Latest / Spiders Sound Off / UR Basketball Portal Breakdown: Who’s In, Who’s Out & What’s Next

Transcript

UR Basketball Portal Breakdown: Who’s In, Who’s Out & What’s Next · Spiders Sound Off

0:05
Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of Spider Sound
0:10
Off. This is Tom.
0:11
And this is Porter. And it is Easter Sunday, it's
0:16
also D Hall's birthday. And we are doing our first post
0:22
since our women's team got eliminated or I guess, you know,
0:27
first post following that kind of sad final post.
0:32
But we're back kind of a little bit of portals not open yet.
0:37
So this is like the pre portal pod.
0:39
And then we'll do a post portal pod.
0:45
Maybe something in the middle, but we'll see.
0:47
It's a little weird because, you know, we haven't done this in a
0:49
while. And so we, we went from this
0:50
routine where we were doing 2 a week to, you know, it's been
0:54
maybe maybe 2 1/2 weeks since we last did this.
0:56
So that's kind of a kind of an interesting little stint.
0:58
What, what did you do while we had, we took our break.
1:01
You didn't travel, did you? You.
1:03
Know the answer to that question?
1:07
Yeah, I took a took a week trip to Ireland and Scotland with my
1:12
wife and some friends from the neighborhood.
1:14
So that was a fun little trip. A lot of a lot of Guinness.
1:17
My question for you was why didn't we register any Scott,
1:22
Scottish or Irish listens while you were overseas?
1:26
We got 30 countries and that would have been nice because.
1:28
You didn't put out any new material, Porter.
1:30
Like you knew I was leaving town.
1:32
I'm not going to listen to old podcasts.
1:34
I I don't care. Like I'm not the one who's
1:36
counting every day how many countries we're in.
1:38
That's your job. I'm just, I'm just saying like
1:40
new material. You could have taken us to 32.
1:43
I could have put some some weird episode out about a a possum
1:47
underneath our floor, but I didn't do that.
1:48
Yeah, so you guys all missed out.
1:50
I tried to train Porter up just in case, you know, if the women
1:53
advanced, like I wasn't going to be here and he was going to do a
1:56
pot all by himself. And you know, we, we all wanted
1:59
the women to get out of Durham. But I think you are all in
2:05
blessed to not have Porter try to do his own podcast.
2:09
I don't know what that would have looked like, what it would
2:11
have sounded like. It may have taken you back to
2:13
the 80s in terms of production quality.
2:15
Full, Full disclosure, I would have been ready.
2:18
I would have been 100% ready and it would have been a glorious
2:21
episode. OK, so let's talk about what's
2:24
happened. We've got some news.
2:25
We'll talk about the men's first.
2:30
You know you went to that press conference, right?
2:31
Mooney had a presser. It did.
2:34
In March. Yeah.
2:35
And that was right after they announced Argur Brite was coming
2:38
back. Yeah, that was the big the main
2:40
news we wanted to make sure we heard.
2:42
Yeah, it was a good get for the program.
2:44
I mean, we don't Full disclosure, we don't know how
2:46
much, you know, Argur Brite's getting paid.
2:48
John O'Connor tried to get that out of him during the press
2:51
conference. But you know, to some degree we
2:54
had that We had to lock up our best player before the portal
2:58
action starts. It's it's kind of like back when
3:00
the Washington Football team are not sorry, the Washington
3:04
football, the Washington baseball team signed Jason Worth
3:06
out of out of Philly. I mean, they needed to make get
3:09
a player just to show the world they were ready to win.
3:11
And then, you know, that was the first of many signings for what
3:14
for for Washington before they went on to win the World Series
3:16
eventually with Scherzer and Stroudsburg and those guys.
3:19
To me, you got a lock up, you got a lock up arguer break
3:22
because it shows this the market that you're serious about
3:25
winning. And so I I like that I did.
3:27
Yeah, I think we that was clearly the move we had to make
3:32
to start. He was our best returning player
3:37
now. Poor You asked him if.
3:38
Yeah, you asked him who? Like who else was returning?
3:41
Yeah, you got a little nugget out of him.
3:43
I was so I mean, Full disclosure, John O'Connor gets
3:46
to gets to ask questions first or, or maybe he just takes that
3:49
takes the mic and runs with it. I'm not sure, but maybe that's
3:53
just seniority built up over time.
3:55
So he asked like 12 really good questions and I was leaving.
3:58
I'm just going down my list of stuff I was going to ask
4:00
scratching it off because O'Connor sniped it right.
4:03
And then I get to Argy bright and I got I snuck in a question
4:06
of can you tell us who else is coming back?
4:09
And he answered it. He said Rob, J Rob, he hopes
4:13
Will Harper. He said Jaden, which is Jaden
4:16
Daughtry and the Tanner. So if if you do the math, Tom,
4:20
and I've done it because we're recording today, here's how I
4:23
count it. We got J Rob one, Will Harper 2,
4:26
Daughtry 3, Tanner 4, Arterbrite 5, Hominick Richardson six and
4:32
seven Mooney 8 9 through 11 are the three incoming freshman's.
4:36
That means we have between four and five guys that we're going
4:39
to take from the portal. I also asked Mooney what's his
4:42
preference on roster size and he talked about he prefers 16
4:46
because of the way it allows him to practice.
4:48
And he kind of dropped a little nugget that not everybody at the
4:50
bottom of the roster is going to get paid.
4:52
So but he also then said it's it's important to make sure
4:56
people have that expectation. If you're coming in on a
4:58
scholarship for the bottom of the roster, you might not be
5:00
being given any pay for play money.
