Latest / Spiders Sound Off / Episode 3: Eight Returners, Four Transfers, and One Backstreet Boy

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Episode 3: Eight Returners, Four Transfers, and One Backstreet Boy · Spiders Sound Off

• 0:00
  We talking about practice, Porter.
• 0:02
  We talking about practice. Welcome to episode 3 of Spiders.
• 0:11
  Sound off your weekly home for all things Richmond Spiders
• 0:14
  basketball. We're 2 spider alums, season
• 0:16
  ticket holders and die hard fans breaking down the game, the
• 0:19
  players and the stories behind the stats and.
• 0:22
  Episode 3 will be the first part of our two-part episode on the
• 0:28
  men's team are off season grades and what we learn from watching
• 0:32
  them at practice. We talking about practice,
• 0:35
  Porter. Yes, Tom, we are.
• 0:37
  We're talking about practice. No games for a while, but we did
• 0:40
  get to take in a men's practice this week and we talked to Coach
• 0:43
  Mooney and we've got some insights into the team as well
• 0:46
  as maybe we'll finish with some grades.
• 0:49
  Well, after 2 episodes you've had some bold takes.
• 0:52
  Porter. This was the first time you
• 0:54
  watched the Spider practice and sat down with Coach Mooney.
• 0:57
  Are we ready to win a national championship based on your
• 0:59
  extremely suspect stretch goal? You know, Tom, it's going to be
• 1:03
  fun diving into our player notes based on what we saw.
• 1:06
  But first, let me just say the following.
• 1:08
  Winning is the key metric fans care about.
• 1:12
  It drives good fan behavior. It drives bad fan behavior.
• 1:15
  It helps us to shore up a sense of belonging and and community.
• 1:18
  It is the key metric and we were all as kids exposed to the
• 1:22
  famous Vince Lombardi quote. Winning isn't everything, it's
• 1:24
  the only thing. But after talking to Coach
• 1:26
  Mooney, I've got a couple different perspectives.
• 1:28
  Perspectives that every parent of a child, 'cause you and I
• 1:32
  both have children. The age of the players on that
• 1:35
  on our team right now, but we would say probably is even more
• 1:38
  important than winning. Coach Mooney can be intense in
• 1:41
  practice. And if you, if that was the only
• 1:43
  exposure you got, you would say, man, he's tough, he's tough.
• 1:46
  He's a tough coach to play for because he's so intense, but I
• 1:50
  think we saw a different side, too.
• 1:51
  Well, it was funny too, watching him.
• 1:53
  Like, I think the biggest compliment we heard kind of
• 1:56
  through practice was from Coach Moon.
• 1:58
  He was not bad, not bad. Yeah, that was a that was a lot
• 2:01
  of not bads going on. And when we sat down with him
• 2:04
  after practice, we talked about the kids on the team and past
• 2:07
  kids that have played for him. His praise was absolutely
• 2:10
  effusive. Yeah, it's interesting.
• 2:12
  You know, I think it's common for us too to, and you'll hear
• 2:15
  some of it later, take a current player and talk about a prior
• 2:17
  player. But even Coach did that when we
• 2:19
  were talking about Bryson McLaughlin, he kind of mentioned
• 2:22
  Justin Harper and kind of the development path that Justin
• 2:24
  had. Yeah, We'll talk about what we
• 2:26
  saw with Bryson as the podcast goes on.
• 2:28
  But, you know, he just lit up. I mean, he just lit up about,
• 2:31
  like the potential there. And he also talked, he waxed
• 2:35
  poetic for a while about Mike Walls.
• 2:37
  I mean, the developing, confident young man that is Mike
• 2:40
  Walls. And it struck me when we were
• 2:42
  talking to him, in this crazy world of paying players where
• 2:46
  there's tons of money, I'm sure there are tons of suspect
• 2:50
  characters whispering in these kids ears.
• 2:52
  That is a parent. If you, if you got a kid, is
• 2:54
  going to go to college and play college basketball, you probably
• 2:59
  understand that, yeah, winning is important.
• 3:01
  But there's also something just as important.
• 3:02
  And that is that your son or daughter develops into a human,
• 3:07
  a human being that is going to be successful, that they're
• 3:09
  going to win at the game of life.
• 3:11
  And we do have a bit of a correction from our last
• 3:14
  episode. So, you know, part of that story
• 3:17
  of Coach Mooney we mentioned last yeah, last week about the
• 3:21
  yeah, the the coaching tree and Porter talked about somebody
• 3:26
  named Kevin Hovde. The the correction here is that
• 3:30
  it is Kevin Hovde Porter. It is not Hovde.
