Latest / Spiders Sound Off / Tyler Cronin of 3 Bid League Talks Richmond Hoops, A-10 Portal Chaos & 2026-2027 Outlook

Transcript

Tyler Cronin of 3 Bid League Talks Richmond Hoops, A-10 Portal Chaos & 2026-2027 Outlook · Spiders Sound Off

0:05
Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of Spider Sound.
0:09
OP, this is Tom. And this is Porter.
0:11
And we have a special guest today.
0:13
We're welcoming Tyler from the Three Bid League Podcast.
0:17
Hey, Tyler. Thanks for joining.
0:19
Hey, hey guys, thank you for having me.
0:20
Always happy to talk A10 hoops even in the midst of roster
0:24
construction season. Yeah, there's still a lot of
0:27
unknowns for sure. Tell us a bit about 3 bid
0:30
league, kind of how that all came about, kind of what you
0:32
guys try to do. So a great friend of mine, Matt
0:35
Graber and I been hosting this show.
0:38
We're going to be wrapping up here Season 8 throughout this
0:42
offseason. It'll be season 9 next year.
0:45
We like to joke that we went even longer than Grant Golden at
0:49
this point, but yeah, just started up.
0:53
We wanted to, we just kind of wanted a platform to talk about
0:56
various stuff around college basketball.
1:00
And yeah, this was this is what we settled on that at the time
1:04
there were a couple of significant outlets covering
1:07
Dayton specifically. Funny enough, most of those have
1:10
now moved on, but so we tried to take on the mantle of the full
1:14
league. Nice.
1:16
Yeah, I think when we supporter and I went to University of
1:20
Richmond a long, long time ago and we're friends and we're
1:23
talking about doing something like this.
1:24
And for Richmond, it just happened to be a time where
1:26
there wasn't a pod. Like there's been a couple pods
1:28
in the past, but it's been a few years I think since there was a
1:32
Richmond basketball related pods.
1:34
So we're like, why not try to fill that space?
1:35
We're we're fans, alumni. So we're not professional media,
1:40
although sometimes when we get like a media pass, like we act
1:42
like we're media. I guess we're officially our
1:45
media, but we're we're probably the least.
1:48
Professional. Yes, we're we're both personally
1:50
rooting for Grant Golden to get another four years of
1:53
eligibility because he's pretty good player to root for for us.
1:57
So. Well, hey, I mean I think you
1:59
know, for the the folks listening or watching, kind of
2:01
the Richmond fans, kind of we thought getting Tyler and here
2:04
would be great. While the roster is not final
2:06
work, it's kind of fun to be in this time where there's been
2:08
some people brought on, some people have left, there's still
2:11
some uncertainty. And three bid league is a great
2:16
follow on X as they've kind of posted there this kind of tool,
2:20
this retention tracker, which is a great basic Google sheet that
2:24
you can look at and they list kind of all the teams in the
2:27
A10. They categorize kind of
2:29
returning players and then there's a section on portal
2:33
players. And just so those anyone seen
2:36
it, they categorize your returning players as like a have
2:38
to keep category would hurt to lose category and then a
2:43
worthwhile contributor category. And then there's color coding
2:47
and all this kind of information and who's in the portal is not
2:50
Richmond doesn't have anyone in the have to keep category.
2:53
It's a little telling about how our last season and
2:56
unfortunately the season before went, they ate an arger bright
2:59
is in the wood hurt to lose category.
3:03
So as you kind of go through all of this, obviously that's kind
3:05
of your descriptions of where players go.
3:07
Like how do you decide like who's in that like top category
3:11
you don't have to keep versus a worthwhile contributor because
3:14
obviously our roster is pretty barren with great players.
3:16
So we're like we have to keep our Aiden Arguerite because
3:19
that's kind of the one star we thought we had.
3:21
But kind of how did you guys go about pulling that together?
3:24
It's. One so between those two
3:26
categories, 100% just my own personal discretion.
3:29
Arguerite was probably the best player I left in that second
3:33
category just because you think about how young he is and where
3:37
that game has to potentially grow.
3:39
And I took some liberties with like another non all conference
3:43
guy on my own Latong over Dayton.
3:45
I put him in the the absolute half to keep category.
3:49
I think I could have done the same with Arga Brighton,
3:52
especially with the fact that just coming out of this bad
3:55
year, you kind of felt like if he was the only one that they
3:59
kept, you'd still feel pretty good about those first couple
4:03
weeks of the offseason. But it also hurt that AJ Lopez
4:07
had eligibility. He could have been in that
4:09
second category as well. Yeah, Yeah, I think he's he's
4:12
one of those many four year players trying to find a fifth
4:16
year. As you know, the rules seem to
4:18
to always change one thing. I looked at it and and Tyler,
4:21
you kind of know this best. I was basically counting
4:23
through. So I think there are there's
4:25
about 10 players in the half to keep across the A10 and it
4:29
looked like about half are staying and half are going.
