We are being materially outspent
- Thread starter SFspidur
- Start date
sman
Starter
national championship? probably not. you can be beaten on any given day.
but you think he's so bad a coach he we wouldn't win with a $50M roster? there's absolutely a correlation between payroll and results. that's why there are so few ranked mid major programs. the best players are getting the most money, and the high majors have the most money.
sman
Starter
of course not 1:1
and I certainly believe that a $2M team "can" be as good as a higher paid team. but vt said our $2M team "should" be as good as those $5M teams.
you can say the Marlins might beat the Dodgers this year, but no way should they be better than the Dodgers.
I am looking at can and should as the same here. I am not looking at it like the Marlins "could" upset the Dodgers. We can be and should be. I don't get your argument if you say we can be, but shouldn't be when it applies to this. SLU is looking good, and maybe they are even more talented than I think and a legit top 20 team, but I can't look at Dayton's and VCU's rosters this year and say we shouldn't be as good as them. We 100% should.
97spiderfan
Starter
This is the same song and dance we have heard from this administration and from Mooney for the past 15 years. Nothing has changed. First, we needed to renovate the RC to compete, than we needed to "align" our academics better to compete, and of course than we needed a new practice facility to compete in the new world of college athletics. And it is NIL and paying players that is preventing us from competing.
Always an excuse, always one more thing to kick the can down the roads and excuse the recent past and present. Hell, they don't even offer us hope for the future, just some convoluted argument that we are always behind everyone else and can't catch up. Newsflash, that is on Mooney, Hardt, and PQ, they are the leaders of our program and they collectively have failed and continue to fail because they have no vision, no accountability and no plan, other than give us more of your money.
Always an excuse, always one more thing to kick the can down the roads and excuse the recent past and present. Hell, they don't even offer us hope for the future, just some convoluted argument that we are always behind everyone else and can't catch up. Newsflash, that is on Mooney, Hardt, and PQ, they are the leaders of our program and they collectively have failed and continue to fail because they have no vision, no accountability and no plan, other than give us more of your money.
Spider17
All A-10 player
There are levels to this. Certainly with more money, it’s easier to work with but that’s not the only factor that determines success or not. I think what we’ve seen so far that Mooney would definitely underperform, relative to expectations, even if he had 5 top 100 recruits in the country. So like you said it’s not a 1:1 correlation. I think of it more as zones.
Zone 1: Less than a million
Zone 2: $2-5 million
Zone 3: $5-10 million
Zone 4: $10+ million
The numbers can vary but you see my point. So competing with teams within the same zone, we should be able to beat them. The difference between $2 million and $5 million isn’t that huge compared to $2 million and like $8 million or something like that.
And like you said, anyone can be beaten on a given day, which is why we look at the aggregate. 9-22 A10 record the past 2 years is not just bad luck. It’s bad recruiting, development, and coaching.
Spider17
All A-10 player
I’d love to be a fly on the wall with these conversations that PQ/Hardt have to convince our BoT or other donors to give more money for Mooney.
PQ/Hardt: We need more money for our men’s basketball program, we are being materially outspent.
BoT: With the extra $2-3 million is it so we can buyout Mooney’s contract and find a coach who has had proven success at the lower level?
PQ/Hardt: No, it’s because Saint Louis, VCU, Dayton spend more than us.
BoT: Ah, so that must mean we’re in 4th place in the A10 placing knocking on the door of being top of the A10. We’ve beaten teams that have lower NIL than us so we just need that extra boost to beat the remaining top teams.
PQ/Hardt: Not exactly. We’ve lost to a lot of teams with worse NIL than us in conference and out of conference. We are a bottom half team again like we were 3 out of the past 4 years.
BoT: At least Mooney has a strong core of returning players who we don’t want to lose with NIL. That way we can pay more for some key transfers to get us back to the top.
PQ/Hardt: No, not really. We are losing 4 out of our top 6 scorers. Only one player coming back next year has demonstrated ability to be an A10 level of starter.
BoT: So if we’ve consistently been a bottom half team, lost to teams with worse NIL than us, haven’t recruited any core players to build a roster around, how do we know Mooney will be able to make the most out of the increase in funding we give him?
PQ/Hardt: He went to Princeton. I’m sure he will figure it out!
Last edited:
I have little confidence. On paper you'd think he could recruit & "compete" at getting higher caliber athletes. But then they get thrown into MoonSys which is full of flaws. Unless better skilled athletes can advance us in spite of MoonSys or go a bit rogue (which probably won't happen), then we're still stuck in the quandary.