• 3:33
  Apologies to Kevin. Let's make sure we get that
• 3:36
  right. But, you know, evidence to this,
• 3:39
  you know, what does Coach Mooney mean to these kids as they get
• 3:42
  older? I mean, when you have three
• 3:44
  former players all become head coaches, it talks about all.
• 3:48
  At the same time. Yeah, what they learned beyond
• 3:50
  just the XS and OS on the court. Prepared for the game of life by
• 3:54
  coach Mooney. So that was good and when you
• 3:56
  can look at Tyler Burton, you know, and, and his career at
• 4:00
  Richmond, he he left the senior year to go to Villanova.
• 4:03
  I don't, I don't know exactly, you know, what that what the,
• 4:06
  the money that was being offered looked like.
• 4:08
  But when he got done with Villanova, he came home to train
• 4:12
  with his Richmond family, the family that helped him develop
• 4:14
  into the player he he has become.
• 4:16
  And I mean, I think Mooney would be the first to say, you know,
• 4:19
  he was welcomed back because he's part of that Richmond
• 4:21
  family. And that, that's the kind of
• 4:23
  thing that unless you really sit down and talk to the players and
• 4:27
  the coaches around the program, you just don't see.
• 4:29
  Well, it's small news, I guess in the grand scheme of things,
• 4:31
  but Burton just had his first summer game with Memphis and had
• 4:35
  a huge night, so that was exciting to see him kind of
• 4:38
  fully kind of rehabbed and ready to go.
• 4:41
  And so as, as you guys listen to this, recognize that we are
• 4:45
  recording right after we saw practice.
• 4:47
  So we can. So these comments are fresh in
• 4:49
  our mind, the analysis is fresh in our mind.
• 4:52
  And when this episode gets released could be some period of
• 4:55
  days later. So there's there's other news
• 4:57
  that could break between now and then, but we just want to make
• 4:59
  you guys aware of that. So back to the the main story
• 5:02
  here, Porter. It sounds like you're no longer
• 5:04
  see a national championship as our goal.
• 5:08
  I would say, no, that's not what I'm saying.
• 5:10
  As my earlier remarks went, fans, they care about winning.
• 5:14
  And that's the metric that, you know, coach Mooney knows he's,
• 5:17
  he's judged on, right. He has a much broader task.
• 5:19
  And I I'm more empathetic to that after talking to him of,
• 5:23
  you know, developing these young men into winners in life.
• 5:26
  And I don't think there's any debate on that.
• 5:28
  His legacy is a resounding success.
• 5:31
  He loves these kids. You know, very few kids actually
• 5:34
  will ever get the chance to play in the NBA.
• 5:36
  And parents who send their kids to play under Coach Mooney so
• 5:40
  that they can develop in the game of life, I think are are
• 5:43
  doing really well for their development because I, I think I
• 5:47
  like what, you know, that I like the way he, he has their back in
• 5:50
  all instances and the way that they come back to play for him
• 5:54
  when times are tight. I did like when we were talking
• 5:56
  to coach, you asked him what his goals were.
• 5:59
  You talked about yours, asked him what his was he.
• 6:02
  He didn't exactly answer that question, but his response was
• 6:06
  pretty interesting. Yeah, he's a he's a pro.
• 6:08
  And so, you know, I asked him, hey, my goal is to win a
• 6:10
  national championship. Can you tell me if that's your
• 6:12
  goal? He he chose his words carefully,
• 6:15
  but he did say advancing in the tournament is easier than making
• 6:19
  the tournament. And what I heard that to mean
• 6:22
  was, you know, we have to overcome the natural obstacles
• 6:26
  that exist for US playing in a non major conference to make the
• 6:31
  tournament. But if we do the make the
• 6:33
  tournament, Mooney is willing to play anyone, anywhere.
• 6:37
  And I believe he believes he's going to win that game.
• 6:40
  And so when you get to the tournament, you want a coach who
• 6:43
  believes that they can win any game.
• 6:44
  And I think Coach Mooney fully believes you get the right team
• 6:48
  into the right situation in the tournament.
• 6:49
  He could. He could take this.
• 6:50
  He could take that team far. Well, one of the things he said
• 6:52
  too, I mean he was going through a lot of examples, but I think
• 6:55
  even the years that we've made the tournament, like we had to
• 6:58
  have big wins in our conference tournament to to make us feel
• 7:03
  confident we are going to get into the tournament.
