SpiderPrime
Starter
I feel like I’m living in the Twilight Zone with the Mooney apologists still out there..I really think they should submit themselves to full psychological evaluations
A clueless input
- Thread starter Spiderp31
- Start date
Urmite
Bench player
Good point. I have always liked that site, but I miss seeing us on there.
MrTbone
Bench player
But would have not given cover to CM and our AD to claim progress or acceptance of this years results. That’s a real world result of scheduling soft and having no one being willing to call it out at the end of the season with a very mediocre record.
MrTbone
Bench player
I’d rather see us lose by 20 to Clemson than by 2 to Charleston Southern but I agree with your point that we weren’t going to make a miracle ooc run.
At some point you have to balance the schedule between winning/losing and actually making it interesting, for both fans and players.
Spider17
All A-10 player
Completely agree.
The key word is balance and up until the last couple years there was some degree of balance. I guess we can be thankful that the “build the confidence” OOC plan failed miserably. If it had worked, we may have never seen a balanced schedule again.
I agree 100 percent. Actually play a game that matters. I don’t care if we win lose by 20 to a power school. I rather challenge myself than play a useless team that isn’t going anywhere.
SpiderRick
Bench player
One of my tennis buddies is head and shoulders better than the rest of us in my group. We rotate doubles partners and one day he asked me if I wanted to play doubles with him. I told him "No. I'd rather play against you than with you...I like the challenge"
*23*
All A-10 player
Right. That is part of sports. When my kids played on AAU and travel teams, when we were stepping up and playing well known and good programs, the kids, coaches and parents were all excited for those games, and the kids mostly played up to the competition.
Mooney is so scared and we now know he has openly ducked opponents. Disgusting and again a terrible terrible message to send to the players, fans and everyone.
no one (PQ, other boosters, Hardt, Hallock, fans, alumni, etc ...) can feel good about the results. the OOC doesn't hide that we're heading towards 5-13 in the A10 this season on the heals of a 5-13 A10 record last year. we're currently a bottom feeder in our conference. there's no ROI on any NIL (or other) investment made the past 2 years.
the last time we had 2 bad years, there were signs that Mooney had it turned around. and he did. I don't see the signs this time. AA is promising. Harper and Robinson are decent. but there's not enough. and to land a difference maker or two in the portal will cost a ton. who's willing to write that check coming off the last two seasons?
97spiderfan
Starter
Yeah, anyone who plays competitive sports wants to take a shot at playing up against high quality competition. Those are the games you look forward to. We didn't even give our flagship D-1 MBB players a shot at one of those games this year.
As Gkiller said, the culture of our program is one of comfort and so playing big time opponents is like kryptonite to that mindset because if forces you to go outside your comfort zone.
97spiderfan
Starter
What I hope is what we are seeing is a program and coaching staff in its death spiral. They tried to paper over this roster and their coaching abilities by scheduling a weak @ss OOC schedule and it is all crashing down on them now. Everyone sees the OOC for what it was and the product on the floor is not competitive within a pretty weak A-10 conference, two years running now.
Mooney has no answers and is acting all morose, the team quit on him in front of the largest home audience of the year. It's like he knows what is coming and the fight has gone out of him.
Mooney has no answers and is acting all morose, the team quit on him in front of the largest home audience of the year. It's like he knows what is coming and the fight has gone out of him.
Arachnid
Bench player
Rick I’m with you. That’s just what Spiders are. Underdog disrespected not as talented and more rounded, using every facet of thinking and physicality; hate to lose and always love to beat the more “talented “ “respected” favorites. Want and desire the challenge. We may not win but the competition is not going away unbloodied and unscathed. They will know and remember they were in a tough competition.
not sure why you think the A10 is weak. it's 7th in conference NET for the 2nd year in a row ... the best it's been in quite a while.
the conference is good. we're not.
And, if recruiting against us, I would definitely focus on how pathetic our OOC schedules were the past 2 years. Kids want to play good teams. They want to sign with a school and then tell their friends " we are playing.....in November and playing at .....in December". And, playing in an MTE where the players and their friends have actually heard of the other schools might help too.
The MWC is a good conference, one that the A-10 should try to be like. The A-10 is not.
Compare top 6 NETs to the Mountain West:
MWC: NETs of 27, 42, 45, 59, 60, 67.
A-10: NETs of 16, 52, 75, 87, 90, 102.
When your 3rd best NET in a 15 teams conference is 75, you are not a good conference. And, then we have lots of really bad teams, us included.
A-10 will be a 1 bid league unless SLU loses in the tourney. It is not hard to be the 7th best conference when 8-10 are the West Coast, Missouri Valley, and American.
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97spiderfan
Starter
I said pretty weak. We are probably a 1 bid league unless SLU loses in the conference tourney. Best OOC win by the entire conference was Santa Clara.
What I meant is the A-10 is not the conference it was 5 years ago, it is largely a 1 bid league unless the chips fall right and the best team doesn't win the conference tourney. I think some Mooneyites like to remember the A-10 for what it was a decade ago vs. what it is now.