5:02
So means we're going to be looking for four or five
5:05
players. So I, I think you're going to
5:07
listen to or hear a series of announcements coming out
5:11
probably over the next month, month and a half of some some
5:15
new players coming to Richmond. So it'll be exciting, exciting
5:17
time. Yeah.
5:18
One thing that you know, interesting kind of a roster
5:21
construction and I you know, I'll reflect back on last year,
5:23
which you know, was a not a great year.
5:25
But when we were in the summer and in kind of the let's say the
5:31
pre season period, although it certainly lasted for a month or
5:34
so into the season, we heard coach say that like our roster,
5:39
like the difference between the best and the worst player was
5:42
pretty narrow and that was a positive thing to him.
5:44
And we're going to get to play a lot of people and have this kind
5:47
of rotation like I, and this is all speculation because we don't
5:51
have any inside information here.
5:53
But like in hindsight, it's like we, you know, again, and Aiden
5:57
was a freshman, you know, just got into campus or who, you
6:00
know, so he hadn't emerged yet. Like I think there's AI look
6:04
back at those conversations and say we had a bunch of players
6:07
that were, were very similar, but no one was great.
6:12
And I, I do wonder if the old mentality was let's take the
6:16
portal one and we have and spread it around everybody.
6:19
I mean, Mooney mentioned, I mean, I think he told us that
6:21
like, hey, there's something interesting about redshirting
6:24
someone 'cause they could get paid for five years, which kind
6:27
of implies like redshirts were making some sort of money.
6:30
And, and I think there's a natural like I, I hope we don't
6:35
take whatever money we have left in our budget and get five guys
6:38
that are worth the same. Like I want 2 studs and then
6:41
three guys who are going to contribute, but I don't want
6:45
five guys who were each worth $200,000.
6:47
I'd rather have, you know, two $750,000 guys and then let's see
6:52
what happens. Well, I mean, so presumably, you
6:56
know Walls and Will Johnston and so so those guys graduate and
7:04
that frees up some money. There's just coming our way.
7:06
The rumors are that we're getting more money and that was
7:08
all we talked about that on previous episodes.
7:11
You also let's talk about let's talk about who's not coming back
7:14
or who has entered the transfer portal.
7:15
I should say Mikhail Tyne is in the transfer portal.
7:19
That's actually, you know, I don't know if it's surprising or
7:22
not, but just it's just factual. David Thomas is in the portal,
7:27
McLaughlin is in the portal and AJ Lopez is in the portal.
7:30
Even though I thought AJ Lopez had graduated.
7:33
But I guess there's there's some hope with this executive order
7:37
that maybe a fifth year can be granted again type thing.
7:39
So that just, yeah. That's yeah, it's interesting.
7:42
So no, but you're right. So that's, and Porty, you've
7:45
already seen this before. It's like for even for all that
7:47
we know, you know, officially the portal opens on the 7th, so
7:52
after the championship game, so on Tuesday.
7:54
And it's a you can official. If you're assuming you're not a
7:58
graduate transfer, you've got two weeks to put your name in
8:00
the portal. So even folks that we think are
8:03
staying like until you get to the 22nd and you haven't heard
8:07
them put their name in the portal.
8:10
Like nothing's guaranteed. I mean, it'd be certainly
8:13
surprising, obviously, if Arger Bright wasn't here.
8:16
But if someone came to him for with $2,000,000, I don't think
8:19
we'd compete. And then he'd be gone.
8:22
Now it's, it's, it's more of, I think it's like the Thomas
8:25
Bryson kind of tying a group or someone else joins that group.
8:31
That also doesn't mean they're gone either.
8:33
You know, we've seen people who enter the portal and then pull
8:35
their name off the portal. So there's a like, you know,
8:39
we'll see. We'll see what happens and we'll
8:41
know more, a whole lot more in two weeks from now.
8:44
Yeah. One other interesting nugget.
8:45
So I had a side conversation with Jason Vida because I was
8:49
trying to figure out a little bit on portal strategy.
8:51
So I did not realize this, but you cannot graduate from the
8:57
University of Richmond unless you earn half of your college
9:01
credits at the University of Richmond.
9:04
And what that means is we can't go after a senior, somebody
9:08
who's got one year of eligibility left that probably
9:11
has 75% of their their credits already fulfilled and have them
9:16
graduate from Richmond. So it takes a chunk of the
9:19
portal away from us that we can't do that.
9:21
And I didn't know that. And I'm not sure if the whole
9:22
fan base understands that or not as well.
9:24
But we got Johnston and we got Lopez last year because they
9:28
were grad transfers. But we cannot go after a player
9:32
who has one year of eligibility left who has not graduated for
9:36
that reason, which was pretty, pretty surprising to me.
9:38
I don't know if you knew that. Yeah.
9:40
No, that's, that's it is interesting.
9:41
It, it, it doesn't explain why, but I do look back to last year
9:45
when we got Daughtry and Thomas, like they had two years left and
9:49
that's, you know, that's encouraging and kind of I think
9:52
we're all hoping Daughtry is, is, is back.
9:55
And like it gives you not just that one year to try to do
9:58
something like you got a player that you can develop and and
10:02
have them grow. So I mean, I even without
10:04
knowing that rule, I kind of preferred getting folks who have
10:07
more than one year because if it works, then you, you know, yes,
10:10
you're going to have to pay them more that second year, but at
10:13
least you've got someone who's kind of helping build your
10:16
program. And I think the graduate
10:18
transfers will be more rare overall as you get as this, you
10:24
know, portal life becomes kind of.