• 7:05
  You know, if you go back to years past when we went to the
• 7:07
  Sweet 16, we had a schedule of our five conferences teams from
• 7:12
  those conferences and even that didn't guarantee us getting into
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  the tournament. Like we had to win our semi
• 7:18
  final game in that Atlantic 10 tournament to feel confident
• 7:22
  that we now we're going to get a bid whether we won the final or
• 7:26
  not. Yeah.
• 7:27
  And so as Vince Lombardi said, winning isn't everything.
• 7:30
  It's the only thing I think that needs an asterisk.
• 7:33
  And I think, you know, a a great, great leader of college
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  athletes and great college basketball coach was the
• 7:42
  legendary Pat Summit. I, I did a lot of work studying
• 7:45
  her over the years because I used to give different types of
• 7:48
  talks to different types of teams about, you know, you know,
• 7:51
  what, what it takes to succeed. And she's just one of those
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  people that like, will influence you and inspire you in life.
• 7:56
  So I like to read, I'm going to, if you indulge me, Tom, I know,
• 7:59
  you know, I, I can drone, I can drone on and you have sound
• 8:03
  effects to, to drum me off. But if you would indulge me for
• 8:05
  like 2 minutes, I want to read you a letter that Pat Summit
• 8:08
  wrote to a player and that player's freshman year, this was
• 8:12
  in the early 80s. This is, this was read by that
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  player kind of at her funeral. And also, this player goes back
• 8:18
  to this over and over again when she's got a difficult time in
• 8:21
  her life. And this, this kind of speaks to
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  what I just said about Coach Mooney and developing players
• 8:27
  beyond the basketball court. And so this is how the letter
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  goes. Sheila, this is your first game.
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  I hope you win for your sake, not mine, because winning's
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  nice. It's a good feeling, like the
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  whole world is yours. But it passes This feeling.
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  And what lasts is what you've learned.
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  And what you've learned about is life.
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  That's what sport is all about. Life.
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  The whole thing is played out in an afternoon.
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  The happiness of life, the miseries, the joys, the heart
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  breaks. There's no telling what will
• 8:52
  turn up. There's no telling how you'll
• 8:54
  do. You might be a hero or you might
• 8:56
  be absolutely nothing. There's just no telling.
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  Too much depends on chance and how the bell on how the ball
• 9:01
  bounces. I'm not talking about the game,
• 9:03
  I'm talking about life. But it's life that the game is
• 9:05
  all about. Just as I said, every game is
• 9:08
  life, and life is a game. A serious one.
• 9:10
  Dead serious. But here's what you do with
• 9:12
  serious things. You do your best, you take what
• 9:15
  comes, you take what comes and you run with it.
• 9:18
  Winning is fun, sure, but winning is not the point.
• 9:21
  Wanting to win is the point. Not giving up is the point.
• 9:25
  Never letting up is the point. Never being satisfied with what
• 9:28
  you've done is the point. The game is never over, no
• 9:32
  matter what the scoreboard reads or what the referee says.
• 9:34
  It doesn't end when you come off the court.
• 9:36
  The secret of the game isn't doing your best to persist and
• 9:40
  endure, to strive, to seek, to find and not to yield.
• 9:43
  I'm proud to be your coach, Pat Head summit.
• 9:46
  And so yesterday when we were talking to Mooney, that letter
• 9:49
  kept playing in my mind because, you know, it's the process.
• 9:53
  He talked about the process with some of the players.
• 9:55
  We we actually brought up Bryson just looks different.
• 9:58
  It's the process to take the potential and turn that into the
• 10:01
  great player. Porter, as you said earlier,
• 10:04
  winning is the key metric. We were 10 and 22 last year,
• 10:08
  finished 13th in the A10 and no one looks back fondly on those
• 10:14
  results. But it is July, so let's be
• 10:17
  positive. I do think you can say last
• 10:21
  year's team was great at everything but basketball.
• 10:24
  I saw most of those games live from the Robin Center.
• 10:27
  That team never quit. They worked hard, all gave up
• 10:30
  all year long. And while, you know, we had
• 10:32
  eight Division One wins and ten wins total, there was no quit in
• 10:35
  that team. And, and guess what?
• 10:38
  You know, eight of those players return, 8 out of 10 who could
• 10:42
  return return, which is more than I think most programs that
• 10:45
  would have so. It's certainly more than I
• 10:47
  expected to come back. And I think you and I had a bet.