4:32
And in that next category there is that kind of 30 players and
4:35
almost the exact same. It looked like half were staying
4:38
with their teams. The other half were either on
4:40
the portal or had already gone somewhere.
4:43
So it kind of shows where the 810 is in this.
4:45
And we know we're not the kind of the top five conferences.
4:48
And so, like, our best players with eligibility are often
4:51
looking for more money and, you know, brighter pastures.
4:56
But does that surprise you that we're kind of in that, like, you
4:59
know, half the best players are leaving and half are staying?
5:02
Yeah. I mean, you bump down to like a
5:04
Missouri Valley, those West Coast Conference, those really
5:09
good other mid majors and it's normally just complete and total
5:12
carnage where you see maybe one good player stick around.
5:17
I the stat I would use to measure it right now.
5:20
So 18 all conference players in the A 10/8 of them are
5:23
graduating. Of the remaining 10 who could
5:25
return, 5 have already pledged to do so.
5:29
And you just don't get 50% retention from all conference
5:33
basically unless you're the SEC Big 10 or Big 12 at this point.
5:39
I'm curious like one thing that is too easy for us to do as fans
5:45
is like when you see names, you get people signed, you can kind
5:47
of excited and like, oh, these guys are going to be great.
5:49
And I remember last year I think we felt pretty good about the
5:52
portal. And then when the preseason
5:54
awards came out, like we had Walls as a preseason third team.
5:58
None of our players on the portal made any of the teams.
6:00
But other teams had players from the portal where kind of the
6:04
media or coaches kind of voted them into like, hey, they could
6:07
be when you have the top 18 players in the league.
6:10
So like, like, how do you coach us fans from not getting too
6:14
over? Like how do we judge whether and
6:16
we can talk about our players soon, but like, what's the best
6:19
way to judge whether the guys that we're getting are really
6:22
going to contribute or not? Because the the media wasn't the
6:26
the votes weren't wrong. We didn't end up with any of our
6:29
transfers coming in being, you know, superstars are making the
6:32
top three team. Like, how do you, how do you
6:34
coach us to not get too excited or how do we judge these players
6:37
that, you know, we never saw before who might have great
6:40
numbers from wherever they're coming from?
6:43
Yeah, that's something we're also kind of learning here
6:46
because it was so much easier back in the day when you're
6:48
bringing in, say, 2 transfers on an already set roster and you
6:53
could kind of think through like, oh, this is going to be
6:56
this guy's role. I think Blake Francis, perfect
6:58
example here where you go back coming out of that awesome 2020
7:02
season for Richmond and it's Gilliard and it's golden and
7:06
it's KO and we know all these guys and what they were missing
7:10
is that one kind of killer wing score.
7:12
And you get a guy in Blake Francis who was absolutely great
7:16
at God. It's been a while.
7:18
Is he like one of the Saint Francis's or something?
7:20
So one of those NEC teams, I think.
7:24
And you could clearly tell like, oh, this is the type of guy who
7:28
fits a significant need. And we couldn't really guess at
7:33
that point. Could he be the type of 1718
7:36
point a game score he was at that level.
7:38
Is he going to fall down to 1011?
7:40
But you knew that he was going to fit.
7:43
And so I think with Richmond, it may actually be a little bit
7:47
simpler. And I don't know how much you
7:48
guys want to get into the specifics of these particular
7:52
transfers who are coming in. But like that center from
7:54
Bucknell, the fact that he just profiles as a Chris Mooney type
7:59
player, we know we can look ahead of that and say, yeah,
8:02
he's going to be some level of impact player because Mooney's
8:06
going to be able to figure out how to use him now.
8:08
Is he Year 1? Jonathan Beagle, Is he Year 2?
8:13
No, Quinn, he probably filters somewhere into the middle impact
8:17
wise, but he's definitely someone who's going to be able
8:20
to contribute something. And that's when it kind of just
8:23
gets into the crapshoot guessing game of how good he actually is.
8:28
Tyler in, in your experience so far of, of seeing the portal
8:33
being open in this paper play pay for play era, would you say
8:37
you've seen a higher hit rate on a 10 teams who take a power 5
8:45
role player who might, you know, say average 4 points a Game, 2
8:48
1/2 rebounds and unlock some potential that they didn't get
8:52
the chance to show on that P5 squad?
8:55
Or do you think the better players have been from the minor
8:59
conferences, but they were a star in that conference?
9:02
What's been the better hit rate for teams?
9:04
Well it's almost a different tier if we're saying hey, this
9:07
guy no matter what is going to be a quality contributor.
9:10
The 2 sweet spots are guys who prove themselves as legitimate
9:16
rotation players at the P5 level.
9:18
Where sometimes you get a Frank Mitchell comes in from
9:23
Minnesota, someone who was a very good starting center in the
9:27
Big 10 and explodes into one of the 10 best players in the A10.