10:26
Yeah, I want to make sure I'm clear It wasn't.
10:30
Jason wasn't complaining about the rule.
10:32
He was just telling me about the rule, and I'm talking about how
10:35
it preserves the value of a Richmond degree for for
10:38
graduates. What I like about it too, kind
10:40
of unintentionally, is that you can, when the staff is looking
10:44
at every, you know, when you're in, you're looking at the portal
10:48
on April 7th and for the next two weeks, you're looking at all
10:51
the names that are in the portal and then added to the portal.
10:54
Like at some point there's hundreds and hundreds and
10:56
hundreds of players in the portal, probably 1000 when it's
11:00
all said and done or plus that. And you've got to have some way
11:03
to narrow that down to who you're going to reach out to and
11:06
talk to. So like anything that's going to
11:08
help cut that list down gives you more time to focus on what
11:12
you can, what you're going to get.
11:13
And so if there's whatever, I don't know what the number is,
11:15
but if it's a third of the portal, we can't even to talk to
11:18
because they're seniors looking to transfer just for their
11:21
senior year of college. Like at least you don't you're
11:23
not wasting your time on on trying to analyze that that
11:27
bucket. But I have to think there's a
11:29
lot of people that probably would not be happy if they knew
11:33
that. What I mean by that is, are we,
11:36
are we hampering our ability to recruit?
11:38
Let's say we somehow convinced Shaquille O'Neal in his senior
11:42
year to come to Richmond. And I'm not saying that he, you
11:45
know, would ever play four years in college or that that he
11:47
didn't ever consider us, but let's say we did.
11:50
We couldn't actually pursue that player, which in a way is
11:54
somewhat somewhat inhibits us from from potentially, you know,
11:57
son, one of the one of the best players out there.
12:01
Yeah, Now, I, I don't know, this would be kind of a lot of
12:05
research to do, but I, I'm confident that U of R is not the
12:08
only school with that rule. Yeah, now I think you and.
12:12
Jason said. Yale, Northwestern.
12:14
He mentioned a few that were really strong on the academic
12:16
side. And it you know, and and and the
12:19
good news, well, this is tough when you look at our team in the
12:22
portal. I mean, Arga bright was clearly
12:24
the one guy we wanted to make sure came back.
12:26
I think, you know, Daughtry is probably second on that list of
12:30
players to return, but we didn't have 7 or 8 great players
12:34
returning who all contributed in a massive way last year, let's
12:37
say, like our neighbors downtown did.
12:40
And they're not bringing everybody back, but they may be
12:42
bringing, you know, six of the seven back.
12:46
And there are schools like Davidson who had a good year in
12:50
the A10 and they seem to be losing everybody.
12:53
Like all of their returning good players have entered.
12:56
Well, they've put their name in the portal.
12:58
They haven't lost them yet, but it's hard to assess like how are
13:01
we doing 'cause we just didn't have a long list of, you know,
13:05
10 plus point scores that were potential, you know, folks that
13:11
could be on the portal or not. So I think we're all happy
13:14
arguer Bright's back, but. Yeah, but we what you're also
13:17
saying is we need a lot more still to to.
13:19
Yeah, we got a lot of work to do to make this a good, you know,
13:23
to even just to be a good team. And I think that.
13:25
That's far from a great team. Those four or five spots that we
13:30
in theory have open for portal gets are very, very important to
13:35
get right. That's another way of saying
13:36
that. What's interesting about time
13:40
going on the portal, let's assume Mikel, you know, finds a
13:43
new home, gets gets paid somewhere and goes.
13:48
Part of what I think you and I read into this, or what I read
13:51
into it at least, is that our freshman Simmons is going to
13:54
play a lot. Yeah.
13:56
Because at some point money, like I don't want to put words
14:00
in Mooney's mouth because I really don't know how this
14:01
works, but there's some correlation of how much do I
14:04
think you're going to play next year and how much money I'm
14:06
we're willing to give you. And so for whatever reason, time
14:09
is leaving. We don't know all the details of
14:11
that, but at some point it's like, well, we know Arga
14:13
Bright's time is going to grow year over year.
14:16
And now you have an even like one of our best recruits in a
14:20
few years. I think in, you know, on paper
14:23
is Simmons coming in who's another guard and a little
14:26
guard. So it's like, you know, times,
14:28
you know, another smaller guard. So I, I hope that means we're,
14:32
you know, we do have another stud small guard coming in and
14:35
him and Argabrite while they're small this we can debate the
14:38
small guard challenges defensively, but if we've got
14:41
two kind of argabrites on the floor, that's going to be,
14:44
that's going to be exciting. A lot of quickness for sure.
14:48
Yeah, the I would say that that's probably a pretty good
14:52
point that you just came up with that.
14:53
That probably does say that that Simmons is going to play quite a
14:56
bit. I think if you if if you think
15:00
about this, we're talking about how much do you pay a player.
15:04
It comes back to something we talked about earlier, which is a
15:06
player is now an asset and there's a value where that asset
15:09
makes sense and there's a value where that asset does not make
15:11
sense. Now, maybe we paid, we paid
15:14
Argabrite too much or too little.
15:15
I have no idea. But, you know, it was OK.
15:18
I think in this case to pay somebody too much because you
15:21
had to send a message to the market you're serious about
15:23
winning. But it almost, you know, kind of
15:26
calls into a point you made way back in the first few episodes
15:29
we ever did about, you know, the general manager and needing to
15:32
have somebody kind of manage the front office aspect of the whole
15:35
business now of the basketball program.
