Jim Les Out at Bradley

While March Madness always brings about some great on-court action, it also is the time of season for coaches to start losing their jobs. Case in point, Jim Les has been let go at Bradley.

Bradley only won 12 games this season, which I’d say probably had something to do with this decision. Still, it was the only losing season Les had since the 2004-2005 season when the Braves went 13-15.

We’ve seen a lot of exciting runs from MVC teams over the years. Of course, the most recent one was Northern Iowa last year when they knocked off top-seeded Kansas in the second round.

But one of the more memorable Sweet 16 run in recent years was in 2006 by Les’ Bradley squad. They were the 13-seed in the Oakland regional, and took on 4-seed Kansas in the first round. They defeated the Jayhawks by four, and many wrote it off as just that inevitable first round upset that is bound to happen.

But then Bradley beat the 5-seeded Pittsburgh Panthers. Just like the first matchup, no one saw this coming. Then came the matchup with Memphis, and heading into the game, I honestly thought Bradley would win and go the Elite Eight as a 13-seed. As we know in the NCAA tournament though, it’s all about the matchup, and this just wasn’t a good matchup for the Braves. Memphis won it comfortably, but it was still a lot of fun to watch those first two wins by this team.

This run gets overlooked by the fact that this was the year that George Mason made it to the Final Four, so I guess that’s understandable. I thought Les could be heading for a power conference job after the Sweet 16 appearance, but since he was a former star at Bradley, it’s easy to understand why he stayed.

It’s the nature of the business in the NCAA though. It’s a “what have you done for me lately type of world, and the struggles the last few years was just something that couldn’t save Les his job.

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