9:31
More often than not, you get someone like Ajadri and Tracy
9:34
over at VCU who was just a very solid starter at the A10 level.
9:39
But those guys hit almost every single time as a good rotation
9:44
player, as do players who are all conference at the lower
9:48
levels. And even if you want to go pick
9:49
down at the NEC, at the MIAC, those lower levels of Division
9:54
One, if you're one of the 15 best players in your conference,
9:57
you're going to be able to jump up to the A10 and be a
10:00
contributor. Where I think fans, media,
10:05
coaches, everybody at this point still struggle is figuring out
10:10
how to exactly find those star level players because then
10:14
you're kind of just throwing at a dart board again.
10:18
Yeah. And so I mean fitting that kind
10:19
of criteria you mentioned. So we got Jamie Kaiser, junior
10:22
from Butler, who is kind of a a rotate a starter for Butler,
10:25
kind of a a big part to that team, although they were 500
10:29
team. It's kind of good to have kind
10:31
of that fits part of that category.
10:32
And then, you know, Eamon Doris from Bucknell kind of, as you
10:36
mentioned before, kind of fits that, you know, a star and a
10:40
freshman star kind of on a bad team in a lower league.
10:44
So hopefully the two of them are kind of, you know, they they
10:47
seem to be clear starters for us because we don't have a whole
10:49
lot of options. But hopefully they're more than
10:52
just, you know, getting their ten points because someone's got
10:54
to score 10 points, but they're getting it because, you know,
10:57
we're winning games. And at least they both seem to
11:00
be kind of they have kind of an all round game.
11:02
It seems like you know, they're going to none of them are going
11:05
to squirt get 10 rebounds every game, but they both might get 5
11:09
and get block a shot or two play good defense.
11:12
So. What's apparent to me is Mooney
11:15
is is focused more on length with the three signing so far
11:19
he's going for taller, longer players.
11:23
What are your thoughts Tyler on the on the three guys?
11:25
Andrew Ball being the third, a guard slash forward from
11:28
Monmouth that we just picked up this weekend.
11:29
What are your what are your thoughts so far on those 3
11:31
signings? So it is funny because Chris
11:33
Mooney, it seems like he never actually thinks about length
11:35
because he always perpetually has like 5511 guys on his team.
11:40
But yeah, Jamie Kaiser, you hit on it.
11:42
That is the perfect archetype of a really solid role player at a
11:47
better level, someone who was also a pretty low usage guy at
11:51
Butler and you really just start to dig into the the deep
11:57
numbers. I do not expect him to be at any
12:00
level of star in the A10. I can't imagine his role is
12:04
really going to go up much. But just as someone who's going
12:08
to rack up a ton of rebounds, who should be able to kick in a
12:12
little bit better of a scoring output that he did at Butler.
12:15
I mean, this was this is also a guy who never turned the ball
12:18
over. I think that's probably one of
12:20
the things that that probably drew Chris Mooney and staff to
12:25
him in the 1st place. But I I expect him to be an
12:29
average to above average starter in this league.
12:32
One of the few incoming guys into the A10 that without doing
12:36
a ton of research, I can say with some strong certainty on
12:40
that Dory's is the fun wild card.
12:44
And when you go back to the what are we at like 20 ish years of
12:48
Chris Mooney now? Yeah, I meant to.
12:51
Count it out. I did, I did not.
12:53
It seems crazy he got hired before Mark Schmidt at
12:55
Bonaventure and now Schmidt's gone and Mooney's still there.
12:58
But nonetheless, I I actually went through and looked at every
13:03
season he's had and there's a direct correlation between
13:06
having an above average starting center in this league and
13:10
Richmond being good. Literally the only single year
13:14
of his tenure that doesn't fit that is 2019, where young Grant
13:19
Golden broke out and Richmond was still bad.
13:22
But other than that, all of the good Golden years, the good Giro
13:25
and Harper years, the good Klein years, that one awesome Neil
13:28
Quinn year. Richmond has been really good
13:30
and so Dory's now becomes the single most important person to
13:34
this entire roster. And I I assume this will be I.
13:39
I would guess that like Neil Quinn a couple years ago, it'll
13:42
probably take a couple months, if not a full season for him to
13:46
really grow and develop and hopefully there's an
13:49
understanding there that he will be someone who sticks around a
13:52
couple years. Andrew Ball, I don't know a ton
13:57
about someone who didn't put up all that great of numbers in the
13:59
CAA. If I had to guess, it seems to
14:02
me like that's someone that you're putting together a
14:04
budget. He's produced at the Division
14:07
One level. Chris Mooney always likes to
14:09
have 10-11 guys, someone you just bring in probably for cheap
14:13
and he can give you a couple minutes on the back end of the
14:15
bench. Yeah, no, I think that that that
14:19
feels right. And I think too, I mean, from
14:22
Richmond's perspective, we're, we're, I think it's probably
14:25
more than a rumor now. It's, it's well known that we're
14:27
going to spend more money in the portal this year than we have in
14:29
the past. And I'm, I'm going to guess, and
14:33
I don't think this is too provocative that there are
14:35
other, there are other players yet to sign that we will, we
14:38
will sign. And that's probably true for the
14:40
whole 810. But I think for us, there's
14:42
still one or two more shoes to drop before we can kind of put
14:45
the ink on the roster. So Tyler, I'm curious kind of
14:49
kind of what what you've heard or kind of what you've read and
14:51
like what's happened with the A10 and overall portal dollars.
