17-loss season as vast improvement predicting a TOP FOUR finish...
but now even though we only have five months of experience we can also see a huge difference in the way they are covering Brian Wardle & his Bradley Braves (or lack of coverage) compared to how they covered Ford.
Go back to 2013 in the Geno era - between July 4 and Labor Day Dave Reynolds had at least 4-5 columns about BU basketball...and a couple about recruits...
...this was the year they went to Bahamas so it might be understandable - and also Bobby Parker blogged about 20 times, and there were lots of tweets praising Geno, the team, the superior recruiting, etc...
Then in 2014 again Dave Reynolds had 5 columns between July 4 & Labor day...mostly recruiting...
but even tho Austin Barnes had been arrested - Dave was almost completely silent on that -- the only coverage of Barnes was from unnamed Sports Department writers called..
"Journal Star Staff"
http://www.pjstar.com/article/20140919/SPORTS/140919001
Reynolds also tweeted FREQUENTLY in 2014 about how Bradley was doing
https://twitter.com/DaveReynolds2/status/509342686374285313
and when he did write about Bradley and had the chance to address the Auston Barnes arrest - oddly he mostly ignored it...seemingly acting only as PR-agent telling us gobs of great stuff and hyping BU basketball under Geno endlessly. The spin was so over-the-top dripping positive that no way Geno'd be ably to live up to it so they were unknowingly setting him up for a fall.
http://www.pjstar.com/article/20140909/SPORTS/140909203/12701/SPORTS?rssfeed=true&utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter
http://blogs.bradley.edu/bloggingwithbp/2013/08/
http://blogs.bradley.edu/bloggingwithbp/2014/08/
http://bradleyfans.com/vb/showthread.php?t=24206
Now it's like a blackout - the only info on Bradley basketball coming from BradleyFans.com
Even BOBBY PARKER hasn't blogged at all since May 28, and not one blog entry about basketball since Brian Wardle hired.
http://blogs.bradley.edu/bloggingwithbp/2015/05/
So why all the complete lack of coverage?? You may like it or not, but if you say the PJS staff has treated Jim Les, Geno Ford, and Brian Wardle equally then please show me the tiniest evidence - since I see enormous evidence to the contrary.
They went so far overboard to build up Geno, exaggerate whatever good there was, make up plenty more good that didn't exist, overrated everyone, and ignored all the bad stuff - almost sweeping the discipline issues, arrests, and suspensions under the rug - even totally ignoring some of the suspensions.
I swear - it was almost as if they had money or their jobs riding on helping Geno (and thus Cross & Glasser) succeed so they hyped everything as success and if anything negative happened they distorted fact to try to blame it all on someone from the past.
BTW - this distortion and rewriting of history is still their #1 ploy as they just tried to pull it again and fabricate some argument that it was Ken Kavanagh who discontinued the Itoo Supper - when that was totally false. Ken himself saw this lie as worthy of contacting the Journal Star staff and demanding a retraction - which did happen.
Now under Brian Wardle, lots and lots of good things are happening - despite having an incredibly young group - perhaps the youngest team in the US - and despite that they look good & Dave even admits he's seen them work out & practice - there's nothing.
And when yet another Geno player stepped out of line and had to be booted (Jones) - again virtually nothing more than a short concise statement. No effort to dig or come up with the police report or exaggerate and lie about ligature marks or choking with hands...
What's up - they're shootiong themselves in the foot - the loyal Bradley fan base would love decent coverage of Bradley basketball and yet they're not getting it except from BardleyFans.com
There's no wonder the traffic & page views at BradleyFans trump the entire PJS web site - people know...
There was one really nice column on Dr. Chris Reynolds although it didn't even touch on basketball.
But then, every other new outlet also has covered Chris Reynolds extensively - HOI news, WMBD, even WMBD radio....so that Chris Reynolds column was just a little catch-up.
The other news outlets have had gobs or other pieces on Bradley, their summer workouts, their community service, their work on and around campus, etc...
So be prepared for scant coverage and tepid assessments of the really great stuff happening. I would laugh my *** off if any of the coverage compares our recruiting class to the best Bradley has ever had - or likens our big men to Donald Reese or Bayo - or talks about a 17-loss season as vast improvement predicting a TOP FOUR finish...
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