15:38
And O'Connor, to his credit, asked a great question in that
15:41
press conference about are we going to hire AGM in the future?
15:43
And Mooney, Mooney did talk about that.
15:46
It was in John Hart's plans or he has a plan to build up a
15:49
front front office. So I think I think that's going
15:52
to still be an important thing for us to to navigate this new
15:56
world of college basketball. Yeah.
16:00
No, for sure. I think the other thing from
16:02
that, the Mooney press conference, which I have a
16:06
different take on, is I think again, John O'Connor asked him
16:11
like, what has he learned the last couple of years at the
16:15
portal? You know, was kind of implied,
16:17
like your team's not been been very good.
16:20
What have you learned about the portal that's going to help you
16:23
going forward? Although, again, that team not
16:24
being very good, I put in parentheses because that's not
16:27
what John O'Connor exactly said. But Mooney said and kind of
16:31
admitted that he thought retention was going to be really
16:34
important, not just, you know, in general, but also for a
16:38
school like Richmond was going to be super important for
16:42
success and not, you know, you have two bad years, you're going
16:46
to question like, was retention that important?
16:49
I do, I'm going to, I interpret Mooney's words a little bit
16:53
differently because I think we've seen other experts say how
16:57
important retention is. But it's retention of like the
17:00
great players you have, like are.
17:01
Retention the good players. Yeah.
17:03
And I think I interpret Mooney's how retention isn't as important
17:08
as he thought is. Again, I'm putting words in his
17:11
mouth, not words he said. But I replace retention with
17:14
loyalty. And the idea that bringing back
17:18
players who kind of knew your system were kind of loyal to
17:22
the, the system and the school that that was going to add some
17:27
sort of, you know, other elements that schools that had,
17:31
you know, just transfers playing everywhere wasn't going to have.
17:36
And that would be an advantage. But I think in in today's world,
17:41
like just bringing players back who kind of know your system and
17:45
are like good kids that represent you well.
17:48
Like, like, yes, you want to have some of them on your team
17:52
and you want to develop everyone to be that.
17:55
But just bringing back players because they fit and, and you
17:59
have loyalty to them is, is not, is not how you're going to win.
18:03
They're not the only thing you need to win today.
18:05
You need to retain players, but they've got to be your good
18:07
players. That's exactly right.
18:10
And I mean, you know, gets another reason why Argur Bright
18:13
was a was a kind of a key get and I, I was happy to hear
18:16
alternate Argur Bright say he thought Jaden was coming back.
18:18
That's another one. I think that we didn't really
18:20
scratch the surface on what he could be and he's got a whole
18:23
other year in the system. So I think there's some upside
18:26
there to his game that we we could unlock.
18:29
Yeah, well, what's interesting, and we can talk a little bit
18:31
around the A10 because we know there's been some other news on
18:34
the men's side, is that we know we're getting more money.
18:37
I think that's been clear. We don't know how much more.
18:40
We don't know exactly where we were, how much more.
18:45
But we also know that everyone spent, everyone who is good, who
18:48
had money is, and even Mooney made it like everyone's going to
18:51
be spending more, No one's spending less.
18:54
So have we gone from low in a 10 to middle?
18:59
Probably, But I don't think we've gone from low to middle to
19:03
high. Well, I think the article that
19:06
O'Connor wrote a couple months back said we were in the middle
19:09
last year with and I think the number was around 2 million.
19:12
And I think the speculation is that we're going to be north of
19:15
four this year and that'll put us near the top quarter probably
19:22
of the A10 from from the middle to the top quarter.
19:25
So it expresses a more serious investment.
19:28
Now I could be wrong on those numbers.
19:30
It could be 5, it could be 6, it could be 3.8, I have no idea.
19:32
But that, I think is kind of what is in my mind and.
19:35
Usually, and I think the point I was getting to is kind of the
19:38
news or I wouldn't say new, the rumor that came out when there
19:41
was talk about Saint Louis losing their coach and they
19:44
retained him. Part of that story came with and
19:47
Saint Louis is going to have $10 million to spend on players.
19:51
So did they go from did we go from 3:00 to 5:00 and they went
19:55
from 6 to 10. Now they had a great year.
19:59
So that leads to kind of fundraising opportunities and to
20:02
retain the coach, maybe the school had to commit to more of
20:05
their own resources. But I think it does point to.
20:09
Without the transparency out there and I think Evan Maya, his
20:13
site said or he came out and said his the colleges are using
20:17
his site. He's got an information that
20:19
says it looks like there's going to be 35% more pay or 35%
20:23
increase to players in the NCAA. So we've certainly are doing our
20:29
part to help drive that increase.
20:31
But yeah, again, so are all of our competitors.
20:34
Yeah, it was mid winter from winter Sports law that reported
20:38
Saint Louis is expected to have at least $10 million payroll for
20:41
next season for men's basketball team.
20:42
A good example how a how a school without football doesn't
20:45
have to worry about the revenue share cap when budgeting for its
20:47
basketball payrolls. Interesting.
20:51
Yeah, so that's, you know, Saint Louis kept their coach, at least
20:55
so far. They're still in North Carolina
20:57
job to fill. And we'll see if that like
20:59
results in other other jobs getting open, but.
21:02
But to your point, like I think if if it becomes an arms race
21:06
for how much schools have to raise, you know, there's
21:10
probably a cap where, you know, our, you know, our very wealthy
21:14
donors, you know, run out of interest in trying to build the
21:16
best basketball team or any school for that matter.
