Eldorado's Bradley picks up second straight IBCA award

Call it a by product of buying into a program.

For the second straight year, Eldorado head coach Josh Bradley has won the District 21 Illinois Basketball Coaches Association Coach Of The Year.

The Eagle alum and fourth year head coach went 29-3 this season and won the school's second straight regional.

Earlier in the week, Eldorado head football coach Joe Clark won the Southern Illinois Coaches Association Coach Of The Year and Bradley broke down the award as a process of a group of student-athletes buying into both programs.

"This is a group of seniors that we have had our eye on for three or four years now. They're good kids and I think it's a combination of them being good kids and buying into what you want to do with your program. Because of that, Joe and I both had success and got recognition and likely wouldn't have if the players didn't whole heatedly buy into what we wanted to do."

Last season when Bradley won the award, Eldorado basketball was 28-4 and have combined to go 57-7. The wins are most in school history over a two year period and for the first time in school history, the Eagles won back-to-back Eldorado Holiday Tournament titles. In addition to the two straight IHSA Class 2A Regional titles, EHS won the Vienna tournament two straight years and were back-to-back Black Diamond Conference East champions. The Eagles also won the West Frankfort Mid-Winter Classic in January.

Bradley also knows an award like this doesn't come without committed coaches.

"For us, we had a lot of those kids back from last year's 28-4 season, but we also had to the same coaching staff. When you have good players and a staff around you, you can get an award like that."

Other local coaches that won IBCA District 21 Coach Of The Year honors were: Mike Chamness (Anna-Jonesboro), Bob Waggoner (Pinckneyville), Todd Tripp (Goreville) and Gus Gillespie (Marion). In District 20, Mt. Carmel's Tyler Buss won Coach Of The Year honors.

Bradley will be presented his award at the IBCA banquet on May 5th at Illinois State University.

Michael Dann covers prep and college sports for the Southern Illinois Local Media News Group. Follow him on Twitter: @spydieshooter.