14:56
I think we've heard kind of Saint Louis has been reports
14:58
that they've got 10 million to spend on their roster and
15:03
Richmond and theory and rumor has gone from whatever 2 to 4 or
15:06
2 1/2 to 5 like this. That's there's still a gap like
15:11
we're trying to spend more. But if everybody's spending more
15:13
and I think was it Evan Mia had a report that you know what
15:17
people are using his service like it's 67% increase in pay
15:22
for players. Like what are you seeing across
15:24
the 810 in terms of like who's spending more?
15:27
Is there how, what's the range of budgets?
15:30
It's, you know, I know there's really no true transparency.
15:33
So there's a lot of kind of reading the tea leaves, like
15:35
what are you seeing out there with the 810 budgets?
15:37
Yeah, I mean that that 10 million figure for Saint Louis
15:41
might be accurate. If it's not, it's too low.
15:44
They're clearly in the double digits from everything I've
15:47
heard. VCU and Dayton, I don't think
15:50
are quite at that number, but neither of them are particularly
15:53
far away. And we're going to see that for
15:56
at least the next couple years that those three are just going
15:59
to outspend the rest of the league.
16:01
They have more resources than everybody else.
16:03
And then you get into those Richmond, Davidson, Loyola,
16:07
Duquesne, Saint Joe's, all these kind of mid level budgets in the
16:13
league where they're going to be a couple million.
16:15
And then at that point it really falls to your coaching staff and
16:19
their ability to evaluate and their ability to budget.
16:21
Can you pick up a guy for $400,000 who turns out to
16:27
develop into an all conference player?
16:29
I mean, that's really just the game they're all going to have
16:32
to play these next couple years. And then we'll see because at
16:36
some point, these power conference schools like
16:40
Kentucky's just not, well, actually, it's a terrible
16:42
example because Kentucky doesn't care about football.
16:44
So they might always have money, but like these SEC schools that
16:48
really care about football are just not going to have 15 +
16:51
1,000,000 in perpetuity because they're not making enough money
16:55
off of this to do it. It's donors continuing to fill
17:00
the coffers. And one day these guys are going
17:02
to look around and be like, wait, our team just went four
17:05
and fourteen in conference. Why am I cutting them another
17:07
$2,000,000 check? And so I think now, granted, the
17:13
question is what level can a school like Richmond maintain in
17:17
perpetuity? Is it 2,000,000?
17:19
Is it 4 million? They're going to have to find
17:21
that sweet spot. But even if they are stretching
17:23
themselves a little bit thin, going from like 4 million back
17:27
down to 3,000,000 is not a huge difference when other schools
17:30
might be going from 15 to 7. Yeah.
17:34
Well, you were talking about trying to like, you know, find
17:37
someone who could just, you know, you get you think you're
17:39
smart, but maybe just lucky that you find someone cheap who
17:42
becomes a great player. Like we it's just not too long
17:45
ago we had Jordan King, who we didn't really know a whole lot
17:48
about. And all of a sudden, like I
17:50
remember watching the first few games and like, I've never seen
17:53
anyone shoot that good before. And in this in the Robin Center
17:56
and very quickly you knew he was going to be a great player and
17:59
was player of the year and, you know, took us, you know, at
18:03
least to a great record and a regular a regular season title.
18:08
But that's yeah, you're kind of hoping you find someone like
18:11
that who he wasn't from a lower conference, but I think he was
18:14
averaging, you know, 1314 a game from the conference.
18:16
We got him in and he turned into a, you know, one of our best
18:19
shooters. That was a one year,
18:22
unfortunately. But it's hard.
18:23
It's hard to get. You can't do that.
18:25
Obviously for two years in a row.
18:26
We won't. We didn't find that person and
18:29
the team kind of suffered as a result, like.
18:33
Go ahead. Yeah.
18:33
So I was going to ask. So Tyler, since you're you're
18:36
paying a lot more attention to all of the teams, we kind of are
18:38
focused mainly on Richmond. Tell us, as you look around the
18:41
Atlantic 10, who do you see so far in the early portal
18:46
improving? Who's at risk?
18:48
Because they've lost a lot of really key players they haven't
18:51
replaced. What's the what's the landscape
18:53
looking like in the, what is it three-week mark or the eight day
18:56
mark maybe for the portal being open?