• 10:50
  If you remember the last game, we sit together in the Robinson
• 10:53
  and the last game I said, you know, let's I'm, I'm going to
• 10:55
  give you a number and you tell me the over, you take the over,
• 10:57
  the under on how many of these kids are going to come back
• 10:59
  after this season. And I set the number at 5 1/2.
• 11:02
  And you were. You took the over, I took the
• 11:04
  under. And you were right.
• 11:06
  Yep, we'll have we'll have more bets during this podcast during
• 11:10
  the season for sure. So you know, right, Right now
• 11:13
  I'm one and O. Yeah.
• 11:15
  And, and the thing about it is, and like I, I told Coach Mooney,
• 11:17
  we told Coach Mooney about the bet.
• 11:19
  I don't, I, I mean, he smiled. He didn't really say anything
• 11:21
  about it. But I, I did say, hey, it's a,
• 11:24
  it's a credit to you, Chris, that a, you know, you, you
• 11:28
  believe hard enough in this group and they believe enough in
• 11:30
  you to come back and do this again.
• 11:32
  And we've added some key new elements that I think both you
• 11:36
  and I feel very optimistic about from watching yesterday.
• 11:40
  I think I think we're in good hands.
• 11:41
  I think we're going to definitely be in for a better
• 11:43
  season. But why don't we set the stage?
• 11:44
  Tell us a little bit about like, you know, what our experience
• 11:46
  was? Yeah, let's.
• 11:47
  Let's let's talk about practice. And so thank you first, Jason
• 11:51
  Vita, who manages strategic communications for the
• 11:54
  basketball team, invited us, told us about this practice.
• 11:57
  So shout out to him. We were on the second level
• 12:01
  balcony. So if you want to picture this,
• 12:03
  you know, they're down on the court kind of in their kind of
• 12:07
  relatively still new practice facility.
• 12:09
  We are on the balcony with seats there.
• 12:11
  There's actually a season ticket holder there that we got to
• 12:14
  chat. With DD, we're going to talk to
• 12:16
  you about your initials. DD Thank you for for breaking us
• 12:19
  in to watching practice. Yeah, this.
• 12:21
  The facility is gorgeous. It still looks brand new.
• 12:23
  While we're there too, I'll say we downloaded our podcast on
• 12:26
  DD's phone so that so that he could follow the pro, the
• 12:28
  podcast. So if you got one more listener,
• 12:30
  give us a like on Spotify on on Apple or whatever platform
• 12:33
  you're on, give us a follow. We definitely would appreciate
• 12:36
  it. So a little more context.
• 12:37
  This was the first practice after the team had a week off.
• 12:41
  This is week 6 of of their practice as a as a team.
• 12:46
  They have I think it's 10 weeks in the summer.
• 12:48
  They're allowed to practice before school starts and then
• 12:51
  they kick off practice again as you get closer to the regular
• 12:55
  season. This this practice look
• 12:57
  different than pre NIL days. Coach talked about how before
• 13:03
  more one-on-one time would have been spent in the summer or more
• 13:05
  development time with the freshmen.
• 13:08
  But because of the speed of getting ready with four
• 13:12
  transfers coming in, he said this is very much just like a
• 13:15
  regular practice. Like they were all out on this
• 13:18
  practice. This wasn't a let's kind of
• 13:20
  develop a few people and let everyone else kind of work.
• 13:23
  This was this, this felt and had the energy of a regular season.
• 13:28
  I would use 2 words to describe the general practice urgency and
• 13:35
  intensity. This did not look like a
• 13:37
  practice in early July. This looked like a practice, you
• 13:40
  know, a week before a game started.
• 13:42
  And I think that was on purpose. I think, you know, getting the
• 13:46
  players and the chemistry together and ready for the speed
• 13:51
  of the game is a priority earlier in the summer this year.
• 13:54
  Yeah, after a little bit of kind of warm ups with the assistant
• 13:59
  coaches and even some of the players of Mike Walls in
• 14:01
  particular, kind of leading some very basic kind of stretching
• 14:06
  and warmups, a coach Mooney join the team on the court.
• 14:09
  They kind of got together in a circle and then, gosh, I know it
• 14:12
  was next 30 or 45 minutes. It was kind of all gas, no
• 14:16
  breaks in the team, kind of going full court back and forth
• 14:21
  on passing drills, dribbling drills, defense.
