DLO's Thoughts

Today was a bitter sweet moment for me. As a Senior this was my fourth and final "First day of practice". However I wasn't gloomy or sad or any of that like I would I would be. I actually had jitters and was really excited as if it was my first ever one, freshmen year. I was excited to compete, excited to finally be able to get things rolling, excited to see what this team can do, excited to be pushed to our limits, and excited as this marks the start of the season being round the corner. The practice started off with a buzz due to the fact there was so much media trying to speak to us before practice. (Honestly wayyyyy more than any of my other 3 years). Which I guess is good because it means a lot more people are interested in us as a program. It was a little weird because I am so used to being in a routine getting ready prior to practice, and having to talk to the press in my "stretching time" was weird but I enjoyed it as I got to talk about the program an...

Today was the Missouri Valley Conference Media Day! For those that don't know Media Day is a day in which all the teams from the conference, Men's and Women's Basketball come together to take pictures, do a whole bunch of promo/social media stuff for the conference and gives the press the first opportunity of the new season to talk with coaches & players. This year was the first time in 5 years that the Missouri Valley Conference has invited players from Bradley University to attend. They only invite a few players each year and the past 5 years they only invited our head coach as they didn't believe any of our players were I guess "good enough to come". This year I was fortunate to be invited as well as, junior point guard Darrell Brown Jr. We departed Peoria this morning at 6.30am before arriving at Saint Louis at 9am. Upon arrival we were greeted by a players lounge full of video games, ping-pong, pop a shot and most importantly food. However at 9.30...

So now that we are back from our summer trip and school has began again we are in what I call the Pre preseason. The reason why I call it this is because we are in technically preseason but it isn't the official preseason. I will explain. Preseason technically begins for us September 29th because it is 40 days before our first official game of the season, which means all our NCAA restrictions will be removed. The current restrictions we have now based on NCAA rules are that we are not allowed to do more than 2 hours a week, of practice/workouts on court with a coach. We need to have two mandatory off-days a week, and all open gyms that take place has to be "voluntary" and coaches can not be in the same room watching or instructing what is going on. This is how things are taking place now until September 29th in order to control coaches from not over working players and preventing schools from having any advantages. When preseason begins however all restrictions will be ...

Every summer since I have been at Bradley from roughly the first week of June to the final week of August when fall classes begin, they have been spent here in Peoria with my team mates. Even though Basketball is considered a 'Winter sport' it really is a year round commitment as every major holiday is pretty much spend on the road, or as a team as you aren't really able to go home. Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, you name it, we are usually together and usually in Peoria. However this summer was a little different. It had been five years since Bradley had been on a foreign trip and we were eligible to go on one, as the NCAA allows college basketball teams to embark on a foreign tour once every four years and a extra ten practices in order to prepare. We chose to go to London, England and Amsterdam, Netherlands as a team. In order to allow myself to play in front of friends and family, but also my fellow senior Luuk Van Bree to do the same also. Due to this our summer in...

It took me a while to figure out what I should do as a blog. Especially one that I can continue to do on a weekly basis for roughly the next 14 weeks. However it just came to mind that maybe if I do a blog leading up to the 2018-2019 Bradley Basketball season and into roughly the first month of it, it might be fun. I say this because, I thought you guys and girls might enjoy hearing this from a players point of view. From a players perspective I can let you in on some first hand information, let you know about the things you really care about and frankly just fill you in on the way things are looking from a different non generic approach which you may be used to from Bradley's social media platforms, media outlets such as "The Journal Star", "Bradley Scout" and interviews from my Head Coach - Brian Wardle or any of the assistants. With this being my senior year I think I will really enjoy this because I have seen so such much change with this team and com...