I truly believe you could give Mooney a 10 mil Nil budget and the results

I’ll bite. Hypothetically if we had spent 150% more and been equal in NIL spend this year, what would have happened?

Would Moon really have benched Tyne and Tanner and given Walz a lesser role?

No he still would have started those guys. This is the issue - what core are we adding big nil transfers into? Tyne and Tanner? AA and some freshmen?

And Lopez and Johnston won UR a few games this year. So would we have upgraded that massively? From Lopez, unlikely, from Johnston, probably yes for a more consistent scorer. For both on defense sure. Or maybe. Really an unknown bc Moon grabs offesnive system guys first and foremost.

But the NIL would not have solved the Moon system guys and the portal busts like AP. Beagle would still have been a backup.

And Moon would have struggled to integrate them as he struggled to do with Quinn, Bigelow and Roche.

I know Sman has said no one other than AA should get a raise next year - who believes that will be actually true?

Do I tryst moon to know how to allocate funds? No I don’t.
 
I thought we were beyond the academics bit. If we’re not, we need to be immediately. There are what, 13 scholarship players? I don’t want us recruiting criminals who can’t read, but we won’t. I really don’t care if we sign a bunch of C students who can play basketball well and pass their courses. Literally everyone else in the league is doing whatever it takes to build the best roster — we need to do the exact same thing or else fold the program.

No more tying one arm behind our back and crying about the disadvantage we have.

We've already lost our reputation as a good basketball school. I would at least like to hang on to our reputation as a fine academic school.
 
EL, the "academic" card has been a frustrating piece of crap card over the years. Just like a lot of this, Mooney could play this card with no real knowledge to the masses if it existed. And we did seem to get indication that it existed to a certain extent with the guy that went to Xavier.

But again, you have your buddy PQ giving tens of millions to the school, and you are the Number 1 Employee. Any other alpah dog coach would have pulled together a meeting and made those players happen. But mooney just lowered his head and accepted.

Just like the scheduling lies. We could get good games, but yes we may have to travel an extra day and play a few away games, and pick up the phone when JMU repeatedly calls. No JMU not great, but better than an effing D3. Mr. Fake nice guy flat out liar.
 
I just don’t feel like there is a long list of players that UR missed on because of money.
I'm thinking there's probably a long list of players we didn't even try with because we knew we couldn't be competitive financially.

Manon visited here, right? chose Vanderbilt. probably got more money than we offered. who knows if we had a better budget.
 
You say this like we would be the only team willing to go to 700k. And, on not one player, but 3. So, everything will line up perfectly for us where we get 3 players at 700k each, all 3 of which will end up being like TJ, Harper, and Tyler, but no other team out there saw their potential so they only offered 600k. If so, that concerns me about the guys we are getting. Not one of the 3 was worth an extra 100k to any other team? And, if they are sure things and all A-10 guys that we need to land, then chances are a power team would offer the same or more.

I don't think 700k is this magic number you think it is for a stud player, but how about if several coaches offer 700k, we find a coach who can win a recruiting battle ...
man, you're getting lost in the minutiae. I'm pulling $700k out of thin air. heck, for $700k I hope we can get a TJ who's also a rim protector.

but it seems really obvious that if you have substantially more money to spend, you're talking to a whole different level of recruit and landing guys you wouldn't land if you offered less. this isn't rocket science.
 
man, you're getting lost in the minutiae. I'm pulling $700k out of thin air. heck, for $700k I hope we can get a TJ who's also a rim protector.

but it seems really obvious that if you have substantially more money to spend, you're talking to a whole different level of recruit and landing guys you wouldn't land if you offered less. this isn't rocket science.
If TJ were a rim protector, he would have been a 1st round NBA pick, who would be making 2+ million in college right now. But, I agree with your other point. Yes, we can talk to and land bettetr players with more money. It just seems ike you are making a lot of NIL excuses for Mooney. I refuse for one second to believe having "only" 2 million to spend was a reason we have gone 10-27 in our last 37 A-10 games, and coming off of 2 of our worst seasons ever. I think a whole lot of coaches could have had us top 4 A-10 this year, even with our flawed roster.
 
If TJ were a rim protector, he would have been a 1st round NBA pick, who would be making 2+ million in college right now. But, I agree with your other point. Yes, we can talk to and land bettetr players with more money. It just seems ike you are making a lot of NIL excuses for Mooney. I refuse for one second to believe having "only" 2 million to spend was a reason we have gone 10-27 in our last 37 A-10 games, and coming off of 2 of our worst seasons ever. I think a whole lot of coaches could have had us top 4 A-10 this year, even with our flawed roster.
I'm not making any excuses for Mooney. this is his ship and it's sinking. I want to give whoever our coach is the ammunition for a fair fight.

I disagree that any coach has this team top 4. the roster isn't good enough. and yes, that's on Mooney. light NIL certainly hurts, but he has to work with what he has and get it done. he didn't. we're in a pillow fight game.
 
he certainly has a type.
though he seems to see JRob as a 5. JRob doesn't fit the mold.
I actually think JRob backing up at the 5 might be the best way to get him some minutes. He doesn't have Nate's inside game, and not sure he will ever be a 3 point threat, so playing him alongside a 5 seems like it would be easy to guard against, and make it that much harder for our 3 guards to get free.
 
I actually think JRob backing up at the 5 might be the best way to get him some minutes. He doesn't have Nate's inside game, and not sure he will ever be a 3 point threat, so playing him alongside a 5 seems like it would be easy to guard against, and make it that much harder for our 3 guards to get free.
I'd prefer him as a 4 as long as our 5 is a shooting threat ... like Walz.
Mooney can keep Walz as a passing/shooting top of the key 5.
use JRob as a screener, cutter, baseline roamer.
ask him to rebound like a mad man on both ends.

but now with Walz leaving, unless our incoming transfer at the 5 is a shooter ... like you I don't want to play 2 non-shooters. so JRob is stuck as a backup 5.
 
he certainly has a type.
though he seems to see JRob as a 5. JRob doesn't fit the mold.
I’m still willing to credit CM that he doesn’t see JRob as a 5, he’s filling a need with Beagle out.

But it begs the question why that was necessary. He’s 6’6” I think. I wouldn’t advocate playing homenick when the team is so bad, and idk that AP is a better option, at least offensively.

It certainly feels like we continue to hammer square pegs into round holes.
 
I’m still willing to credit CM that he doesn’t see JRob as a 5, he’s filling a need with Beagle out.

But it begs the question why that was necessary. He’s 6’6” I think. I wouldn’t advocate playing homenick when the team is so bad, and idk that AP is a better option, at least offensively.

It certainly feels like we continue to hammer square pegs into round holes.
And hammer round numbers into square win columns…
 
I shared on another thread but will say it on this thread too.

I honestly think the strategy our admin has is to give Mooney a ton of NIL next year. Wouldn’t be surprised if we’re top 2 or 3. It’ll still be cheaper than buying out his contract. The idea is to have one year where he does really well. Not necessarily making the NCAA tournament but trying to replicate the 2023-2024 season. Their hope is this can cool off the pressure they’ve gotten that’ll last for the last 2 years of his contract in which they’ll go back to paying him the middle of the A10. They won’t care about the results because at the end of those 2 years Mooney retires.
 
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