Spiders Sound Off Podcast

[carolinaspider]

We are as frustrated as anyone and having much more fun talking about the great women's team these days. Admittedly, I brought the Patriot League up on the pod out of the blue and Porter wanted none of it. My off the cuff point when talking about potential solutions was intended to be more about how the A10 is not what is used to be NCAA bid wise and that being a big NIL spender with a great team on paper may not get us much (see Loyola-Chicago's record or VCU in the NIT in two weeks). I do hope we can leave everyone's ashes alone!!

Hope to see everyone at the women's game tonight!

Tom why would we put all this money into upgrading the facilities which should help with recruiting and fan
experience. To now saying we need to match our success level in a less than stellar A10 and downgrade further
to match our football move to the Patriot. Yes, the A10 went from Xavier, Temple, Butler to adding Davidson, VCU,
St Louis and Loyola. But other than Loyola, the other three have done well. Why has UR not matched the level of success of the other newbies? Probably because our coaches and Administration have not been able to adjust to
to changes in the NCAA.

 

[Spider17]

We are as frustrated as anyone and having much more fun talking about the great women's team these days. Admittedly, I brought the Patriot League up on the pod out of the blue and Porter wanted none of it. My off the cuff point when talking about potential solutions was intended to be more about how the A10 is not what is used to be NCAA bid wise and that being a big NIL spender with a great team on paper may not get us much (see Loyola-Chicago's record or VCU in the NIT in two weeks). I do hope we can leave everyone's ashes alone!!

Hope to see everyone at the women's game tonight!

Thanks for sharing and sorry if it came across like I was upset with you all. I’m not. You guys are great and I’ve enjoyed your thoughts and all you’ve done in bringing more awareness to our men’s and women’s basketball programs. I certainly would say that as a fan I don’t expect you all to agree with everything on this board and only be critical of our program. Of course not. All I would hope for is that you two are authentic in what you say. I get that families of players, players, and coaches listen to the podcast so you watch the tenor of your words, but authenticity doesn’t mean being critical or mean. It just means being true and reflective to the reality of the situation.

As far as your point of the A10 being a one is league, I have a few counter points from a variety of perspectives. 1) the A10 has had multiple bids like 12 of the last 14 years or something like that. We’ve only accounted for 1 of those at large bids. Heck, even now St Louis and VCU could be in as an at large and if a different team wins the tournament, we can potentially have 3 teams. 2) not all one bid leagues are the same. Look at Miami (OH) in the MAC. They’re 31-0 and there’s still debate about whether they should make the at large or not if they don’t win the tournament. If an A10 was 31-0 they’d be top 10 in the country and at least a 4 seed. 3) Even in years when the A10 had 5 or 6 teams make the NCAA tournament, Richmond wasn’t one of them. The opportunities are there, it’s just we haven’t capitalized. We have tried coming up with any possible reason for why that’s the case, including moving conferences, than acknowledge the one constant 21 year variable through all this. A coach by the way who has had much better years even by his standards. It’s just he isn’t cut out for this new college landscape. Other coaches like Bennett and Wright recognized that and bowed out. I don’t expect Mooney to give up an easy $1.5 million but I expect our AD to have standards of success and hold people accountable when it’s not meant. And when I hear things like moving conferences on the pod, I can’t help but think those thoughts trickle in the minds of Hardt, Queally, and Hallock, who would rather deflect and think that way rather than just doing what literally any other college or business would do in this country, which is let go of people underachieving.

 

[*23*]

At least no one is accusing Sec9 of being the problem today. So we have that going for us.

 

[Spider17]

And like I’ve said before, the most deflating thing isn’t the losses, it’s the lack of accountability. Losing just makes me sad. Hearing all these excuses whether it’s academics, renovating the RC, getting a practice facility, NIL, moving down conferences, needing to scout more players from Europe, just makes me ticked off.

This is not a serious program. I’m at the acceptance stage of my grief at this point where I’ve come to terms where Mooney will be the coach here for the rest of his life. At least it would be nice to hear him show some passion one time, taking direct accountability, and setting standards of higher goals. What’s the harm in him doing that? It’s not like Hardt is going to hold them to those standards anyway, so it’ll at least placate some of the fans frustration. No one is expecting him to go off like the Kansas Stare coach did, but at least give us some indication that this is bothering you. Something for us to pretend to have hope in.

 

[sman]

nobody voluntarily moves down in conference. it's not a serious proposition.

 

[UR Fan 2]

Thank you all for listening. And all criticism is fair.

We do just have conversations where we don't know what the other is going to say. Tom has no desire to see us in the Patriot. He just was responding to wisdom of spending 5-6 M on players in the current state of the A10. At the end of the day the administration has never told us what to say and we did not know anyone in the chain of command prior to last July.

Asking us to criticize Coach Mooney is a fair request. I hope that my saying we need a new offense comes across as a fair criticism. Tom saying we are getting bottom 4 results with mid tier spending is criticism. We put ourselves out there where people on both sides of the debate can take shots. And to Tom's point we all agree we need to do better.