21:19
So we're going to have to, to, we have to have the money, at
21:22
least some money to be on the competitive scale, but you're
21:25
also going to have to have some other angle to, to create value.
21:28
And I keep coming back to analytics as I think the best
21:31
chance we have of gaining a competitive edge if we're
21:34
spending less than some of the other programs in our
21:36
conference. And it it works in almost every
21:38
sport. And I mean, if you look at what
21:40
Dusty May is doing right now with Michigan, they're in the
21:42
championship game that's going to be played.
21:43
I think tomorrow's the championship game.
21:46
You know, he's, they're all in on analytics across the entire
21:49
program. And according to the Wall Street
21:51
Journal, an article came out this morning.
21:54
I think the estimation is they had a $10 million payroll this
21:57
year. So like, they're basically at
21:59
where this guy thinks Saint Louis is going to be at.
22:01
And if that's the case, you know, how far away are we from
22:05
being competitive, you know? Yeah, but yeah, I know.
22:09
I hear you. I think Michigan has got some
22:12
good press around them in terms of the analytics and I'm sure
22:15
there's, you know, truth to kind of how they're doing that.
22:18
But you watch them on the court and they've got a bunch of.
22:22
They're pretty good. 610 to 7 footers who are dribbling from
22:25
the foul line and dunking it over two people like that's
22:29
we're not a we're not nowhere close to that.
22:31
And it is that, that if they have a $10 million roster like,
22:36
well, next year, that roster is going to need to get those same
22:38
people would cost $15 million as like all the big conferences.
22:42
Or what did you, what did you tell me?
22:44
What did you tell me? You thought it was gonna be a
22:45
35% increase? Yeah.
22:46
Yeah. Total spend.
22:48
And Pitino at some point, this was during the season there he
22:51
was being asked about, you know, how does the Big East.
22:54
I I think there was a question about like the Big East is kind
22:56
of top heavy. How do you bring up kind of, you
22:59
know, make the Big East have, you know, 10 teams in the
23:01
tournament And he said they should have like a salary floor
23:04
of 19,000,000 and a cap of 21 million.
23:08
And so that like and that he was saying that as if Saint John's
23:12
was already there and it was like.
23:16
If Saint John is there, Tom and Michigan just just beat them
23:19
with a $10 million payroll. I mean, so that's where I think
23:21
we need to be is like where can we compete with what our sweet
23:24
spot is going to be, which is probably not going to be 20
23:26
million a year for men's basketball, so.
23:28
Yeah, that's right. And I and I do think Saint
23:29
John's is at some point. Bettina's also said like they
23:31
don't even recruit freshman anymore.
23:33
Like he's just he's just taking his budget and getting, you
23:36
know, 7 spending it on the seven best players he can and you know
23:40
it. They had a good they had a great
23:41
year. Obviously they're not they
23:43
didn't advance to the final four and Yukon did.
23:48
But anyway, so I guess the other news in the A10 was Saint, you
23:52
know, Bonavent, St. Bonnies.
23:54
Last time we talked, they had already, I think let Schmidt go
23:57
or Schmidt was retiring, whatever you want to believe
23:59
there. But they did hire a new coach.
24:01
They kind of everything that again, this is one of these like
24:03
the rumors, the people were saying that they were going to
24:05
get a inexpensive coach to put more money to NIL and it was
24:08
going to be some sort of name you never heard of.
24:10
And in a sense that's what they did.
24:12
So those reports were true. They.
24:14
Got Mike McDonald. Mike McDonald, who's a alumni
24:18
who had coached with Division Three.
24:20
Was he 3? He's coached Division 1-2 and
24:23
three. He coached Division One at
24:25
Canisius and three at. Was he head?
24:28
Coach at Canisius. I think he might have been.
24:31
I said he was a coach, head coach at all three levels.
24:33
But anyway, he's a he's a kind of a unknown.
24:37
I think they're pretty bullish on him for sure, but.
24:40
Maybe he was an assistant coach, he says.
24:42
The only coach in college basketball history to win more
24:44
than 100 games in D1D2 and D3, but he was most recently at
24:49
Damon University, which I believe is D2.
24:53
OK. So we'll see what that does, but
24:56
that does give them more money because they didn't go get, you
24:58
know, a $2,000,000 name out there.
25:02
And and I think that's the school at the end was rumored to
25:04
be on the bottom end of the A10 in terms of NIL spend.
25:08
So that that's a roster that's going to probably get reshaped
25:13
over the next couple of weeks. Absolutely.
25:16
Hey, can we pivot to the ladies for a second?
25:18
Yeah, let's talk about the ladies.
25:20
So before we get into that, I have to send out a
25:22
congratulations. So we have a good friend of The
25:26
show class of 92 grad, Scott W, who is himself a successful high
25:32
school basketball coach down in the state of Florida.
25:34
His daughter Olivia was one of the assistant coaches on that
25:40
Denison squad who just won the Division Three national
25:45
championship, upsetting some incredible teams along the way
25:48
to do it. So I want to I want to make sure
25:50
we issue a congratulations to Olivia W for her success as an
25:54
assistant coach at the D3 level and and getting a national
25:57
championship. It doesn't matter what level
25:59
you're at when you win a natty, it's it's pretty special.
26:01
So Congrats for that, Olivia. Yeah, yeah, that was awesome
26:04
news. Great to hear.
26:07
For sure. So what do you got for the
26:08
ladies? What's going on there?
26:09
OK, so anyway, like, so yeah, similar conversation.
