Are we the only ones that care

Spider17 said:
I used to think that this would be crazy talk, and say of course the admin cares. In many ways I still believe that, but in other ways can see where there’s a level of complacency.

Look at our women’s team. We are supporting this Operation Red on all fronts. From the University president to various social media and email postings including from Roussell. It’s even made local television. At the beginning of the season we made an effort to have a fun way to announce our schedule. So that tells me that if we really wanted to, we could be doing these things with the men’s team. Yet we don’t, why not?

My fear that I’ve said several times before is that men’s basketball will become stale. We’re viewed by other A10 coaches as a middle-tier job, we have forgettable schedules 2 years in a row, and our in-game robins center experience has been lackluster. We don’t have many freshmen/sophomores to build our program on with confidence and instead rely on transfers that have mostly been misses than success.
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We were stale years ago - we celebrated when we won the a10 tourney in DC because we had a group including Grant and Gilly that kept the team together for a chance to win. That will not happen again.
 
"Unfinished business". All came back to make their statement recognizing they fiddled away the year before. They were disappointed in themselves and determined to make it right, Even then, it took a miracle to win the A10 Tourney. Thank you Gilly.

Different era. Ain't happening again.

Want to be relevant in our "signature" sport, everyone knows the first step is it ain't Mooney.
 
Yep, we've been stale for years. At this point, we've fermented and have gotten a few key people drunk on the idea that there's no other possible path forward.

Hell, the Ravens and Steelers both will have new coaches after decades with the same two guys -- and Mooney has been here longer than either of those guys were with their teams!

MOVE ON.
 
KE Spider said:
"Unfinished business". All came back to make their statement recognizing they fiddled away the year before. They were disappointed in themselves and determined to make it right, Even then, it took a miracle to win the A10 Tourney. Thank you Gilly.

Different era. Ain't happening again.

Want to be relevant in our "signature" sport, everyone knows the first step is it ain't Mooney.
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Need super seniors to save the day.
 
SpiderLaw said:
We were stale years ago - we celebrated when we won the a10 tourney in DC because we had a group including Grant and Gilly that kept the team together for a chance to win. That will not happen again.
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I guess we’ll just have to fundamentally agree to disagree on this. 2023-2024 was a great season. 2021-2022 had some underperformance during the season with all our super seniors but they delivered at the end of the day when it mattered most and got us an A10 championship/NCAA win. We cannot keep ignoring the good things that have happened to us and try to be dismissive of that.

I am not saying this about anyone specifically, but I feel when one doesn’t acknowledge those seasons as being very solid for us or trying to downplay them, it comes across as being a “Mooney-Hater” more than it does as someone who wants Richmond to succeed.

Simultaneous truths can exist. We had recent solid years that certainly weren’t stale, but the direction that this program is going in right now is not good at all. Schedule continues to stink, we have no solid underclassman other than Argabright to build upon, Tyne and Walz have not developed nearly as much as we’ve hoped during their times here so there’s little hope that Robinson, Harper, or McGlothin will develop to A10 caliber players. We have not done a good job with high school recruiting and our transfers, while skillful and talented in many ways, are not doing a good job competing at an A10 level offensively AND defensively. During this NIL/transfer era, we have had poor seasons 2 out of the last 3 years and if this season continues this way, will be 3 out of the last 4.

So what I would tell Hardt or PQ or anyone else of importance, if I had any influence, is that while Mooney did deliver with solid results, the new landscape of college athletics I think is one that he simply is not able to adjust to well enough for us to be competing at the level we all want to be. He has not adjusted in terms of high school recruiting, transfer recruiting, player development, and offensive/defensive schemes in my opinion. Hence my concern regarding the future direction of this program.
 
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My response was to the comment saying we were stale years ago. The last few years we won A10 tournament/NCAA game and A10 regular season. I certainly would not say that was stale. I had posted this in the old forum but I outlined how in 4-5 year stretches, there were consistencies of solid years even if it didn’t materialize in NCAA appearance. 2018-2019 was the culmination of a stretch after a few bad years where he could have justifiably been let go, but was not. I think Hardt made the right decision at that time because of who we had returning and it paid off with some great results the past few years.

I think that is all true and I also think that right now, in 2026, I am worried about the trajectory our program is headed for all the reasons I discussed above.
 
KE, I certainly hear where you’re coming from, and also can understand that over a 21 year tenure the accomplishments aren’t meeting the standards many of us want for our program. The trajectory in the past was certainly unstable and Mooney certainly had a longer leash here than other programs, but right when the leash was coming to an end always produced enough, especially most recently with a good 5 year stretch from 2019-2020 through 2023-2024.

I think we can all agree (I assume everyone?) that at this given point and time, the trajectory of our program is not good and unless there’s a serious turn around this season, something needs to be done or else we’re going to become a forgettable, middle/bottom tier A10 team and that is not good at all.

I enjoy your posts too!
 
The 2022-2023 season was fool’s gold. It was Mooney’s best A10 regular season, BUT the team did not make the postseason and there was nothing to build on after that season. It had fans thinking that UR somehow had mastered the portal, but it really was counter to everything Mooney had ever been about. It was the latest case of one player having a profound impact on a Spider team, but not enough to dance this time.

3 NCAAs in 21 years isn’t terrible, but it isn’t excellent either. The most humorous thing to me is the closest one can get to an official program goal during the Mooney years are statements by Bob Black. He has stated the goal is an NCAA appearance once every 4 years. By that measure, the program is falling short, but for some reason it is OK anyway. It’s hard.
 
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