The Bradley Braves are MVC Champs

[tribecalledquest]

Congrats to Bradley and Coach Wardle; has to be a great relief to him to get that first MVC regular season title. Now with that and a pair of MVC Tourney championships, his resume becomes more complete; has to be considered in that top rung of MVC coaches. Getting hard to separate between Jake/Devries/ Wardle, and my suspicion is Alexander is probably in that group as well.

I think I agree with you there.

Kind of feels like those 3 have separated for sure and Alexander is awfully impressive, especially offensively (that spacing is an absolute thing of beauty).

I would put Alexander in that group for sure.

[BEARZ77]

Congrats to Bradley and Coach Wardle; has to be a great relief to him to get that first MVC regular season title. Now with that and a pair of MVC Tourney championships, his resume becomes more complete; has to be considered in that top rung of MVC coaches. Getting hard to separate between Jake/Devries/ Wardle, and my suspicion is Alexander is probably in that group as well.

I think I agree with you there.

Kind of feels like those 3 have separated for sure and Alexander is awfully impressive, especially offensively (that spacing is an absolute thing of beauty).

Jake needs a really good year next year though. Obviously he can still coach, but 5 out of last 7 being .500 or less is a real negative trend. He has some really nice young players, but needs some quality size among others to get his program back in order. Doesn't seem to have the front court strength or defensive approach of his really good teams of late.

[BCPanther]

Congrats to Bradley and Coach Wardle; has to be a great relief to him to get that first MVC regular season title. Now with that and a pair of MVC Tourney championships, his resume becomes more complete; has to be considered in that top rung of MVC coaches. Getting hard to separate between Jake/Devries/ Wardle, and my suspicion is Alexander is probably in that group as well.

I think I agree with you there.

Kind of feels like those 3 have separated for sure and Alexander is awfully impressive, especially offensively (that spacing is an absolute thing of beauty).

Jake needs a really good year next year though. Obviously he can still coach, but 5 out of last 7 being .500 or less is a real negative trend. He has some really nice young players, but needs some quality size among others to get his program back in order. Doesn't seem to have the front court strength or defensive approach of his really good teams of late.

The rub is that the other two years were outright league titles.

He's no doubt had a weird period. He read his press clippings and decided that he didn't need great talent to win. I think that's been rectified a bit with a couple staff changes and what they look like going forward. Being way better than everybody else on the bench (and he usually is) is great but you've got to have some guys that can get it done out there for you.

If next year doesn't look better, that's when you start seeing some uncomfortable discussions going on.

[Salukimadness86]

First time Bradley has won a conference title since 1996 and first time winning it in Carver Arena. 1988 and 1996 happened at SIU, 1982 was against Tulsa at the old Robertson Memorial Fieldhouse.

Carver Arena was a sellout at 10,453. Honestly never believed I would see anything over 10k again after the dark days of the Geno and early Wardle years. One of the best basketball games I have ever seen live and the crowd was electric.

Congratulations to BU. They played a great game yesterday, in front of a national TV audience. Well deserved celebration.
Regarding your comment about early Wardle years. Can you please elaborate on this?

[bradley_townie]

First time Bradley has won a conference title since 1996 and first time winning it in Carver Arena. 1988 and 1996 happened at SIU, 1982 was against Tulsa at the old Robertson Memorial Fieldhouse.

Carver Arena was a sellout at 10,453. Honestly never believed I would see anything over 10k again after the dark days of the Geno and early Wardle years. One of the best basketball games I have ever seen live and the crowd was electric.

Congratulations to BU. They played a great game yesterday, in front of a national TV audience. Well deserved celebration.
Regarding your comment about early Wardle years. Can you please elaborate on this?

Bradley played on Thursday at Arch Madness for 7 straight years from 2011-2017. When Wardle was hired in 2015, he blew up the roster and finished 9th with 3 conference wins. The next year, Bradley finished 7th. An improvement, but still playing on Thursday. After two straight Thursdays under Wardle, and 7 straight Thursdays since 2011, many fans were anxious about whether Wardle was the guy because we saw the same thing happen under Geno a few years earlier. Luckily, the program kept steadily improving over the years.

[Majik45]

First time Bradley has won a conference title since 1996 and first time winning it in Carver Arena. 1988 and 1996 happened at SIU, 1982 was against Tulsa at the old Robertson Memorial Fieldhouse.

