Bradley guard one of the globetrotters

Former Bradley basketball recruit Michael Ochereobia has enrolled at Highland Community College in Freeport and intends to play basketball this season for the Cougars.

Highland coach Zac Roman is high on Ochereobia, a 6-foot-8, 255-pounder. The native of England played last year for a prep school in the Canary Islands.

With the release of the Missouri Valley Conference schedule on Friday, Bradley’s 2010-11 men’s basketball slate is nearing completion.

One reason the Bradley men’s basketball nonconference schedule is not yet complete is because of difficulties assembling a pre-Thanksgiving tournament in which the Braves are to play.

But the Hall of Fame Tip-off Tournament, intended to be an eight-team event Nov. 20-21 in Springfield, Mass., almost is ready to be unveiled, said Greg Procino, the Hall of Fame’s manager for events and awards.

“We have an eighth team we’re working with to complete the field,” Procino said Thursday. “It’s my anticipation we’ll have it completed by the end of next week with an announcement shortly thereafter.

As current Bradley basketball players pulled back the runners covering the sidelines of the university’s new practice facility, Mitchell “J.J.” Anderson wiped tears from his eyes.
 

There, in bold red and white, were the words “Mitchell ‘JJ’ Anderson Court.”

Bradley University on Monday dedicated the court in its new basketball practice facility to former Braves star Mitchell “JJ” Anderson.

The format for the Basketball Hall of Fame Tip-Off Tournament, which includes the Bradley Braves, suddenly appears up in the air.

Bradley’s state-of-the-art $50 million athletics palace is, at once, new and old school.

New school technology and comfort coupled with strong nods toward old school designs, traditions and history.

It’s a formula that’s worked well in recent years with modern sports stadiums, particularly baseball parks.

Former Missouri State basketball coach Charlie Spoonhour is on the waiting list for a lung transplant at Duke University Medical Center, according to a blog posted by the Springfield (Mo.) News-Leader.

A new era began for the Bradley men’s basketball program Thursday afternoon as the full team participated in its first intrasquad scrimmage in the team’s new practice facility.

“It’s amazing,” said junior Will Egolf. “It’s so refreshing to get out of Haussler and over here in the air conditioning. It’s beautiful, top-notch.”

The Missouri Valley Conference has tweaked its tiebreaker policy for the league’s men’s basketball tournament, installing a reward system for teams playing a strong nonconference schedule.

The Bradley athletics ticket office has completed its move from Shea Stadium to the university’s new on-campus arena and is open for business during regular business hours.

One Bradley Brave already knows first hand what’s in store for the basketball Braves when they play Dec. 8 against national champion Duke at Cameron Indoor Stadium in Durham, N.C.

As a youngster, sophomore guard Jake Eastman attended a North Carolina-Duke game with his father, Kevin, an assistant coach with the Boston Celtics.

“My dad knows the Duke coaches,” Eastman said. “So we got to go look around Cameron and I got to shoot around in there. It was very cool.

The last time Bradley played a men’s basketball game at Duke’s Cameron Indoor Stadium — Dec. 8, 1951 — the Braves were a national power and the Blue Devils were still looking for their first postseason tournament invitation.

Times have changed as the two schools plan to meet again at 70-year-old Cameron in Durham, N.C., this fall.

Bradley athetics director Michael Cross confirmed Monday that BU has agreed to play at Duke, the defending NCAA national champions, on a date in early December to be determined.

Jordan Brown, a 6-foot-4, 180-pound shooting guard from Atlanta Westlake High School, will join the Bradley Braves men’s basketball team this fall as a recruited walk-on, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution is reporting.

Levern Tart, the Most Valuable Player of the 1964 NIT for the tournament champion Bradley Braves, died this week at his home in Island Park, N.Y.

Former Bradley player Chris Roberts has been drafted by the Harlem Globetrotters.

Roberts, who finished second in the State Farm Slam Dunk Championships at the Final Four in April, was one of six players extended invitations to try out for the world-famous basketball troupe.

The scariest part of the latest college sports quake was watching Kansas helplessly dangle while other entities determined its future.


Here’s why.

Indiana State has promoted assistant Greg Lansing to be its new men’s basketball coach.

Indiana State basketball coach Kevin McKenna has resigned to take an assistant coaching job at Oregon.

As far as former Bradley basketball star Willie Scott is concerned, his return to the Hilltop as an assistant basketball coach is not only “a dream come true,” but part of God’s plan.

Scott, hired Wednesday to bring head coach Jim Les’s staff back to full strength, had struck gold in the fashion industry after his playing career ended. Among the clientele for whom he designed clothes were Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, radio host Tom Joyner, a host of NBA players — and the late music-industry icon Michael Jackson.

“The clothing business was going so well, I couldn’t get out,” Scott said.

Dave Snell's role in Bradley Braves athletics is expanding to full-time.

The veteran play-by-play voice of the men's basketball program Friday was named assistant director of athletics communications. Previously, Snell worked in development and later as a special assistant to the president of the university.

Solid spring workout sessions by inside players Will Egolf, Jordan Prosser and Milos Knezevic have Bradley men’s basketball coach Jim Les thinking of playing a bigger lineup next season.

Les indicated that during an on-line chat Bradleyfans.com conducted Tuesday night.

ormer Bradley assistant men’s basketball coach Alvin Brooks III has officially been named as an assistant at Sam Houston State. Also added to the Bearkats staff was Chris Mudge, formerly an aide at Midland College.

Michael Cross gets nervous when he hears Bradley fans complain about getting shut out from attending potential men’s basketball games at the soon-to-be-completed 4,200-seat campus arena.

“We’re not going to put the Illinois State game in there or any Valley games,” the first-year BU athletics director said. “I can tell you definitively that won’t happen. But for a particular opponent, a smaller venue might make sense. We don’t want to limit people’s ability to see games. But this gives us an opportunity for more flexibility in our scheduling and to get as many home games as possible.”

On the final day of the spring signing period Wednesday, Bradley received a signed National Letter of Intent from 6-foot-10, 215-pound center Andrew Davis of Edmond, Okla., via IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla.


Davis, who will be a freshman this fall at BU with four years of eligibility, gave an oral commitment in February to Army, the former school of new Bradley assistant coach Jim Platt.