18:58
Yeah, well, your listeners are probably going to hate to hear
19:00
this, but VCU's in great shape right now where they they lose 2
19:05
seniors to graduation. Terrence Hill's the only other
19:07
guy to leave via the portal. He's headed to Tennessee, but
19:11
they replace him with a guy in. Let me check.
19:14
I at this point I can't remember names quite yet but Blake Harper
19:20
guy who was a 20 plus point of games.
19:23
Creighton Guy, right? Yeah, 20.
19:25
Plus, point of game score at Howard two years ago was someone
19:28
who was beginning to pick up some lower level NBA buzz coming
19:32
out of that season. Goes to Creighton.
19:34
He's a pretty good bench piece there.
19:36
He probably just shot a little too high and now you take that
19:40
half level drop down to VCU and that seems like a spot where he
19:44
could really be comfortable fill in, whether it's for Hill or for
19:48
Jadri and Tracy. There's clearly a lot of minutes
19:51
there on the wings. They got this.
19:53
They got this guy Olston, who really slots in as just a backup
19:58
for Michael Bell and Lazar Djokovic across the two big men
20:01
spots. An all conference player down in
20:04
Conference USA at Middle Tennessee, extremely
20:07
overqualified for a third big role at the A10 level.
20:12
I think they're still short, like one more wing score to
20:15
replace Hill, but. They're going to be right back
20:18
at the top again. Yeah, and I think it's retention
20:21
for them, too. I mean, Nick, Nick Lewis is
20:23
going to be, he's just like he can become the Terence Hill next
20:26
year. And these transfers can just
20:29
become, you know, the Nick Lewis of last year and they'll be just
20:32
as good. And Brandon Jennings is a great
20:34
player. So I think they've got some
20:35
players who can hope, you know, returning players who can fill
20:39
that Terence Hill role as being the star.
20:42
And these transfers don't need to be that.
20:44
Like they can just be their 4th or 5th best player and they're
20:48
they're going to be. And they get, they get Djokovic
20:50
back, he's saying, he said. Yeah, that's right, he's a *.
20:52
Yeah, and in the the other ones, I mean, Dayton has taken some
20:56
very interesting swings. Jalen Haynes, the former second
21:00
best player in the A 10. Two years ago, George Mason went
21:03
to Cincinnati, got hurt in training camp, never played a
21:06
second for the Bearcats. He's going to be Dayton starting
21:09
center next year, which is wild to think about.
21:12
They have a loaded front court. They're going to need one of
21:14
these young, really unproven guards like a Travis Perry from
21:19
Ole Miss to really turn out to be good.
21:21
But the one interesting one besides Richmond that I'm
21:25
looking at here as just a really a wild card taking a whole lot
21:30
of swings group is George Mason. And they bring back their old
21:33
point guard, Baraka Koji, who went on a walk about to Memphis
21:37
where he was terrible and then went down to Mercer where he was
21:41
a first team all conference guy. He'll probably be the Patriots
21:44
best player next year. And then they went out and got a
21:47
a couple of really interesting guys, Lily and Marville.
21:50
UNC Greensboro led the nation in three-point percentage as a
21:54
freshman. Didn't really do much else, but
21:56
he's a killer shooter. They got another one of those
21:59
just big bodied perimeter defenders in.
22:03
There's no way I'm going to get the name right, but Fiosa Atugu
22:07
Elabor, who was playing with Jamie Kaiser over at Butler last
22:11
year. And I think we've learned to
22:13
trust Tony Skin at this point that he knows how to pick these
22:16
guys who have that one really good skill that'll translate up,
22:21
and then he gets them in over the summer and hopefully they
22:24
can improve their other facets of the game.
22:27
Yep. No, those are good.
22:28
And and then you got Saint Louis who almost brought everybody
22:31
back when obviously he really graduated.
22:32
But when you, when you hear that they have 10 million plus, you
22:36
know, a lot of that was spent on keeping, I think they had 9
22:40
returners coming from the the top 25 team.
22:43
So I still, I mean, that's kind of the where you hope it's just
22:47
an 810 fan that like Saint Louis will be pre season top 25 and
22:51
his VCU like almost there pre season top 25.
22:54
So it would be nice if we can find a way in the out of
22:57
conference schedule to get a couple teams in the top 25.
23:00
It's been a while, it seems, since we've we've had that and I
23:03
think they're the natural to to do it.
23:06
But like you said, Dayton Dayton's been there a lot.
23:09
So we'll see if they can retool. What do you what do you think
23:12
about what's going on in Saint Bonaventure?
23:14
That's a school that like he's, you know, that kind of coaching
23:16
change. Bring in AAD 2 coach.
23:20
Who would, you know, had AD one and and it's publicly said like,
23:23
you know, he learned a lot and had to go back, back down levels
23:27
to kind of, you know, improve himself.
23:29
And now they've brought, I think they've got just a JUCO player
23:31
just was announced in the last day or so.
23:34
How do you how do you see Saint Bonaventure in this kind of
23:36
year, one of kind of the new coaching regime panning out?
