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Richmond Men's Hoops Meltdown, A-10 Problems & The Women’s Tournament Defeat · Spiders Sound Off

• 0:06
  Hey Spider fans, we are back for another episode of Spider.
• 0:11
  Sound Off. This is Tom.
• 0:12
  And this is Porter. And it is Sunday.
• 0:16
  It's a Bloody Sunday. Yeah, it's been a crazy last
• 0:20
  couple of days. But I think 36 hours of pain for
• 0:23
  Spider basketball fans, Let's be.
• 0:25
  Let's be fair and we will get into all that, but before we do,
• 0:29
  I think we want to start off with a little kind of summary of
• 0:32
  maybe the reaction and some of our feedback from our last
• 0:35
  episode. Yeah, that was not good.
• 0:39
  The episode was fantastic. The.
• 0:40
  Feedback. We got a lot of.
• 0:43
  Feedback there was. That was our most feedback of
• 0:45
  any episode we've ever done. So I'd say there are two main
• 0:48
  points and we'll try to talk about them here. 1 Just to be
• 0:51
  frank, was people saying why aren't we talking about Mooney
• 0:54
  more as part of the problem? That's true.
• 0:57
  And then the second one was what was I thinking talking about us
• 1:02
  going to a lower conference, correct.
• 1:04
  We'll try to address both of those.
• 1:06
  Porty, you want to start talking about the the the coach session
• 1:10
  we seem to get. I think over and over people are
• 1:12
  thinking and saying that I am far too positive and not being
• 1:17
  hard enough on Coach Mooney and that's fair criticism.
• 1:21
  I mean, I am, I am positive about Coach Mooney.
• 1:23
  I haven't been as hard on him as I have been on other factors.
• 1:27
  And so I take that as fair criticism.
• 1:29
  I think overall, you know, you look at we have multiple years
• 1:33
  left on the contract. You look at the fact that the
• 1:36
  John O'Connor article came out saying we were spending
• 1:38
  2,000,000 versus 5 million, which are the elite programs in
• 1:41
  terms of spending in the Atlantic 10.
• 1:44
  And I'm hoping that, you know, my, the signals were to me like
• 1:47
  that means we got to go spend more money and try that one time
• 1:49
  before you make any, any sort of other decisions.
• 1:52
  But I hope behind the scenes, just Full disclosure that John
• 1:56
  Hart, our athletic director, is doing things like, you know what
• 2:00
  Coach Mooney said, everything has to be evaluated right now as
• 2:02
  to what's going right. So that starts with am I rolling
• 2:05
  out the right coach? Do we have the right assistant
• 2:07
  coaches on the team? Are we giving?
• 2:10
  Are we playing a system in this era of nil spending that can
• 2:16
  work? Can we have better BBQ?
• 2:18
  We have better BBQ at the Robin Center.
• 2:21
  Are we giving the coaches the resources they need financially
• 2:25
  to compete in this arena? And, and just to kind of add to
• 2:28
  that, like I, I and you know, what we saw happen up in Orlean
• 2:32
  New York is kind of an alternate view.
• 2:34
  It's a, it's a it's a, it's a different team, similar size
• 2:39
  school in the grant egg, you know, in terms of where in the,
• 2:42
  you know, a few thousand sort of student realm versus other
• 2:45
  schools in our conference are much bigger.
• 2:47
  I think we'd all agree Richmond is a nicer place to live in.
• 2:49
  Olean NY much though, you know. But the people up there are very
• 2:53
  good people and I know a lot of. Them, but I can, I can, you
• 2:56
  know, I'll say you know, trying to take a step back.
• 2:59
  I can see that there is a stronger argument to go the
• 3:02
  Bonnie's route then to go the Richmond route where Bonnie
• 3:07
  decided or maybe mutually decided to change coaches to
• 3:10
  save money on their coach in in theory, this is kind of rumor or
• 3:15
  being put out there by a, you know, press people who are
• 3:17
  closer than us that they're going to try to save money on
• 3:19
  their next coach to put more into NIL.
• 3:23
  And it's a you know, coach who'd been there for 19 years, kind of
• 3:25
  rebuilt that program, had NCAA success.
• 3:29
  So I'm I can we've heard that argument about Richmond.
• 3:32
  I get it. But we also heard before our
• 3:36
  game that it was announced. I think John O'Connor is kind of
• 3:39
  the one to to push the point that was told to him that Mooney
• 3:43
  is coming back. So can I say something?
• 3:45
  About that too. I didn't love the timing of that
• 3:47
  by the way. Like if, if, if he's coming
• 3:49
  back, great, that's fine. I kind of, I think we were
• 3:52
  suspecting that was going to happen, right?
• 3:54
  But you don't need to announce that the during the women's
• 3:57
  tournament. I mean, that's just a real
• 3:58
  distraction in my mind, like you.
• 4:00
  Know it's not distracting any of the players or the coach on the
• 4:03
  women's team it's. Just distracting to have news
• 4:06
  about the men's coach out when the women are out there trying
• 4:08
  to fight for an NCAA bid. Like I don't, I didn't love it,
• 4:10
  right? And I at the end of the day, you
• 4:12
  could have said to John O'Connor, you know, hey, can you
• 4:16
  wait to ask me that until the A10 tournament, right #1 And it,
• 4:19
  and it maybe, maybe Mooney wanted that out.
• 4:21
  And, you know, I would if I were him.
• 4:22
  If I'm recruiting, I want that that news out.
• 4:25
  And maybe there's a player that he's about to sign that needed
• 4:27
  to hear that. Well, you can just have a
• 4:28
  private call between that player and the athletic director.