26:13
You look at the portal, or at least the list of people who are
26:15
leaving that we have one. It's almost like similar to AJ.
26:18
We had Jada Green announced she was entering the portal.
26:20
I think you and I were like, oh, I thought she graduated, but she
26:23
was injured early in her career. Here's an eligibility left.
26:27
And I'll tell you this, I mean, watching all the games like I've
26:30
done for the last two years, I mean, Jada is one of the energy,
26:34
energy sources for that team. I mean, you could always see
26:36
her. She's leading the cheers in the
26:37
huddle, always rooting for her teammates.
26:41
So she has been a great spider and I wish her nothing but the
26:44
best. Wherever she ends up, I hope she
26:45
gets lots of minutes and shows the world you know everything
26:48
she can do cuz she's been a great spider.
26:51
And really, the good news is that's all we have so far.
26:54
That's well, most importantly, there's been no Eric, Coach
26:59
Russell's name hasn't been anywhere outside of U of R and
27:03
there was a, you know, some nice photos of him visiting some of
27:06
our upcoming freshmen as they were in their state finals.
27:12
So he was on a little Pennsylvania tour talking to
27:15
some of our players or seeing seeing their game.
27:17
So that was encouraging to know like he's not, he's not flying
27:20
somewhere to interview for a job.
27:22
He's like checking out his next batch of players and, and, and
27:26
helping kind of become their their mentor as they come to U
27:30
of R this fall. And is it just me or did the A10
27:33
just get a lot more winnable next year?
27:36
Yeah, it's, it's very interesting.
27:38
I mean, again, we don't really know what's going to happen
27:40
because the portal is just all, you know, a rumoured list until
27:45
the portal really opens tomorrow.
27:47
But anyway, you know, we saw one that, you know, Uri, Rhode
27:50
Island had that great year, kind of a magical year for them, kind
27:53
of their best year and 30 years or something along those lines.
27:55
And their coach left, took the job at Florida and it looks like
28:01
2 of their top returners are going into the portal, which is
28:04
not surprising. You lose a coach and you have a
28:07
good year. It's kind of at least a time to
28:08
kind of check out if there's kind of better opportunities for
28:11
you. So Rhode Island's going to be, I
28:16
wouldn't say starting over. I think hopefully that they're
28:19
hoping that they can just, you know, take a next step with a
28:22
new coach and different players. But they'll, they'll be
28:24
challenged. And then George Mason, they had
28:28
two of the two players that kind of kicked our butt in the a 10
28:32
tournament. We're both going to come back
28:34
and now they're both in the portal with in particular,
28:38
Walton was in the portal and then out of the portal and then
28:41
in the portal again really with over 3 days.
28:46
And this is all Italia Goodman, who's with on three is seems to
28:49
be the source like they've taken on three has become the source
28:52
for the women's portal. You can kind of look at least to
28:54
everything they're collecting kind of all the information that
28:57
people announcing or agents announcing kind of who's going
29:00
to enter the portal. That's a good source for that.
29:02
But yeah, so Rhode Island and George Mason are both at least
29:05
right now looks like they're going to have a little
29:07
transition. And we know we, you know, we
29:10
know we're going under transition because arguably the
29:12
best player ever and two. 2 Hall of Famers.
29:16
And and and and Rachel, who is a superstar as well.
29:20
They're. Impossible to Dewey.
29:21
We lost a lot of minutes in that team so.
29:23
I mean, the two of our big three that are leaving are impossible
29:27
to replace. So we know, you know, we're
29:29
going to have to have new players or.
29:32
Existing players step. Up but it is you know, maybe if
29:37
you're just really trying to defend the A10, it's not good
29:39
news, but I do like that, you know, Rhode Island, George Mason
29:43
are going through their own challenges that were unexpected.
29:47
We knew about our challenges and you know, we've got a big
29:49
freshman class coming in to help backfill some of what we've
29:53
lost. But those two teams are.
29:57
I haven't going to have to see if anybody from Davidson's in
29:59
the portal, but with with the losses at Rhode Island and the
30:03
losses at at Mason, I kind of think Davidson's going to open
30:07
up as the preseason favorite if they if they're keeping the rest
30:09
of that roster intact because they had some really good
30:11
underclassmen. Yeah, now they did.
30:13
I mean their best player. Charlie's done is going to
30:17
graduate. But yeah, so she's Katie.
30:19
I think it's Katie Donovan. She was, she was an elite 3
30:21
point shooter. She she, she was only a junior
30:23
so. Couple other things too, I mean,
30:25
not that they had great years, but LaSalle who he played a lot,
30:30
they're best two players. It looks like we're in the OR
30:32
less best two returning players went into the portal.
30:35
VCU replaced their coach and one of their top returners kind of
30:41
entered the portal. Now they may these players could
30:43
all end up coming back. So we don't really know what's
30:46
going to happen, but a lot of a lot of players available 6 foot
30:50
3. Inch sophomore center out of
30:52
Midlothian, VA Mia Wolfuck, who I believe is the daughter of
30:56
Pete Wolfuck, former spider, is also in the portal.
30:59
She's she's at Georgia average 14 points, 5 rebounds a game and
31:04
was a teammate of ring right. So there's a there's a big in
31:06
the portal. Now I did look at her game
31:08
pretty extensively. I don't see her as a three-point
31:10
shooter, but she seems to be a pretty physical presence down
31:12
low. Yeah, it's something Porta, you
31:15
and I were talking about. It's kind of just an interesting
31:17
question. You know, we're not going to
31:19
have the answer and we'll see kind of how this roster
31:23
develops. But we know, you go back two
31:25
years ago, we had, you know, in her senior year, kind of Addie
31:29
Budnick, who is to block shots, could rebound, could shoot the
31:33
three. And she was a player that was
31:36
that was I think Russell's first class or maybe was a sophomore
31:40
when Russell got here. But I mean, Russell kind of was,
31:44
you know, part of that development.