We do hope to see you all tonight. Come up and say hi and tell us your honest opinions on the program. It is easier to have a face and a name than a message board opinion. We feed off the energy, and as you all know we are not doing it for the $$.

Go Spiders!

 

[RichmondNative]

Excitement on the board.

I was less distraught about Tom’s comment regarding conference affiliation than Porter’s “rah rah” for Mooney.

Settling is what keeping Mooney means. UR basketball - it is good enough.

 

[UR Fan 2]

Tom why would we put all this money into upgrading the facilities which should help with recruiting and fan
experience. To now saying we need to match our success level in a less than stellar A10 and downgrade further
to match our football move to the Patriot. Yes, the A10 went from Xavier, Temple, Butler to adding Davidson, VCU,
St Louis and Loyola. But other than Loyola, the other three have done well. Why has UR not matched the level of success of the other newbies? Probably because our coaches and Administration have not been able to adjust to
to changes in the NCAA.

Fair point

 

[UR Fan 2]

Excitement on the board.

I was less distraught about Tom’s comment regarding conference affiliation than Porter’s “rah rah” for Mooney.

Settling is what keeping Mooney means. UR basketball - it is good enough.

Another fair point

 

[Spider17]

Settling is what keeping Mooney means. UR basketball - it is good enough.

At this point, I think the motto actually is:

UR basketball - we know it is not good enough, but it’s everything else’s fault except our own.

 

[Sections 204and5]

What Native said… Porter has issues with our offense and player acquisition. To me, both are coaching issues. Tom was being provocative but the complaints were more about the A10 and the overall landscape of college basketball. Tom was just being more pragmatic in his comments IMO. Still wish he would quit the “sounding off” exit.

 

[Spider B]

We don't need to switch leagues, we need to fix the program. Its not the A10's fault that UR is bad. Porter says CM has proven he can win. I think CM has proven he cant win consistently and the program is trending down. 3 of 4 years in the bottom 4. For NIL, CM didnt win consistently before NIL. He can't build a roster and struggled to do so before NIL. Sure he has had some good players, but not nearly enough. We need new leadership in the RC.

 

[Spider17]

As the famous saying goes, “When the going gets tough, the tough get going… to the Patriot League”

 

[Tmac1205]

I guess the koozie we got at our last game didn't make everyone happy. Porter does catch me talking to my Kevin Anderson bobblehead every now and then. I will keep those discussion private...

 

[Kneepad McKinney]

nobody voluntarily moves down in conference. it's not a serious proposition.

Tell that to Richmond football

 

[brooklyn brownstone]

the reason the A10 is not a better league is because of programs like Richmond.

 

[Spider17]

the reason the A10 is not a better league is because of programs like Richmond.

I partly disagree and it depends on timeline. Richmond has been a top half A10 for many years spanning the past 15 years and many times top 4 or 5. There are way more programs in the A10 that pull this conference down bid wise and contributed little to nothing towards this conference’s national reputation. Problem is we haven’t been good enough to produce results like VCU and only recently have been more of a bottom level team in the A10. I do agree that in the past several years, other than 2023-2024, we have not been doing our part in helping the conference.

 

[Gkiller]

I partly disagree and it depends on timeline. Richmond has been a top half A10 for many years spanning the past 15 years and many times top 4 or 5. There are way more programs in the A10 that pull this conference down bid wise and contributed little to nothing towards this conference’s national reputation. Problem is we haven’t been good enough to produce results like VCU and only recently have been more of a bottom level team in the A10. I do agree that in the past several years, other than 2023-2024, we have not been doing our part in helping the conference.

We’ve been top 4 a total of 5 times in Moon’s entire 21-year tenure.

As I’ve said b4 Moon has zero good long term metrics.

Philly Bob is going to have to revise his 1 in 4 minimum ncaa appearances to 1 in 4 top 4 a10 for the Moon man.

 

[MrTbone]

We’ve been top 4 a total of 5 times in Moon’s entire 21-year tenure.

As I’ve said b4 Moon has zero good long term metrics.

Philly Bob is going to have to revise his 1 in 4 minimum ncaa appearances to 1 in 4 top 4 a10 for the Moon man.

Yeah, I was going to double down on this. Some kind of narrative has popped up that CM out punches his weight and that he has the program regularly in the mix. It’s not terribly accurate.

 

[Gkiller]

Yeah, I was going to double down on this. Some kind of narrative has popped up that CM out punches his weight and that he has the program regularly in the mix. It’s not terribly accurate.

100%. It’s because outsiders who don’t follow our program closely assume a guy who is going on his 22nd year must have done very well. Because those same people realize no coaches in any sport last this long with Moon’s resume. Moonicorn. They just assume his metrics r better than they r. I mean 40%! of his seasons r .500 or worse. This year he may scoot by .500 by a game bc he played the worst ooc schedule in the history of Richmond basketball. Punches above his weight is not close to accurate. But I agree it’s a perception. 3 out of 4 prior coaches were better. But the outsiders and Richmond casuals have no context.