Carver Arena was a sellout at 10,453. Honestly never believed I would see anything over 10k again after the dark days of the Geno and early Wardle years. One of the best basketball games I have ever seen live and the crowd was electric.

Congratulations to BU. They played a great game yesterday, in front of a national TV audience. Well deserved celebration.
Regarding your comment about early Wardle years. Can you please elaborate on this?

Wardle did a complete rebuild from scratch, went scorched earth and literally ran every single player off his first year except for one, Donte Thomas. He took no transfers and basically went all Freshman his first year, and recruited those kids late in the spring after most "good" players committed else where. They went 5-27 on the year, and 3-15 in the Valley. The 3 wins in Valley were by a combined 8 points. Only 3 players amounted to anything at Bradley, as Donte Thomas stayed as the lone sophomore and ended up 2nd team all conference his senior year. Dwayne Lautier-Ogunleye (DLO) and Luuk Van Bree were the other two players who were key role players as seniors when they won the 2019 MVC Tourney. On a side note, Wardle did have Scottie James on that first team who ended up 1st team all conference in the Atlantic Sun for LIberty.

His 2nd recruiting class included Darryl Brown, Nate Kennel, and Koch Bar, but again went heavy on Freshman which resulted in a 13-20 season, with a 7-11 record in the Valley. Most Bradley fans were pretty impatient with the way he rebuilt the Roster as he took the VERY slow approach building a culture as opposed to some quicker fixes.

It appears to be paying off now though.

[Salukimadness86]

First time Bradley has won a conference title since 1996 and first time winning it in Carver Arena. 1988 and 1996 happened at SIU, 1982 was against Tulsa at the old Robertson Memorial Fieldhouse.

Carver Arena was a sellout at 10,453. Honestly never believed I would see anything over 10k again after the dark days of the Geno and early Wardle years. One of the best basketball games I have ever seen live and the crowd was electric.

Congratulations to BU. They played a great game yesterday, in front of a national TV audience. Well deserved celebration.
Regarding your comment about early Wardle years. Can you please elaborate on this?

Wardle did a complete rebuild from scratch, went scorched earth and literally ran every single player off his first year except for one, Donte Thomas. He took no transfers and basically went all Freshman his first year, and recruited those kids late in the spring after most "good" players committed else where. They went 5-27 on the year, and 3-15 in the Valley. The 3 wins in Valley were by a combined 8 points. Only 3 players amounted to anything at Bradley, as Donte Thomas stayed as the lone sophomore and ended up 2nd team all conference his senior year. Dwayne Lautier-Ogunleye (DLO) and Luuk Van Bree were the other two players who were key role players as seniors when they won the 2019 MVC Tourney. On a side note, Wardle did have Scottie James on that first team who ended up 1st team all conference in the Atlantic Sun for LIberty.

His 2nd recruiting class included Darryl Brown, Nate Kennel, and Koch Bar, but again went heavy on Freshman which resulted in a 13-20 season, with a 7-11 record in the Valley. Most Bradley fans were pretty impatient with the way he rebuilt the Roster as he took the VERY slow approach building a culture as opposed to some quicker fixes.

It appears to be paying off now though.

Thanks for the insight. Interesting take regarding the slower approach on the rebuild. Perhaps others are using the same approach.

[Mikovio]

“Culture” is a buzzword for sure but Wardle has prioritized high character high school recruits since day 1. He also was forced to look overseas that first year for guys like DLO, Bar and Van Bree which has paid dividends because they enjoyed their experience here. It led to Boya, Ville, Rienk (a Dutch pro) and Leons (Dutch and JUCO POY). Of course there was the Springfield incident in 2021 with Childs and Nolan which derailed the program, and he lost Terry Nolan’s replacement— transfer Terry Roberts — who was 1st team all MVC. But we’re done recruiting Terrys and hopefully Duke Deen sticks around.

Incredible atmosphere Sunday. Town is still abuzz. I think if BU makes Arch Madness finals you could very well have more than 5K BU fans there.

[bradley_townie]

and he lost Terry Nolan’s replacement— transfer Terry Roberts — who was 1st team all MVC. But we’re done recruiting Terrys and hopefully Duke Deen sticks around.

Care to elaborate what you mean by "we're done recruiting Terrys"?

[Mikovio]

I’m joking about how Terry recruits don’t stay but actually I’m glad we had Terry Roberts or last year could’ve been a Thursday appearance