When the clock struck zero in St. Louis, Missouri and the Loyola Ramblers hit a buzzer-beater to end the Bradley men’s basketball season, there was a bitter taste in everyone’s mouths.
Now, close to seven months later, a new Braves team is ready to lace up their basketball shoes and get to work. No one is more ready to get the season started than head coach Geno Ford.
Ford, now entering his fourth season at the helm of the Bradley basketball program has accumulated an overall record of 37-62 (.373) and a Missouri Valley Conference (MVC) record of 16-38 (.296).
The Braves are going into the new season having lost their leading scorer and top rebounder from last season, as Walt Lemon Jr. and Tyshon Pickett both graduated in May.
Two weeks into official practice time, Ford said that this year’s Braves squad is much different than previous years.
“This is a team that has a lot of potential,” Ford said. “We are blending a lot of new faces this year, so I can see somewhere between nine and 10 guys playing double digit minutes this season, which makes us a very deep team.”
The depth that Ford speaks about includes a team with the most upperclassmen in the MVC (11) consisting of 10 juniors and one senior. Although this is going to be a team of many upperclassmen, seven of them have not played a single minute as a Brave.
“The positive of being this deep is that a lot of guys are capable of scoring double figures each night,” Ford said. “One of the great challenges, though, is that day-to-day, you just don’t know who will be the top scorer, but we think that this is a good challenge to have.”
One returner who led the team in three pointers last season and has stepped into a key leadership role, junior Omari Grier, with a message for fans and supporters.
“Why not us?” Grier said. “People can doubt us all they want, but we know how good this team can be this year, so we are going to keep working hard to get where we want to be.”
With a potential new hashtag, #WhyNotUs, for the season and a newfound energy, the Braves are going to be tested multiple times this season before they start the tough MVC conference schedule.
“Wichita State will be picked to win [the MVC] by a large shot, but after them, the league is completely wide open,” Ford said. “We feel as though we don’t need to take a backseat to anybody. I mean, this is our fourth year here with our staff, so we feel that we not only should be an upper half team in the league, but in the thick of it.”
The sense around the team is that the Braves have a lot of talent and depth on the team, which is different than most seasons when only a rotation of five to six players would get the majority of the playing time. Ford said not to be surprised if you see a rotation this season of up to eight to ten players coming in.
“This is by far the most talented team that we’ve had here so far,” Ford said. “But talent doesn’t always win games, so we need to come together and be a good team.”
For the Braves to convert that talent into wins, Ford has a simple three-step equation the team needs to follow in order to be successful.
“For us to succeed, we need to come together as a team, make free throws and not turn the ball over,” he said.
Now, the waiting game continues for the Braves who tip off their only public preseason matchup at home against Augustana College Nov. 6. The first official game for Bradley is Nov. 14 at Carver Arena against Texas-Arlington.