• 14:25
  The one thing I'll say, I coach Mooney, I was interesting to see
• 14:27
  kind of he wears a headset at practice and there are speakers
• 14:32
  at the on the ceiling so he doesn't have to scream and yell
• 14:37
  to get people to hear him. What we learn is that posts
• 14:41
  heart issues. In 2023, they kind of installed
• 14:45
  that system so he doesn't have to scream for everyone to hear
• 14:47
  him. I, I, I joke to Porter.
• 14:51
  He kind of looked like a back. He kind of looked like a
• 14:53
  Backstreet Boy having that headset.
• 14:55
  I don't even know there's there were also good singing there.
• 15:00
  Porter. There were also multiple times
• 15:02
  where he took the headset off so he could let a player know he
• 15:07
  was not happy with the performance on that drill or
• 15:11
  during that part of the scrimmage.
• 15:12
  She flipped the mic up and, you know, you could still catch the
• 15:15
  gist, but it was, you know, he was he's a coach and he's
• 15:17
  teaching. And, and I mean, I think the the
• 15:21
  proof is in like we talked about earlier, the the progress these
• 15:25
  young men make under him on the in the game of life and also in
• 15:27
  the game of basketball. I mean, you know, Kevin
• 15:29
  Anderson, Justin Harper, Dan Jiro, the list is extensive.
• 15:34
  Jacob Gilliard, Grant Gold and TJ Klein.
• 15:36
  I mean, just think about the great players that came into
• 15:38
  Richmond's program and and left, you know, probably, you know,
• 15:42
  not only a much better player, but a better person.
• 15:46
  Again, they played hard and fast.
• 15:48
  They did scrimmage at the end. They had kind of game scenarios.
• 15:51
  It was 4 minutes left in the Game, 6 minutes they would, they
• 15:54
  would take their breaks. For some of you who have been
• 15:57
  critical of certain parts of our game in the past, they did work
• 16:00
  on free throws. So they it was almost like a
• 16:02
  time to take a break and spread out, shoot free throws for a few
• 16:06
  minutes and then get back going. Kind of, yeah.
• 16:07
  They run full speed they until their legs you know are are
• 16:12
  exhausted and then they go shoot 2 free throws off on the side.
• 16:14
  All of them at simultaneously shoot 2 free throws.
• 16:16
  So you replicate shooting free throws under game conditions
• 16:22
  where you're tired and you've got to, you've got to, you know,
• 16:25
  muster the energy in the form to hit the shot.
• 16:28
  So that was interesting. And the other thing I found
• 16:29
  interesting, and then I think we're going to jump right into
• 16:32
  the roster, is that you could tell Mooney would talk
• 16:37
  differently as you'd expect him to to, you know, the the Mike
• 16:41
  Walls and times of the team versus the freshman who's only
• 16:46
  been there for five weeks. So you, I mean, there was a lot
• 16:49
  more. But I would also say I turned to
• 16:52
  you at one point in time during practice and I said, if you mess
• 16:54
  up, it doesn't matter who you are, you could be the best
• 16:56
  player in the A10. He's going to freaking RIP you.
• 16:58
  And and that, that I think is probably the consistency that
• 17:03
  the players appreciate the most. If you screw up, you're going to
• 17:06
  hear it. Yeah, that's right.
• 17:08
  So let's let's jump right into the players.
• 17:11
  So talk a little bit about the roster.
• 17:14
  Let's talk about what we lost. We talked about this a little
• 17:17
  bit before. So we only lost two players to
• 17:20
  the portal, two players that we wished the best for, but not two
• 17:24
  players that were major contributors last year.
• 17:26
  So we're not missing returning players who put up lots of
• 17:29
  minutes in last on last year's team.
• 17:32
  So you know, Solace went to Columbia Sulis Sulis playing for
• 17:37
  Kevin Hovde. I think though it might be
• 17:39
  solace because I because I can't get Hovde right so.
• 17:42
  So that's great for him. Also I.
• 17:44
  Actually think he's got great potential still.
• 17:46
  I think he'll make a good big man.
• 17:47
  Like George Washington the third, he also the left, went to
• 17:50
  Florida Gulf Coast. Best wishes for him.
• 17:53
  Yeah, so we obviously wish the best for them and kind of we'll
• 17:55
  root for them as long as they're not playing the Spiders.
• 17:57
  We lost seniors who graduated that we'll miss.
• 17:59
  But I mean, we kind of knew that was going to happen.
