OOC check in - nothing has changed

MrTbone said:
There’s always a line, I’m just wondering how bad it has to get.
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I honestly don’t think anymore that there will be any threshold that’s too low for us. Look how defensive the responses have been so far. With our cream puff schedule, the hope was that we would somehow get our way to 18-20 wins and it would be respectful enough to kick the proverbial can down the road. But we’re being exposed. Again. Coming off a season with 8 division 1 wins. There’s nothing that’s too embarrassing for us. Not when we lost to a Charleston Southern team who is 8th out of 9 teams in Big South. We weren’t embarrassed after getting the floor wiped with us by mediocre GW and Davidson at home. We’re behind Fordham, the perennial bottom feeder of the A10, and what are we doing about it? Complaining that $2 million isn’t enough to field a competitive basketball team and talking about hypothetical scheduling alliances.

And realistically speaking, with how soft we are going to schedule our out of conference games from now on and the fact that we’ll continue to beat Fordham, Duquesne, La Salle and a few other bottom feeder teams in the A10 each year, we aren’t going to have worse seasons than what we’ve already had.
 
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Spider17 said:
I honestly don’t think anymore that there will be any threshold that’s too low for us. Look how defensive the responses have been so far. With our cream puff schedule, the hope was that we would somehow get our way to 18-20 wins and it would be respectful enough to kick the proverbial can down the road. But we’re being exposed. Again. Coming off a season with 8 division 1 wins. There’s nothing that’s too embarrassing for us. Not when we lost to a Charleston Southern team who is 8th out of 9 teams in Big South. We weren’t embarrassed after getting the floor wiped with us by mediocre GW and Davidson at home. We’re behind Fordham, the perennial bottom feeder of the A10, and what are we doing about it? Complaining that $2 million isn’t enough to field a competitive basketball team and talking about hypothetical scheduling alliances.

And realistically speaking, with how soft we are going to schedule our out of conference games from now on and the fact that we’ll continue to beat Fordham, Duquesne, La Salle and a few other bottom feeder teams in the A10 each year, we aren’t going to have worse seasons than what we’ve already had.
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Hypothetical: you’d agree that the university would have to take action if the RC was empty right? Like little to no fans.

That’s the kind of thing that I don’t think can be ignored. Imagine a televised game with zero fans watching. Those optics look terrible for the university.

I realize that’s highly unlikely. Highly. But I’m asking for hypotheticals, short of the obvious like something scandalous which we know UR hates.
 
Spider17 said:
I thought about this too and the answer is that I don’t think there is a line. It’s been real eye opening to all of us that in moments of adversity… moments where we could use leadership from our coach or athletic director to instill accountability and an impetus of change and what have we heard to inspire us? It’s only been excuses.

You mentioned 5 losing seasons. We’ve had 3 really disappointing seasons in the past 4 years and all we’re hearing is how hard it is to win with a $2 million roster.

You mentioned fewer than 2,000 fans. Well, we’ve been declining in attendance for the past 4 years straight. We’ll never reach below 2,000 because we would rather inflate the numbers than showcase the reality or the university will just “get new fans”.

You mentioned a 55% win percentage. What’s our response to not winning enough? It wasn’t fix our recruiting or offensive/defensive flaws, it was lowering the bar of competition of who we play in non-conference. Then talk about how hard it is to schedule while turning down teams like JMU. We just lost 7 of the last 8 against VCU and Mooney is answering questions about scheduling for the 100th time.

You mentioned 3 NCAAs in 21 years. Now that I think of it, has Hardt or Mooney ever publicly stated that the expectation is to make the NCAA tournament? It’s always a vague competing in the A10 whatever that means. I’m sure that internally they have those goals, but why not state it publicly. It’s clear now so they won’t have to answer to or have accountability if those goals are meant. I’m not asking for Mooney to have post game press conferences like Tang, but some energy, passion, and appearance that he’s at least pretending to be bothered by what’s going on would be nice.

So no, there is no line that can be crossed. In my 13 years following this program, I have never felt this deflated.
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Really good post. And, I have also never felt this deflated...and this is in my 40+ years following this program.
 
MrTbone said:
Hypothetical: you’d agree that the university would have to take action if the RC was empty right? Like little to no fans.

That’s the kind of thing that I don’t think can be ignored. Imagine a televised game with zero fans watching. Those optics look terrible for the university.

I realize that’s highly unlikely. Highly. But I’m asking for hypotheticals, short of the obvious like something scandalous which we know UR hates.
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Ok, if you want to talk about any extreme hypothetical then sure, if we have 0 fans in the robins center and are 0-32 then sure, they’ll do something about it.

That’ll never happen though. Like I said before, all signs point to a just as easy or even easier schedule next year. That’s going to be 7-10 wins there. We’ll beat teams like Fordham, Duquesne, La Salle. I’m sure we’ll find some wins against a Rhode Island and maybe sneak a win against a Davidson (eventually) Loyola or Bonnies team. So we’ll probably get around 4-7 wins in conference.