Obviously PQ used to have the highest authority on the BOT, but he was voted out from my recollection.
Just from Mooney’s riddle like comments, it seems to me that there is division within the ranks of how things need to proceed and my feeling is that the BOT has been fine with donors spending their money to promote basketball. However, when it comes to University dollars I think there is a difference in opinion. If I was on the BOT I would not be ready to commit more to Men’s Basketball either. Of course, mums the word from the BOT side so I guess we will see if news comes out after the season has concluded.
Just from Mooney’s riddle like comments, it seems to me that there is division within the ranks of how things need to proceed and my feeling is that the BOT has been fine with donors spending their money to promote basketball. However, when it comes to University dollars I think there is a difference in opinion. If I was on the BOT I would not be ready to commit more to Men’s Basketball either. Of course, mums the word from the BOT side so I guess we will see if news comes out after the season has concluded.
Met a guy last summer who told me he retired from VCU Athletics Dept. I asked him about NIL & payments to their bb players. He told me the average (some higher & some lower) was about $347K. I can't speak to the validity of that, but passing on this info for discussion context.
Spider17
All A-10 player
Per the article “With a relatively small alumni/donor base, very small compared to VCU, UR moving forward is expected to pump more university resources into payment of basketball players.”
I take that as UR stepping up its funding through the house settlement where schools can give up to $24 million or something like that to student athletes in a given year. I’m sure that PQ and other donors will step up some as well. I would not be surprised if we operated with closer to $4 million next year.
My $4 million dollar question though is, if we underperform again with one of the highest funded teams in A10, is that enough for our administration to realize that a coaching change is needed or will there be a different excuse next year?
There will always be excuses as long as CM is coaching our team. We've seen enough of it. It never ends and won't until there is another coach to break the excuse cycle. I truly believe our admins have their heads stuck in the sand & really don't care. Show us differently, and then we can see that they mean business. Otherwise status quo prevails regardless of mo money or not. Another year; another excuse.
Condition any NIL increase with a severe reduction in contract buyout.
“Expected”. Key word to me.
Second, yes I would expect more pressure on Mooney to make the right decisions and to finish in the top of the conference if the University throws money in. However, I personally do not expect additional funding to pay players especially ones that are at UR for 1 year. I see the quotes, but words are different than actions.
Gkiller
Bench player
Yes, though all these things were evident much farther back and a cause for high concern. But hey if u can come this far I have to wonder what ULLA or UR80sfan is thinking. I say they r still riding that Moon train to nowhere.
Million $ question....is Moon the worst rivalry coach of all time?
SpiderPrime
Starter
We are being outcoached, outclassed, outsmarted, outplayed, outmarketed…
MrTbone
Starter
Agree with all this. Again, if winning was exclusively based on budget, we should expect to be 4-6th in conference and have beaten Furman, Charlie southpaw, and Elon.
Money matters but it’s not the only thing that matters.
Spider17
All A-10 player
I think they will. I don’t think this would have been written by JOC if there weren’t credible sources to back that up. Also Mooney hinting at other donors stepping up too, so I expect we will be operating at a higher funding next year. Not sure if it’ll be $5 million or not but my guess is closer to $5 million than $2 million. Whether we will have better results congruent with that funding is totally different.
On the other hand, if this was written just as an excuse with no actionable change and we keep operating with the same budget with the same coaching staff and getting the same results, we only have ourselves to blame.
sman
Starter
no idea where this 4-6th idea came from. the top 3 have a $5M budget. we were told our $2M is around the middle of the league. where are we pulling 4-6th from?
my belief that payroll matters isn't an excuse for UR or Mooney.
I'm saying if we really want a kid and offer him $133k, and SLU really likes the same kid and offers him $333k ... we're losing that kid 100% of the time. we're fishing is a much smaller pond than the top 3 teams.
vt thinks our roster is comparable to the top teams in the league and it's all just coaching. I think that's wishful thinking. we can win on a given night like the GMU game. but our roster isn't top of the league strong. and I agree ... either is our coaching.
my belief that payroll matters isn't an excuse for UR or Mooney.
I'm saying if we really want a kid and offer him $133k, and SLU really likes the same kid and offers him $333k ... we're losing that kid 100% of the time. we're fishing is a much smaller pond than the top 3 teams.
vt thinks our roster is comparable to the top teams in the league and it's all just coaching. I think that's wishful thinking. we can win on a given night like the GMU game. but our roster isn't top of the league strong. and I agree ... either is our coaching.