Following a ninth place finish and a 12-20 record, Bradley parted ways with Jim Les after nine seasons. Les had compiled a 154-140 overall record during his tenure, but was just 74-88 in the MVC and never finished higher than fourth — although he did lead them to an improbable Sweet 16 run in 2006. Les has moved on to UC Davis, while Bradley brought in Geno Ford to begin the process of resuscitating a proud program.
Bradley isn’t used to losing, with 1,565 all-time wins (26th nationally) and the second-most MVC wins all-time with 514. That latter number is even more impressive when you consider it was compiled in just 58 seasons, while Drake, who has the most MVC wins, has taken 39 more seasons to compile only 12 more victories.
The brochure distributed at MVC media day last week had a cover headline that proclaimed “Making Bradley Basketball Ford Tough”, a play on Ford Truck commercials, and an apt description for how Geno Ford hopes to get his team to play. He has his work cut out for him in Year One, as a Braves team coming off just the sixth 20 loss season in its’ history returns only one of its’ top three scorers from a year ago.
Ford comes to the Valley from Kent State, where he was 49-22 his last two seasons, both of which culminated in Mid-American Conference Coach of the Year honors. So why leave Kent State, which seemed poised for an NCAA tournament berth this year, to take over a struggling Bradley program?
“There are a lot of reasons. Number one, the administration at Bradley is a diehard supporter of basketball and they want to win. Any time you have administrators who are in your corner and are willing to do the things necessary to move a program up in the league, that’s huge. And we have as good a fan base as anyone in the country. Last year, we had a team that lost 20 games, finished in the cellar, and the final home game had 10,000 people in attendance. That doesn’t happen in very many places.
There’s a lot of great high school basketball in the area, so it gives you a great back yard to recruit from. Our practice facility and arena are on par with any Big Ten or Big 12 team you would see. This is a great job, and I’m really thrilled to death that I’ve got this opportunity.”
Unlike other rebuilding Valley schools that took foreign trips, Bradley had taken one recently under Jim Les and were not eligible to go this summer. That left Coach Ford to get to know his players without the luxury ten extra practices leading up to a foreign trip allows. What he discovered is that the Braves aren’t as far away from contention as some of the experts think.
Gone is Andrew Warren, who averaged 18.8 points — and 19.3 in MVC play — with 5.5 rebounds, nearly two assists and two steals a game while playing an average of 36.7 minutes a night. Also gone is Sam Maniscalco, their would-be senior point guard who was granted a medical redshirt after a left ankle injury sidelined him just six games into the season. He graduated in May, and then transferred to Illinois where he will play immediately as he pursues a masters degree in a major not offered at Bradley.
“I totally understand. As I’ve said all summer, we wish Sammy well. In his four years at Bradley, all he did was play hard, get his degree on time and lead the team. We’re certainly rooting for him to have a good year.”
Returning is Dyricus Simms-Edwards, however, who had a strong finish to last season, averaging 17.4 points, 5.4 rebounds, 4.8 assists and 1.8 steals a game over the last ten games. Coach Ford told WBR at media day, “Dyricus really finished strong at the end of last year, but he needs to take the next step as a player, which is to be consistent and be somebody we can count on.”
Also returning is Taylor Brown, who sat out all of last year while he underwent cardiac testing. Finally cleared medically, if he can return to anything close to the player he was in 2009-2010, Ford will be thrilled as Brown was fifth in the league in scoring (14.1) and fifth in rebounding (6.9), the only player to rank in the top five in the league in both statistics. “We’re going to need him to have a really good senior year and be a main key for us,” Ford told us. “He’s going to be a senior, and he’s someone we’re going to need to get consistent contributions from.”
Among the five freshmen, the player Ford gushed about the most at media day was Shayok Shayok, a 6’6″, 215 pound forward from Ottawa, Ontario. Shayok has an impressive 7’2″ wingspan according to Coach Ford, and he averaged 18 points and 10 rebounds at the prestigious IMG Academy in Bradenton, Florida last year.
“Shayok is a great ball handler and a very good passer. He’ll probably play major minutes at the small forward spot. He’s got unbelievable upside, has a lot of physical gifts and he’s also our hardest worker. He is in the gym every day at 6 a.m., getting shots. Any time you work hard, good things usually happen.”
Another newcomer Ford mentioned was 5’11” guard Donivine Stewart, a native of Peoria who decided to play for his hometown team.
“He’s a strong guard. Donivine has a good body, so that will help him. He’s 190 pounds, so he’s not thin like a lot of freshmen. He really shoots the ball well and he’s got pretty good saavy about him. He finds himself in the right place at the right time. He’ll be in the battle for time at the point guard spot.”
The Braves are picked dead last in the Valley preseason poll, a spot they’re not used to occupying. And they don’t plan on staying there for long.
“Everyone wants to talk about league predictions and where you’re picked, but the focus for us is that none of that matters. That’s all out the window. What we have to do is go out and prove that that’s not where we’re going to finish. We’ve got a group that has a lot of character, and some kids that have real competitiveness. That will be what we use to fuel the fire a little bit, to try to get a little better every day. That’s a little coachspeak, I guess, but I do like our group, they’re working hard, and we feel like we can be pretty good come February.”
I didn’t have a vote in the poll, but if I did I probably would not have voted them to finish last. There’s enough talent on this Braves team to challenge for sixth place and a potential CIT bid, if their freshmen come along as Coach Ford expects. There’s also enough inexperience for that tenth place prediction to come true. That’s part of the reason Ford lined up the non-conference schedule the way he did — to gauge the progress of his team early on. They have road games against Michigan, Wyoming, and Drexel, along with games versus Wisconsin and either BYU or Nevada in the Chicago Invitational Challenge.
“We wanted to kind of see where we were. What you don’t want to do is put your team in a position where if you do have a good season, you can’t get an at-large [NCAA Tournament] bid. We’ve got to get our kids expecting to go beat teams like that. It’s going to be tough. We know how good these people are that we’re playing. I know it will get our kids excited. We’re trying to pump some life into our program. We’re trying to get people excited about Bradley basketball.”