So, conservatively, winning between 10-15 wins is the minimum, even in a hypothetical situation, as I see it. Well, 3 of the last 4 years we’ve had 13 wins, 10 wins, and have 14 wins currently. Probably will end up with 16 or 17 wins this year is my guess. And not only is there no indication that Mooney is on the hot seat in any way, it looks like they’re doubling down on the narrative it’s so hard to compete with a $2 million roster.

Then as far as fans go, there will always be fans who go because tickets will be like $5 and it’s a cheap family night. The same way families will take their kids to the movies or something or there will be fans who go there because that’s what they’ve done for the past 50 years of their lives and it’s become a habit win or lose and are just going through the motions at this point. So there will always be some amount of fans and we know that UR is definitely going to inflate the numbers they report. So it’s not going to accurately reflect the numbers truly in the seats. But the atmosphere will be stale, students aren’t showing up, there is no meaningful ways to engage fans with promotions and halftime entertainment.

Worst (realistic) case hypotheticals are happening now and nothing is changing, so what is suggesting that things are going to change in the future?
 
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vt4700 said:
Really good post. And, I have also never felt this deflated...and this is in my 40+ years following this program.
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Believe it or not, it’s not the losing that bothers me the most. Don’t get me wrong, it’s definitely deflating, but it’s not the most deflating thing.

The most deflating thing for me has been our leadership’s attitude about this. Even when we’re at our worst one thing that should always be present is an energy, desire, and expectations of wanting to meet our goals and then ultimately action and accountability when those goals aren’t meant. Growing up, my father would always tell me that he didn’t care about my grades in school as long as I honestly tried and put my best effort. So if I worked hard, studied as much as possible, and still got a C on a test, then that was okay. Learn from my mistakes to try and do better next time.

That’s how I feel about Richmond. It’s one thing for us to stink, but it’s another to have no self-awareness about it, and then continuing the status quo like nothing is wrong. From a coaching perspective - go and recruit differently, be smarter about how we spend our money, work on developing players differently, develop different offensive and defensive schemes when teams have figured us out. If we lose, show some energy and passion that things aren’t going well but efforts are being made to “right the ship”. From an athletic department perspective, don’t send us more emails about the teams GPAs in newsletters when our flagship sport has lost 6 in a row. Take the actions necessary - even if it’s head coaching leadership change - to reflect that even if the results aren’t where we want them to be, we are doing everything in our power to get there. If Richmond fired a coach for poor results and hired a new coach who continued to have poor results, I wouldn’t be upset because at least I know we are trying. Our attitude would show that we care.

Instead, all we’ve heard are excuses about the schedule over and over again. When it’s clear that this was 100% intentional when Mooney publicly said he wouldn’t schedule teams of coaches who were friends of his, even if the team is good, and we turned down JMU. By the way, these were only the public things stated. Imagine privately the other things we don’t know about and teams we turned down. They’re trying to convince us that a $2 million roster isn’t enough to field a competitive basketball team in the A10. When we lost to VCU at the Seigel Center again, the mentality was proud of keeping it competitive. There is no indication that it bothers him even in the slightest that he continues to lose to his arch rival every year and VCU keeps bringing in new coaches who beat him their first year there. There’s nothing from the coaches or athletic department marketing to try and cultivate a more lively atmosphere at the Robins Center. Nothing to get more students involved.

So it’s our attitude that bothers me the most. An attitude that appears flippant and even dismissive of legitimate concerns from fans. An attitude that “I’m not the problem” everything else is the problem like scheduling, academics, or only having $2 million roster. An attitude of I’m just going to let this happen and not do anything about it from a coaching, athletic director, or even University level. We have a donor who enables it and an athletic director/university president that is allowing this to happen. In this case silence speaking louder than any words will.
 
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Agree 17. I think we all expect down years and losses. And will complain when that happens. But it is the overall belief that we are fine with it and not aking real steps to fix it and making excuses is what really irks a person.
 
sman said:
to me it's the losing.
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To each their own but to me the losing is a byproduct of the complacent and dismissive attitude we have. I don’t expect us to be Duke or Kansas. We’ll have bad years but if we have the right attitude there’s a belief among fans that we will eventually right the ship because that is the expectation. Right now no one in this athletic department seems to be taking responsibility of the sinking ship we’re on.

Not Mooney with his responses. Not Hardt with his lack of responses. I bet if Mooney displayed a mentality that was more assertive in taking accountability for his team and Hardt had the mentality of holding coaches to standards where there would be consequences if they are not met, the wins will naturally follow.
 
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Sman, there was a mantra I heard once that helped me get through a tough period in my life. “Failure is an event. Surrender is an option”

Failing is going to inevitably happen to everyone and often times beyond our control. I don’t expect UR to be perfect. I get that there are a lot of factors at our school that do make the goal of being a top basketball team challenging and there will be roadblocks along the way. Maybe it’s just me and the few of us on this board, but I don’t want that to be a reason why we stop trying. To stop pushing our self to higher goals and aspirations.