• 18:02
  So to have eight players return, that's concludes 3 red shirt
• 18:06
  freshmen along with the names. You know, I think that's that's
• 18:10
  great. And then, you know, what did we
• 18:13
  gain? When you're looking at the
• 18:14
  offseason through the portal? We brought in four new transfers
• 18:19
  and it's a class even before I, you know, was at practice pretty
• 18:22
  excited about, you know, I think we all know from last year's
• 18:25
  team we needed more shooters, more playmakers.
• 18:29
  And I think you and I probably have a different pick as we go
• 18:32
  through these players on who's going to be the most impactful.
• 18:35
  But why don't you start us off with AJ Lopez?
• 18:37
  Yeah. Well, I mean, the good, the good
• 18:38
  news is 2 of if you look at the four players we got, two of them
• 18:42
  are coming in as their their last year of eligibility.
• 18:45
  They're super experienced. They've played a lot of minutes.
• 18:48
  And the first one, as AJ Lopez will talk about, he's come from
• 18:51
  Maine. Yeah, he's a 65 guard or wing.
• 18:56
  As you may remember, he scored 18 points against us in the
• 18:59
  Robin Center in. The Robin Center for.
• 19:01
  Sure, Maine had a great year, so they won 20 games.
• 19:04
  He averaged almost 15 points for them with good stats from three
• 19:09
  and and he is a great free throw.
• 19:11
  Shooter, what was interesting about practice was his
• 19:13
  three-point shot actually is a little bit lower than the rest
• 19:16
  of his shots. When he's driving to the hoop.
• 19:18
  It's like it's it starts from his chest and comes up, but it's
• 19:21
  effective because he used, as I think you said, he has 40% from
• 19:24
  3 last year so he knows how to make them.
• 19:27
  Yeah, I I think the three for him is going to be if he's left
• 19:29
  open, he'll take it. He's not running around screens
• 19:33
  with a guy in his face and shooting a three.
• 19:36
  But I think if when left alone, it's enough of a threat.
• 19:39
  And then if you watch his, you watch his tape when people tried
• 19:44
  to guard him tight like he can drive and finish at the back.
• 19:47
  He's. Aggressive.
• 19:48
  He'll he'll take you to the hoop.
• 19:49
  Who do you see him comparing to? You know, it's hard.
• 19:52
  Like we don't, we don't have a great history of folks who can
• 19:56
  beat people off the dribble and let's say shoot a 7 foot jumper
• 20:00
  or take it to the rim. I went back and it actually took
• 20:03
  me some time to find it. Like I I could think of like
• 20:05
  Jermaine Buckner. That's a good comparison.
• 20:07
  He I, I think a JS a little leaner, I think, I think
• 20:11
  Jermaine could be more of a he could post up at times during
• 20:14
  his series. Jermaine.
• 20:15
  Was taller too, I think. Yeah, but I see, I know.
• 20:17
  What you're but I think Jermaine was not like he wasn't lethal
• 20:20
  from three, but he could shoot the three and he could drive and
• 20:23
  kind of beat people to the basket.
• 20:25
  So not a perfect comparison, but I but I do think AJ is going to
• 20:28
  be a major contributor. And I think what we saw in
• 20:30
  practice too, he's fast. Like if we the more we can push
• 20:33
  the ball, he will be a guy who finishes fast breaks or is part
• 20:37
  of that fast break passing it to someone else to finish.
• 20:40
  He can be a big contributor on a fast break.
• 20:43
  I agree with that. The other grad show answer we
• 20:45
  have is Will Johnston. Will comes with to us from
• 20:48
  Loyola Marymount. He was a team captain there.
• 20:50
  But he's also from Australia, like the home of former spider
• 20:54
  player Josh Dunker. And I've often joked that, you
• 20:58
  know, kids that come out of Australia are just tougher
• 20:59
  because I think 9 of the 10 most deadly animals on the planet
• 21:02
  live or reside in and around Australia.
• 21:04
  So he already is a, I'm already a fan.
• 21:06
  Because if you can survive that Rock, You can survive anywhere.
• 21:09
  Well, and he does I, you know, I know this is subjective, but I'd
• 21:12
  say he's got the best hair on the roster and that includes a
• 21:18
  rat tail, yes. You were a fan of the 80s hair
• 21:21
  bands if I remember and. I think Rat Tail is, I think of
• 21:24
  that more of an Anakin Skywalker things versus versus hair bands.