23:41
Yeah, I mean, look it, it's tough to evaluate here because
23:44
we have not seen. So Mike McDonald, their new
23:47
coach, was at the division two level school named Damon not too
23:51
far away up in Buffalo. They've had a couple of really
23:55
spectacular seasons here. They just went, I forget the
23:59
exact record, but only two losses on the year.
24:01
They made it to the Elite 8 at the D2 level.
24:05
The two best guys from that team are following him up to Saint
24:08
Mon Adventure. But there has been a ceiling to
24:12
these Division 2 jump UPS, whether it's both coaches and
24:17
players, where we have seen the success of, I was going to call
24:22
it Devries, but Ben McCollum and Bennett Sturtz at Drake for a
24:26
year. We saw Josh Shurz at Indiana
24:28
State, we saw a player in West Ennis at South Florida last
24:32
year. That's kind of the ceiling.
24:35
The A10 is a little bit above that level right now.
24:39
We have not seen AD 2 coach jump up all this way.
24:43
And I think you look at the his struggles at Canisius and it was
24:47
in a very, very long time ago. He certainly did enough at the
24:51
D2 level to deserve another Division One shot.
24:54
But you almost feel like it should have been at a place like
24:57
Albany OR Binghamton, just like somewhere in the America East,
25:02
the metro, even the CAA before you make the jump all the way up
25:06
to the A10. But Saint Bonaventure at this
25:09
point is basically saying like, hey, we have less money than
25:11
just about anyone else in this conference.
25:13
We're going to take wild swings. And maybe they were, maybe they
25:19
were right on this guy all along and they he doesn't need that
25:23
little step up to prove it. Or maybe this was a complete and
25:26
total whiff. It's it's one of the least
25:29
certain I've been about a coaching hire in a long time in
25:33
this league. Yeah, and there is a there was
25:36
an interesting article in The Athletic kind of talking about
25:38
the whole Woge story and kind of how he's been seems to be at
25:43
odds with some of the local press there.
25:46
So it's just kind of interesting that whole dynamic of you've got
25:48
kind of a celebrity from ESPN who's, you know, took a
25:52
sacrifice to come and help that school from a fundraising and GM
25:56
perspective. And obviously after a year or
25:59
two had to change coach and we'll kind of see how that goes.
26:04
One other team that's been interesting to me and they they
26:06
seem to be a team that has been great.
26:08
Obviously they have one of the best AA10 players ever or wasn't
26:13
a 10 at the time. But you go to Davidson and kind
26:16
of that, you know, they've got the the the the Stephen Curry
26:20
history, but they seem to have lost all of their good players
26:24
from last year. And again, they weren't great.
26:27
But that's a team that I just wonder like that school, like
26:30
how much money are they really spending?
26:31
And are they able to they haven't really been able to
26:33
retain and I'll be curious to see like are they able to
26:38
reload? I mean, they last year was a
26:40
good, you know, their first Goodyear under kind of the, the,
26:44
the, the new Mckillop. And we'll see kind of I'm
26:49
curious to see if they're going to able to, you know, put
26:51
together a competitive team after they seem to have lost
26:55
their guys that at least beat us last year.
26:57
Yeah, so it's kind of funny because you're you're absolutely
27:00
not the first person to say this.
27:02
They lost their two best guys. Roberts Blooms is going to Penn
27:05
State. Parker Friedrichshing's going to
27:07
Washington. And then their most promising
27:09
young guy in Devon Brown, who's still floating around in the
27:12
portal right now. But they basically kept a good
27:15
chunk of the rest of the rotation, like Josh Govins is
27:18
going to be back. Nick Koval and Sam Brown, both
27:21
of their point guards. They keep the promising young
27:25
center and Ian Plateau. I I think there was a lot of
27:28
hope that this could have been a two year plan that a guy like
27:33
Friedrich Sen, who comes in as a junior from Wake Forest, would
27:37
have finished out his career at Davidson.
27:39
I that's a, that's a rough one for the degree to go from the
27:44
possibility of walking out of school with either a Wake Forest
27:47
or Davidson degree and you're going to end up with the
27:49
University of Washington. That's not going to be great if
27:53
the basketball career doesn't last a long time for for young
27:57
Parker. But they at least have some sort
28:01
of foundation to build on which they have not had in a couple of
28:03
years. Now.
28:04
The problem for Davidson, as always, they don't have the
28:08
money to go out and go get a big time transfer.
28:11
So they're going to pick up a couple of international guys.
28:15
They're going to pick up they they also got a young Butler
28:18
player who didn't play much. But they're going to have to
28:22
take big swings. And the problem for them is that
28:25
they're going to need a couple of those swings to all hit the
28:28
same year. They need one of these new guys
28:31
to be great. They need Poteu to take a big
28:33
step. They need one of the point
28:35
guards to really emerge. If not, you end up with a
28:37
situation like last year where Roberts blooms, takes a huge
28:40
step and Devin Brown is better than we expected, but the rest
28:44
of the roster didn't pull its weight and you're mediocre
28:47
again, and then you're losing the guys who took the leap up I.
