Entering his 45th year as play-by-play broadcaster of Bradley Braves men’s basketball, “Voice of the Braves” announcer Dave Snell still looks forward to every season with a youthful zeal.
Snell, who will be providing play-by-play for Braves games in his 1,378th game during Monday’s season opener at the University of Alabama-Birmingham (UAB), reflected on his long career and previewed the 2023-2024 season for WCBU listeners and readers. Snell also offered his opinions on recent NCAA rulings and policies, as well as how he keeps motivated and energetic coming into each season of Bradley University men’s basketball.
“First of all I’ve been blessed to get this job all those years ago, and to constantly work on my craft,” said Snell, who is also assistant director of athletic communications for BU. “You owe that to your audience to give the best performance that you can. I’m a human being, so some games are better than others, but you will try to do the best you can do — and what you do is prepare.”
To prepare for each game, Snell assembles an old-school, menu-sized, double-sided collection of team statistics and rosters that help him to deliver an informed, accurate and concise broadcast for a variety of audiences.
“You are helping those that are blind, that are shut in, maybe imprisoned, and you are painting a picture for them in a radio broadcast. That’s a lot of responsibility, and I feel that every game. God has blessed me with the talent to do this and enjoy this,” said Snell.
On recent NCAA recruiting, NIL changes
Snell, who is a past president of the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association, is skeptical, perhaps critical, of how the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCCA), of which the Bradley basketball program is a Division I team, is appearing to squeeze mid-major collegiate sports programs out of postseason tournament play through its recent edicts.
“The chasm is increasing by the year,” he said of the division.
Snell said the advent of name, image and likeness (NIL) financial earning opportunities for student-athletes and the NCAA Division I transfer portal, which allows athletes to transfer to other D-1 programs after as little as one year’s commitment to a university, has added layers of challenges to mid-major college coaches’ ability to recruit and retain top athletic talent.
Adding in the NCAA's recent announcement that mid-major conference regular season champions would no longer gain automatic entry to the league’s National Invitational Tournament (NIT), he worries that the deck is stacked against mid-majors.
“I’m not sure that paying (athletes) something is all bad, but however, what it’s done is change college athletics into pro athletics, only just at an earlier age,” said Snell, pointing to the disparity in the ability for a mid-major or lower program to compete with potential NIL dollars that could be dangled by other, larger schools recruiting elite athletes.
“A lot of times now, the ‘Power Five’ conferences are pilfering the smaller conferences. For example, if Hersey Hawkins, Bradley’s all time leading scorer, were being recruited now he would make a million dollars before he reached the NBA.”
Because of these recent developments, Snell envisions a day when the NCAA will declare a dividing line between major and mid-major postseason tournaments. Still, he prefers the old-school approach of when student-athletes committed to a university for the long haul and honored their pledge. As he sometimes says during his game broadcasts, Once a Brave, Always a Brave.
“I’m an old fashioned person about loyalty,” he said, “and I think when you sign a letter of intent to go someplace, you make a commitment.”
Braves picked for 3rd in coaches’ poll
As for the Braves’ chances in the highly competitive Missouri Valley Conference (MVC) this season, Snell thinks the team should compete for the title despite being ranked in the official MVC preseason poll at third behind Drake University and the University of Northern Iowa.
“Drake returns their MVC (Larry Bird) Player of the Year (Tucker) DeVries and was picked to win, and then another team, Northern Iowa, with Bowen Born, who was named first team all-conference and a lot of other players returning, that’s how usually these pre season polls go. Bradley was picked third,” said Snell, who attended Pekin High School in the late 1960s and graduated from BU in 1976.
With four starters returning, led by Malevy Leons, a 6’9”, 210-pound shooting forward from the Netherlands who was named MVC Defensive Player of the Year in 2022-2023, Snell feels the Braves will be in the hunt for another regular season title.
On Monday night’s opener
The time might be ripe to upset UAB, a member of the American Athletic Conference that took advantage of the NCAA portal to recruit two talented newcomers, according to Snell. “They are a very big team. They had two players signed by the (National Basketball Association’s) Dallas Mavericks, and they were a very good team. They are very physical.
“On the other hand, Bradley has four starters back and they have a bunch of newcomers in their own right. In a game like this, with so many new players, they haven’t had a chance to play with the lights on (and) sometimes the chemistry isn’t there in the first game. Even the big schools, with the portal, have to incorporate these players into their system and it’s sometimes not the best version of them,” he said.
“I think both teams are going to have to feel themselves out, and I hope the Braves can be competitive and play good defense. With the new players, that could be a learned process. Their point guard is a great scorer, but the Braves have some great scorers, too. It should be an interesting game, and I’m looking forward to starting another season.”