• 21:29
  But yes. But I will say, I will say if
• 21:32
  we've gotten a lot of comments on our spider spider sound off
• 21:35
  intro music that that's a pays homage to the to the bands that
• 21:41
  Tom loved during the 1980s. So we'll, we'll give you guys
• 21:44
  some more insights as we go on during the season.
• 21:45
  I think from practice, Johnston looked like he could run a team
• 21:50
  and I and I think that's what he did at LMU.
• 21:53
  So I think he's very comfortable with the ball in his hands.
• 21:55
  While I think you know, Tyne will be the primary point guard,
• 21:58
  like I think if Tyne's on the bench and and Will has to run
• 22:02
  the point, he can do that. Yeah, he's I thought he was the
• 22:07
  just watching one practice now. So this is an opinion after one
• 22:10
  practice. I thought he was the most
• 22:11
  comfortable with his three-point stroke of anybody on the team.
• 22:15
  I mean he he lets it go and you and their shades of Jordan King.
• 22:18
  You just feel like he knows where it's going and he knows
• 22:20
  it's going in. So I think he's going to be an
• 22:22
  exciting player to watch. I think.
• 22:25
  I'm not as sure he's as quick as a Tyne or even an Argabyte.
• 22:30
  Is that his name? How do you spell his last name?
• 22:31
  Argabyte? I'm not sure he's that quick.
• 22:34
  Bright Argabyte. I'm not sure he's as quick as
• 22:36
  those guys. But I do think he's a best pure
• 22:38
  3 point shooter on the team. I can see, and I think we'll
• 22:42
  have multiple times where him and AJ are like leading the
• 22:46
  break. You know, Wallace gets the
• 22:48
  rebound, gives it to them and those two are going to be
• 22:50
  pushing it and be very comfortable passing to each
• 22:52
  other as they go through and get a easy layup when the other
• 22:56
  team's not. Who do you compare him to?
• 22:59
  Pass Spider. Wasn't easy either.
• 23:03
  Like I came to David Gonzalvez just because he was someone who
• 23:06
  could handle the ball when needed to, but just was a great
• 23:10
  shooter. And I, and I think that's where,
• 23:12
  you know, if you look at stats from last year, I think Will's
• 23:14
  challenge is like a lot of players, his consistency.
• 23:17
  You'll see him score 20 and then score 5 in the next game.
• 23:21
  But he I mean, he scored 33 two seasons ago against Gonzaga.
• 23:25
  So like he knows how to score. He's a score.
• 23:28
  But but I do think, you know, if we can get him and and AJ to
• 23:33
  maybe be a little more consistent and less hot and
• 23:35
  cold, I think we'll have two guys who who contribute a lot
• 23:39
  for. Us, I think there will be games
• 23:40
  in the Robinson of this year where he gets hot and just takes
• 23:43
  over the game and we're, we're all gonna be like, we need that
• 23:46
  every week. Cuz he's, he's just that kind of
• 23:47
  guy. He's got the, he's got the shot.
• 23:49
  He knows how to play basketball. It's gonna be fun to watch.
• 23:52
  I'm hoping at some point there is a giveaway at spider games
• 23:55
  which is a rat tail that like people everyone can clip to the
• 23:58
  back of their head kind of in support.
• 24:00
  Of I'd wear one of will. So, Porter, I'm, I'm pretty sure
• 24:03
  your favorite. Yeah, it's kind of a local kid,
• 24:06
  Jaden Daughtry. Yeah, I mean tell.
• 24:08
  Me what you think? About Jaden Daughtry is is a man
• 24:12
  I mean he's a full grown man he's a huge physically imposing
• 24:17
  presence 6 foot 7 but he's big, he's strong and he's going to be
• 24:22
  a beast. I think he's going to be the
• 24:25
  biggest surprise for spider fans.
• 24:27
  His physicality inside will remind you guys more of a they
• 24:32
  who shall not be named that live that have a campus 6 miles from
• 24:35
  ours player inside. I think he's going to be
• 24:37
  physical. I think he's going to pound some
• 24:39
  people. He's going to grab some
• 24:41
  rebounds. He's my vote for getting most
• 24:45
  minutes and most points actually a game from all of the transfers
• 24:49
  that are coming. I think he's going to be a
• 24:50
  beast. So he was last season, 13, a
• 24:54
  little under 13 off the bench for Indiana State's.
• 24:56
  He was kind of their bench player was all bench team in the
• 24:59
  league on the most improved team.