28:50
Remember when we played Davidson at home?
28:52
Blooms just went crazy on us. Like we couldn't do anything to
28:55
stop him from three. He just was.
28:57
So I'm not sad to see him go in some ways.
28:59
How do you taking a you know we I guess the portal has what 2-3
29:04
more days until it closes? Yeah, what the What is it?
29:07
So there's a point in. Time where?
29:09
Yeah. So there's a, there's a, there's
29:11
a point in a few days from now if, I mean, we've got some
29:14
players who are returners that haven't announced in the portal,
29:17
like at some point they they become green on your
29:19
spreadsheet, they become green when it's the 23rd and they
29:23
haven't put themselves on the portal.
29:25
So clearly we've got a few more days to at least the four teams
29:27
to know is are they leaving or not?
29:30
Have they put themselves into the portal?
29:33
And then, but there's really an indefinite time to when folks
29:36
can get signed if they're in the portal.
29:38
Obviously they practices start in June for most schools.
29:41
So I think you'll see kind of most players get signed in May.
29:44
But do I, do I have all that timing right?
29:46
I mean, it's kind of we've got another month to figure out
29:49
really what the final rosters. Look like, yeah, I mean, there
29:52
were some very extenuating circumstances to why it
29:55
happened, but Dayton didn't get Kiante Jones till mid mid-july
29:59
last year, meaning kind of well, and then hell, they went out and
30:03
got Sean Pudi at that in the middle of December.
30:08
He stunk, but whatever. You you can sign guys mid season
30:11
now as long as you can go find them in Belgium.
30:14
But yeah, I mean, people continue to get confused by this
30:18
idea that the portal closes and you can't sign players anymore.
30:21
Like, this is not the old college video games where the
30:26
offseason comes to a close and your roster is your roster.
30:28
We're going to have we're going to have action.
30:30
Well to Memorial Day in terms of guys still getting picked up.
30:34
But we do at least get the clarity.
30:36
And for Richmond, I think the two guys are the freshman Harper
30:39
and Robinson that we haven't heard anything either way.
30:42
So we'll know. I think it's Thursday morning.
30:46
We'll know for sure on on whether or not those guys are
30:49
sticking around. Yeah, I think we, we saw Harper
30:53
gain a tremendous amount of confidence later in the season
30:57
and he started to go from early on, you know, it's kind of in
31:01
Mooney's doghouse to like suddenly a guy that Mooney
31:04
trusted a key situations, a key time.
31:06
So I think we both and. Then he got hurt.
31:07
And then he got hurt. And so I think we both think
31:09
Harper could take a a meaningful step forward.
31:12
J Rob, you know, certainly brings a different type of
31:14
players. Very athletic, very strong, a
31:17
little bit underside, undersized to play a four in the A10, but
31:20
he can we kind of play him at the four, but I think there's
31:23
two, the two guys that we have that are red shirt freshman that
31:27
they're watching. Obviously Hominek, he's a big
31:29
guy. He redshirted.
31:32
I mean, we watched him in practice.
31:33
I mean, he didn't look, he didn't look physically
31:35
overmatched against the our senior bigs.
31:38
So he's already starting from a position of being a big guy.
31:41
Whether or not he can play at the fast pace is still TBD.
31:45
And then Donovan Richardson, I thought Donovan Richardson I
31:48
thought was really calm and collected during practice.
31:52
And then he took the year and redshirted as the as as Mooney
31:54
came on the show, he told us he was the the point in on the
31:57
scout team. So he ran the scout team.
31:59
So that gives him some great experience about running the
32:01
offense. But what about our incoming
32:04
recruits recently? Mooney went on did we did about
32:07
30 minute press conference and he said two guys he could see
32:10
playing right away are Deuce Simmons and Dane Caldwell.
32:14
Any any thoughts on those names or have you guys, have you seen
32:17
anything you know in terms of their what they bring?
32:19
Yeah. I mean, I'll confess this time
32:21
of the year, given that we just closed out the season, we're
32:24
right into portal. I don't know much about many
32:26
freshmen, the occasional like the couple top 100 guys coming
32:31
into the league. So I know a little bit bit about
32:33
like Sammy Jackson at VCU, Aiden Dirkak at Dayton, just because
32:37
his brother was Jordan Dirkak, who we obviously got to watch
32:42
this year. So I know a little bit bit about
32:45
that. But now I I will confess the
32:48
freshman learning and research is a summer project for me.
32:52
Yeah. I get that you you'd be really
32:55
surprised to know that Deuce Simmons is like is a 5859 point
32:59
guard. Be really surprised that
33:01
Richmond's got another one of those.
33:02
He's supposed to be great. So it'll be interesting though.
33:05
Yeah. And Gilliard helped recruit him
33:06
and he's out of Kansas, which is where Gilliard came from.