31:45
I mean, Addie gets most of the credit, but I'm sure Russell and
31:48
his coaching staff get some. And like the question in my mind
31:52
is while he's trying to develop that, maybe with the, you know,
31:56
the freshmen that are coming in, there's a couple bigs in that
31:58
class. Like when you're going to the
32:01
portal, like I, I just don't see us being able to afford the six
32:06
foot three center who was already a three-point shooter.
32:11
But we need like if you looked at last year's team, as great as
32:14
it was, like we were not no one, I don't think anyone would say
32:18
we were strong defensively throughout the season.
32:20
We had games where we were, but that wasn't our strength.
32:23
Our strength was kind of elite offense.
32:26
And so I would, I would hope we can, we can bring in someone
32:31
who's 6263, who's a rebounder and a defender and can't shoot a
32:36
three to save her life, but she can rebound and defend and help.
32:42
Us again, we talked, we had, we had these little mini debates
32:44
between us. I don't know if that's really
32:45
what Roussell's looking for. I think he likes length and he
32:49
wants, he wants interchangeable between the two through 4.
32:52
Now the five, I think he also wants somebody who can get out
32:55
and shoot the three and knock the three down.
32:56
So I think he wants another Addie Budnick is what he wants,
32:59
but that's hard to find. Yeah, but he's someone find that
33:00
on in the transfer portal. But somebody could play inside
33:04
physically and then get out and shoot the three because, you
33:06
know, it's all about pace and space with his read and react
33:09
system. And so I would be fascinated.
33:12
It'd be fascinating to be in the room with him as he's putting
33:14
together his his list of wants in the portal and how he goes
33:17
about it. Yeah.
33:19
I mean, I and this is where it's going to come across more
33:21
critical than it's intended to be of last year's players, but I
33:24
don't. Yeah, if there if there is a
33:26
weakness in our starting five last year, it was at the five
33:30
spot and we had some games where that spot was great, some games
33:34
where the combined they were good and some games where we got
33:38
nothing out of that spot. And and I think there were two
33:42
players who could in theory shoot the three.
33:45
I mean, Sam had some great nights on the three, but still
33:48
it was like, let's get big so you can shoot the three.
33:50
Get try to get him off the portal.
33:52
You know, Sam two years ago, Tierra last year.
33:55
I don't look at that and say like that's data that supports
33:58
let's get someone off the portal who can, you know, potentially
34:02
fit that Addy Budnick role. I think Addy's you got to
34:05
develop that yourself from, you know, a tall freshman who's you
34:10
think has a good stroke. It just needs to make it a great
34:12
stroke and from the portal like we need some tall defensive.
34:17
Yeah, but here's the thing, I don't think the way our offense
34:20
works, I don't think he wants a big who clogs up the lane and
34:23
doesn't doesn't pop out and shoot the three because I think
34:25
that changes how we approach our offense.
34:27
So I think, you know, you could, we could argue whether or not
34:31
they they were the the best fives we we could have had or
34:35
they were the best fives for us. I think both of them ended up,
34:38
you know, playing solid years to get us our second at large bid
34:41
in our in our history. But I will say that I think that
34:46
mold may be slightly more closer to Addie Budnick in overall
34:51
capability is what he will look for when he looks for his five.
34:54
That's just my I don't know. I'm not in the room, but he
34:56
hasn't talked to me about it. I did actually talk to him.
34:59
We were joking one time and I said something to the fact of,
35:02
you know, nobody's going to expect you to go back to the
35:04
NCAA tournament next year. And you.
35:05
What did you say at that? Said something like that, yeah.
35:08
He said. Like I'll take, I'll take you up
35:09
on that challenge. He, he seems pretty convinced
35:12
that he could, he could, he could get back.
35:14
And like, I know that's the confidence of a guy who knows
35:16
what he's doing. So again, I I honestly think
35:20
it's going to be fun to watch whatever the rebuilding year
35:22
looks like. But I think he's going into the
35:24
year thinking he can get back to the NCAA tournament for a third
35:27
year. Yeah.
35:27
The one thing has fourth year in a row.
35:28
Fourth year in a row Excuse. Me yeah, yeah, it's kind of
35:30
unfortunate we never got to see how this play, but I'll I'll
35:34
well, I know I I know you're kind of thinking about how you
35:36
know what's the ideal kind of offense we have with coach.
35:39
There was a player last year I think we are both excited to see
35:44
play more because when she did play, it was like the scrappy
35:47
inside player who was fighting for everything.
35:49
And that was that was Skyler Travis who got hurt, never was
35:53
able to really get a consistent role on that team.
35:57
But I think we saw like, hey, that was a that was a unique
36:00
sort of player that could have come in and do something
36:04
different than everybody else. And I'm hoping that he finds at
36:08
least one big like that who is just like an inside menace.
36:13
I we never looked at Skylar and said she was going to be
36:16
shooting from three. Now we didn't get to see a lot
36:18
of her. But I mean, here's the thing
36:19
that's. He would recruit her.
36:21
Here's the coolest thing about this whole thing, right?