• 25:02
  So he ascended a lot last year. The stat as I find really
• 25:05
  interesting, 85% of his field goal attempts were kind of at
• 25:08
  the rim. So he is an inside presence, but
• 25:12
  one thing I noticed at practice, he was super comfortable
• 25:15
  shooting threes. So I think that's a part of his
• 25:17
  game that it can can take him from I guess where he was to
• 25:21
  being kind of a, you know, the all 10, all A10 type of player
• 25:26
  he can be. Now he's coming in with two
• 25:28
  years of eligibility too. So that's great.
• 25:29
  Like he doesn't need to be a star from day one.
• 25:32
  He might, he might be, but I think we'll hopefully see him
• 25:35
  for the next two years. So we'll they'll be a lot more
• 25:38
  his, you know, if he starts for our team this year, it'll be the
• 25:40
  first time and he started I think three games last year.
• 25:43
  So his first step is to be a starter and a big contributor
• 25:47
  there. And then I think if he adds that
• 25:48
  3. He led that Indiana State State
• 25:50
  team and BPM coming off the bench, which we talked about in
• 25:53
  our in our last episode, which is a neutral statistic.
• 25:57
  It's an advance stat for just, you know, who's making the
• 25:59
  biggest positive contribution to the team.
• 26:01
  So he's a player. You actually told me you thought
• 26:04
  he reminded you of Bigelow. Bigelow, I think is a little bit
• 26:07
  longer, and I would say that Daughtry is bigger.
• 26:10
  So I actually think of it more as like for you older Spider
• 26:13
  fans, like a Mike Hodges. He's a physical scrapper around
• 26:16
  the rim and I think he's gonna be a.
• 26:17
  Good player. What I like about the Bigelow
• 26:19
  comparison is I think Bigelow is first year at U of R, it was
• 26:23
  primarily at the rim inside and he kind of developed that 3
• 26:27
  point shot. And by his senior year at U of R
• 26:30
  he could hit the three, which made him that much more
• 26:32
  dangerous because he can now beat people who are off the
• 26:36
  dribble who tried to, you know, guard him out from three.
• 26:38
  Absolutely. So the last transfer we had
• 26:41
  coming in is David Thomas came from a year at DePaul.
• 26:45
  He also had a year at Mercer before that.
• 26:49
  I'll do a bit of a side. I have a giant DePaul weakness
• 26:52
  in the 80s. They were my favorite college
• 26:54
  team. Rod Strickland, Dallas comedy's
• 26:57
  Stanley Brundy. Maybe it's some of those names
• 27:00
  are familiar and and actually my love for Rod Strickland
• 27:04
  introduced me to Johnny Newman. Rod Strickland when he got
• 27:06
  drafted by the Knicks. Johnny Newman was a Knick and
• 27:09
  Rick Pitino had become a head coach and was the the innovator
• 27:13
  of in the NBA at the time of of focusing on the three-point
• 27:17
  shot. So they had a group of, I think
• 27:18
  five guys, including Strickland and Johnny Newman, who were
• 27:22
  called the Bomb Squad. I at some point in high school,
• 27:24
  I had the Bomb Squad T-shirt that had the five of them on the
• 27:27
  shirt, so. Your Chicago runs.
• 27:29
  Your Chicago roots run DPR. A Cubs fan.
• 27:32
  But back to David for a second. He had a really interesting
• 27:34
  path. He was a freshman star at
• 27:35
  Mercer, averaged 11 points and over 2 assists and in just 22
• 27:39
  minutes a game shot 45%, including 40% from the
• 27:41
  three-point land. The Merch Mercer coach got
• 27:44
  dismissed. He went to DePaul and DePaul
• 27:48
  brought in a bunch of new players and they had. 1010
• 27:51
  players off the portal with the their new coach.
• 27:53
  Yeah, that's that's the world that we live in, folks.
• 27:55
  In this Neil Portal world he had, they had 10 new players.
• 27:58
  He didn't have great stats at DePaul, but from watching him in
• 28:01
  practice, I'm going to tell you this.
• 28:03
  Don't judge his DePaul stats on how good this kid could be.
• 28:05
  He's actually a player. He held his own in every
• 28:07
  situation that I saw. I didn't think we had a lot of
• 28:10
  drop off from, you know, tying to him or really from any, any
• 28:14
  player to him. So we've wrapped up talking
• 28:16
  about the four transfers into Richmond.
• 28:19
  I think we're going to end Part 1 at this point.
• 28:23
  We will have Part 2 of this session on Episode 4.
• 28:28
  So until then, thank you for joining us Fighter fans, and we
• 28:32
  will talk to you soon.