33:09
So it sounds like this could be our next Jacob Gilliard.
33:11
Yeah, it'd be nice to see him in Argarbright, at least backing up
33:13
Argarbright and then maybe getting some time.
33:16
It'd be very interesting if we have, you know, Argarbright and
33:18
him in the backcourt together. That's a that's a small
33:21
backcourt. Better.
33:22
We better be pressing. Yeah, yeah.
33:25
So. Well, hey.
33:28
Thank you so much, Tyler, for joining us.
33:30
It's great to get some perspective of the rest of the
33:35
A10 and someone who's not as blind to Spiders always having a
33:39
potential as as we may be. It's been a couple rough years.
33:43
We've turned into kind of big fans of the women's team as
33:46
they've been kind of great. And of course, then we lost our
33:49
coach, the UVA. So we've got our own drama on
33:52
the women's side. But hopefully that men's team
33:54
this year can give us something to be excited about because it's
33:57
it's been a while. Tyler, fun question for you, how
34:00
many of the A10 arenas have you visited doing the podcast and
34:05
what's your, what's your favorite one to visit and why?
34:08
All right, so I counted this out and see this city because we
34:12
we're out of a 10 territory for a little bit.
34:14
I've had to be thinking nationally throughout March and
34:17
April, but run through my head real quick.
34:23
And if your favorite place is the Siegel Center, just say you
34:26
don't have a favorite because we don't want to hear that.
34:29
I'm at 10 1/2 because I went to LaSalle pre renovation, so I
34:34
don't fully know how to count that.
34:36
I have not yet been to Rhode Island, Fordham or Saint Louis.
34:40
OK, you say? I mean there's a lot of UD arena
34:45
bias. I've been there upwards of 100.
34:49
I've been there close to 100 times probably at this point,
34:51
but and that's that's such a great spot.
34:54
I really did enjoy the Siegel Center.
34:56
I went last year. That was also was the first
34:59
versus 2nd place VCU George Mason showdown on a Saturday
35:04
afternoon. So one of the absolute best
35:06
times to get into that building. I think really an underrated one
35:15
because they just don't have the crowd, but I I feel like the
35:19
Charles Smith Center at GW could really be a great place to watch
35:25
a game if they just had more fan support.
35:28
I. Was in there.
35:28
They'll speak for poor. He likes to take credit for a
35:31
missed free throw at a George Washington Richmond game.
35:34
Absolutely. 15 years ago or so. You can hear me on ESPN.
35:38
I screamed so loud so I was the only Spider fan screaming when
35:41
the guy shot the free throw and he clanked it and then
35:43
everybody, including the coaches, looked up at me and I
35:45
got elbowed by my George, George Washington friend who was there.
35:49
But yes, I did cost the kid one point.
35:51
We went on to win the game but it was by more than one so.
35:53
That, that's beautiful. And I was there for a Friday
35:56
night game, ESPN 2 this year and it was probably 70% full and it
36:02
was a pretty fun environment. It's and that place is way too
36:05
small. It's like impossible to move
36:07
around in when there's more than 10 people in the building.
36:09
But it it, it could be a great environment if the people are
36:13
there. Yeah, it got loud back in the
36:15
day too. Back when?
36:16
Back when they were really good, that played.
36:18
Hobbs the coach, then maybe. Yeah, it was.
36:20
It was loud. Well, Tyler, thank you so much
36:22
for joining. Why don't you kind of remind the
36:25
fans or tell our fans kind of how they can find you and find
36:29
your podcast and other other material?
36:31
Yeah, kind of all over the place.
36:32
You're looking for the A10 specific stuff.
36:34
Just hit us up the Three Bid League podcast.
36:38
That is the #3 that's on your Apple, your Spotify, wherever
36:42
you find your podcast, you can follow us.
36:45
We do most of our social media stuff is just going to be on
36:48
Twitter at 3 Bid League Pod. You can follow me personally on
36:54
Twitter at TCRO NS-21T, Crons 21, and I'm doing some writing
37:02
over at Busting Brackets. So as we make our way through
37:06
roster construction season, here are these next couple of weeks.
37:09
I'll be looking at a couple of things with the transfer portal
37:13
through a national lens and then an ACC podcast up the coasts.
37:17
You can find that on all your podcast platforms as well.
37:20
If you're maybe like AUVA or Virginia Tech fan crossed with
37:24
Richmond, I'm sure there's got to be a couple of those people
37:27
who exist. Now, yeah, there probably are,
37:29
yeah, someone with them both degrees maybe or a spouse with
37:32
the other one. But anyway, Tyler, awesome.
37:35
Thank you for joining. It's been, it's been a lot of
37:37
fun and looking forward to hopefully some fun things to
37:41
talk about with the the Spiders team for the next 12 months.
37:44
Yeah, thank you guys for having me.
37:45
It's fun time. Appreciate you coming on.
37:48
Have a great day.