Surrender though is a mentality, an intrinsic belief of giving up. It is ultimately a choice. Nothing about our situation tells me that either on a coaching level or athletic department level we have this “never give up attitude”. We’ve lost 6 out of the last 7 games. We lost to VCU 7 out of 8 times. We are heading towards another bottom 4 finish in 3 years. What’s our coach’s motivational speech to rally the troops and instill belief that things will get better? Scheduling is hard and we are being materially outspent. What’s our athletic director’s response? Radio silence.
 
Our administration’s response to going 9-29 against VCU and finishing bottom 4 of the A10 again.

images
 
The losing bothers me, and frustrates me, but I agree with 17 and am way more frustrated because of the excuses and just the overall way we are approaching and accepting the losing.

The schedule immediately pissed me off. Before the season even starts, I am upset and losing interest in our games. Then, the constant whining from Mooney about how hard it is, when we all know we could have had a much harder schedule.

Then, we see a lack of urgency in his comments. He seems too content with us losing. He is proud of losing to VCU by 8 and then thrilled with coming back from a 23 point deficit and losing to them at home by 11.

Next, we get to hear whining about only having 2 million to spend.

Another thing that has bothered me lately is how we hear Mooney every offseason talk up some of our recruits like they are going to be all A-10 players. You would think Noyes, McGlothin, and JRob would be 1st round picks the way he talked about them. We get excited, and talk about them on here, and then, nearly all of them the past few years play very little or not at all, and transfer down.

Back to the losing, yes, that is incredibly frustrating as well. Losing to teams we should never lose to, and making very few changes offensively or defensively to try to fix what is broken.
 
I still like JRob and think he has the ability to take big guys off of the dribble which is something we have almost never seen from one of our guys playing the traditional 5 slot. But he's being square pegged into playing the dribble only to pass to the corner guy in the Moonball system. At present this season, I would love him to be a screen and hard roll to the hoop guy so could in theory catch a lob off traditional p&r plays, and a threat from the dunker position on the baseline, to catch dishes from penetrating players. But we don't run plays or roll hard to the rim, or have extensive dribble penetration from guards and wings.

He needs to work all day everyday in the offseason on his shooting and get better defensive mechanics drilled into him by someone. His athleticism is off the charts. If he can develop a 3 ball, hit FTs at 70% and just play defense without fouling, he could have a real impact going forward. I'm a believer in his upside. I do think he should be playing next to a much taller guy though in some capacity (stretch 5 or something similar.)

No idea what McG has to offer bc he's still an unknown and Noyes is long gone so no need to discuss him any more (but I understand your point about the offseason hype train. Even tho that same year he said Dji had the best offseason, yet Noyes still got the nod.)
 
brooklyn brownstone said:
I still like JRob and think he has the ability to take big guys off of the dribble which is something we have almost never seen from one of our guys playing the traditional 5 slot. But he's being square pegged into playing the dribble only to pass to the corner guy in the Moonball system. At present this season, I would love him to be a screen and hard roll to the hoop guy so could in theory catch a lob off traditional p&r plays, and a threat from the dunker position on the baseline, to catch dishes from penetrating players. But we don't run plays or roll hard to the rim, or have extensive dribble penetration from guards and wings.

He needs to work all day everyday in the offseason on his shooting and get better defensive mechanics drilled into him by someone. His athleticism is off the charts. If he can develop a 3 ball, hit FTs at 70% and just play defense without fouling, he could have a real impact going forward. I'm a believer in his upside. I do think he should be playing next to a much taller guy though in some capacity (stretch 5 or something similar.)

No idea what McG has to offer bc he's still an unknown and Noyes is long gone so no need to discuss him any more (but I understand your point about the offseason hype train. Even tho that same year he said Dji had the best offseason, yet Noyes still got the nod.)
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I love me some JRob, just a different type of player for us.

Fwiw i watch him hit 3s in shootaround at a good clip and think his form looks totally fine. I don’t think he’s a bad shooter but He’s clearly been coached not to take that shot.
 
brooklyn brownstone said:
I still like JRob and think he has the ability to take big guys off of the dribble which is something we have almost never seen from one of our guys playing the traditional 5 slot. But he's being square pegged into playing the dribble only to pass to the corner guy in the Moonball system. At present this season, I would love him to be a screen and hard roll to the hoop guy so could in theory catch a lob off traditional p&r plays, and a threat from the dunker position on the baseline, to catch dishes from penetrating players. But we don't run plays or roll hard to the rim, or have extensive dribble penetration from guards and wings.

He needs to work all day everyday in the offseason on his shooting and get better defensive mechanics drilled into him by someone. His athleticism is off the charts. If he can develop a 3 ball, hit FTs at 70% and just play defense without fouling, he could have a real impact going forward. I'm a believer in his upside. I do think he should be playing next to a much taller guy though in some capacity (stretch 5 or something similar.)

No idea what McG has to offer bc he's still an unknown and Noyes is long gone so no need to discuss him any more (but I understand your point about the offseason hype train. Even tho that same year he said Dji had the best offseason, yet Noyes still got the nod.)
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Agree 100%. Especially on the "drilling on defensive mechanics" part, which we know won't happen. So, yeah.
 
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