36:23
Like 2 years ago, I think he had the, the, the ideal team for his
36:28
style, right? He had Addie inside, he had
36:31
Katie Hill and Alyssa Jimenez kind of providing that length on
36:33
the perimeter. You had obviously the remnants
36:36
of all the all of the big three were there and you had some
36:40
really good backups, right? You had Anna Camden, you had Sam
36:43
Dewey. She had really good backups.
36:44
So I think that was his ideal, kind of like if you could, if
36:48
you could construct it, what the team would look like.
36:50
But last year he got in that large bid with a completely
36:53
different type of roster. Like he did not have the length
36:56
on the perimeter. He had certainly Maggie and
36:58
Rachel, but like, you know, he played Newell and and Alley an
37:02
incredible amount together, which is a very small backcourt
37:05
by by most standards. So I think he's shown an ability
37:09
to to adjust to his talent and how do we always said like, you
37:12
know, that's a sign of the greatest coaches that adjust to
37:14
their talent. So I he might go after a 6 foot
37:17
three beast inside that just tears up the inside lane.
37:21
I have no idea because, you know, like I said, I'm not, I'm
37:25
not in his head in terms of what he looks for, but I.
37:28
Too, I was just thinking about what's happening with George
37:30
Mason. I remember when we saw Zariah
37:33
Walton kind of kick our butt in the A10 semis, and I would have
37:37
sworn she was 6162 the way she played.
37:41
And she's 511. So there is something.
37:43
And maybe the answer is, you know, you get a a, it's a wing
37:47
player who's not 6, you know, who's not 62, who's not 63, but
37:53
plays, you know, plays with that sort of strength and power and,
37:57
and Walton can hit the three. That's just not, you know, that
38:00
she wasn't just like, you know, just trying to shoot from three
38:02
all day, like she was trying to drive and punish you.
38:05
And I do. And this is hard.
38:08
I don't want to, you know, necessarily say our, you know,
38:10
this is a Richmond thing. But I think I feel like as being
38:13
a fan of the men's team for a long time and Coach Mooney going
38:16
into his 22nd year and now seeing the women's team for two
38:21
seasons, like we can go too far down the path of being this
38:27
finesse team right? Where it's like it's all
38:30
cutting. It's all three pointers.
38:32
You're expecting folks to get the back door or to get that
38:34
pass for an easy layup. And at some point we struggle
38:38
with the George in on the men's side to the George Masons of the
38:42
world who are physical and they can shoot threes, but they also
38:46
are looking to beat you up. And I feel like this part of the
38:50
opportunity in the portal is that you can get players for a
38:54
couple of years in who are like, I'm, I'm like, I want to just
38:57
beat you up sort of players and not just always fit into the
39:02
finesse side of the game, which I.
39:05
Mean it'll be like I said, it'll be fascinating to see what he
39:09
goes after and how he constructs it and how he adjusts his
39:12
coaching staff and and and style to whatever he ends up getting.
39:16
I mean that that's one of the great things about, you know,
39:19
watching Coach Roussel is I think he'll he'll find a way to
39:21
surprise you. And as much as I'd like to be
39:23
this tough team, we did. The women's team did lose in
39:26
Nebraska, which was just better at what we were doing.
39:29
Like they, they didn't beat us up.
39:31
They could just not miss. They just look like a better
39:33
version of us for that game, right.
39:35
And so I mean, I think you know that that's exactly right.
39:37
So, I mean, shoot, if you were to do it, if you were to make
39:42
the the in suitably tournament four years in a row, I mean,
39:45
we're talking about that's the stuff of legend at Richmond.
39:48
That's never happened to my knowledge.
39:50
Yeah, that's right. OK.
39:51
So anyway, again this is. By the way, that's Ally, the
39:55
only player in Richmond history he would have ever achieved
39:58
that. Four years until the tournament
39:59
at Richmond. Yeah, let's hope that.
40:00
Let's hope we're having that conversation in a year from now.
40:03
But this is, you know, the portal opens in two days, will
40:06
be the national championship tomorrow.
40:08
Who do you got in that Porter? Michigan, UConn.
40:11
And I know Michigan's favored by like 7 or something so.
40:13
It's you know what man, But Hurley is he's got such a
40:17
personality that like he, you know, he believes he can win any
40:21
game. And I think his team takes that
40:22
identity on. So they always scare me, but I'm
40:24
going to go Michigan, man, that team is wicked talented and
40:27
they're they're they're just very, very well put together.
40:31
Yeah, No, I I think that's, that seems to be the easy answer.
40:34
Now. I think if I was a betting man
40:36
and it was 7 1/2 points, I'd probably give that to to UConn.
40:39
I would, yeah. If you if you get early in 7 1/2
40:42
points, I mean, take it, that's a pretty good, that's a pretty
40:44
good. Bet OK, So we will be back at a
40:46
minimum two weeks from now if we get, if it's, you know, April
40:49
10th and U of R has, you know, signed three players on the
40:53
men's team and a couple on the women's.
40:55
Maybe we'll be back sooner than that, but we'll see kind of what
40:59
takes place during the portal time.
41:01
And, and just, you know, as you guys know, I mean, we'd love to
41:04
and Porter does the best he can to like try to get some news
41:07
from the from EU of R communications stuff so we can
41:10
break it. We're not news Breakers here,
41:12
but we'll talk about the news and try to get some inside
41:17
scoops. But I think I did break some
41:18
news though when I got asked to argue right that question.
41:20
I'm just saying. No, that's right.
41:23
Yeah, that's right. But anyway, until next time,
41:27
this is Tom. Hey, this is Porter.
41:30
And this is spiders sounding up.