• 4:30
  So I just didn't love the timing of it.
• 4:32
  But that's, that's just me. But Mooney is coming back.
• 4:35
  That's been announced, you know, by by John O'Connor.
• 4:39
  And you know, I think you're going to see us spend
• 4:42
  significantly more money this year in the portal than we did
• 4:44
  in the last year. If you do the math, by the way,
• 4:48
  with money that's presumably coming off the books with our
• 4:51
  seniors and a $5,000,000 spend instead of A2.
• 4:55
  Nobody's saying 5 million, but that was the number that was in
• 4:57
  the article. That's the number that's in the
• 4:59
  article that the others are spending.
• 5:00
  So let's say it's 5 million that kind of supposes, let me just,
• 5:05
  you just have to do the math that we could spend as much as
• 5:06
  3/4 of $1,000,000 on a single player.
• 5:09
  So think about that for a second, 3/4 of $1,000,000 on a
• 5:12
  single player for a single year. That's pretty, that's pretty
• 5:15
  interesting. I'll just throw that.
• 5:16
  But the one thing I think we both agree on is that, you know,
• 5:19
  we're, you know, two years in a row we're 5 and 13 in the A10.
• 5:22
  No one's happy about that. We're not happy.
• 5:25
  I guarantee Coach Mooney's unhappy about it.
• 5:28
  If we have another year like that, his seat is going to be on
• 5:31
  fire this time. And if we spend, if we find more
• 5:34
  money, spend more money and we're going 5 for 13, like
• 5:37
  there's a different a totally different conference.
• 5:40
  I doubt there's an announcement in in a year from now that he's
• 5:43
  coming back for another year. And by the way, folks, remember
• 5:45
  I, I moved back to the area in 2024, my first time, you know,
• 5:49
  being living in Richmond since college, since going to the
• 5:51
  University of Richmond. And I watched Mooney cut down
• 5:54
  the Nets in 2024 for winning the A10 regular season.
• 5:57
  I suffered through the 25 season, which we all suffered
• 6:00
  through, was terrible, you know, and now I've suffered through
• 6:02
  the 26th season. It's not been a good season.
• 6:04
  You're banging the table again. I'm banging the table again and
• 6:07
  so, so like, I feel that pain too.
• 6:09
  But what I what I decided to do about it, honestly, is to say,
• 6:12
  let's go watch the women play. They are really, really good.
• 6:15
  You guys have heard me hype the women's team.
• 6:17
  I love that coach. I love Mooney too, but I love
• 6:19
  Aaron Roussell. He's a top 10 coach in America.
• 6:22
  He's built a program for us. They play really, really good
• 6:25
  basketball. And I just decided to try to use
• 6:28
  the positivity about what they're doing to try to promote
• 6:30
  the program and get you guys out to go watch them.
• 6:32
  Happy to say, you know, they were drawing 2000A game at the
• 6:35
  end of the season as compared to 700, the first kind of year of
• 6:39
  the of the Maggie Dugan, Rachel Ostrom, you know, era.
• 6:44
  And so like, look, the people are coming out to the games.
• 6:46
  We're building momentum. You know, you got one of the
• 6:49
  top, top coaches in America, just like fall in love with the
• 6:52
  women's program because it really is great basketball.
• 6:54
  Now, before we get into the whole why did I mention the
• 6:57
  Patriot League, I was just, you know, we've talked about the
• 7:00
  offense and how you look at a team like Saint Louis and how
• 7:03
  elite they are and and they're kind of 2 versus 3 selection and
• 7:08
  like, what can we do to change? I was just looking at stats.
• 7:10
  I thought this was kind of interesting and this this won't
• 7:13
  be a surprise, but if you think about how do you get more
• 7:15
  efficient? If you look there there's a stat
• 7:18
  on Bartorvic if you anyone has looked there of dunks.
• 7:22
  Dunks and women's game. This is the This is the men's
• 7:24
  game. Oh, the men.
• 7:24
  'S game. Yeah, Smart.
• 7:25
  Pay attention we are ranked 286 in Dunk attempts and 277 in the
• 7:37
  in the share of our twos that are dunks.
• 7:41
  So we are really bad at the most easiest basket there is.
• 7:46
  We take about 1.3 per game. If you look at VCU they take 3
• 7:50
  per game, 3 dunks, 3 dunks and it's 10% of their twos.
• 7:54
  For us, it's 4% of our twos. You know, we're Scott Stapleton.
• 7:57
  Yes, of course that. Guy could dunk the basketball.
• 7:59
  As an exact as you take the extreme, Georgia is number one
• 8:02
  of the country. 19% of their twos are dunked.
• 8:05
  Smith could dunk the basketball. They have 217 attempts to our 43
• 8:11
  attempt. So that's the best versus kind
• 8:13
  of where we are in the two 80s. Robinson can dunk the
• 8:16
  basketball. I know, but he's got to get the
• 8:18
  ball from someone so he can. OK, so let's talk about this
• 8:22
  whole Patriot League thing. So let me be clear.
• 8:24
  I don't want us to go into a worse conference.
• 8:27
  And kind of one obvious thing, but maybe, you know, when we
• 8:29
  were kind of riffing last time, it doesn't quickly come to mind
• 8:33
  is that even if we went to a lower conference pick our days
• 8:36
  on the Colonial or, you know, even lower, if you look at the
• 8:39
  rankings of the Patriot League, even if we could win that
• 8:42
  league, you know, every other year, like the best you're
• 8:44
  getting is a 15th seed, some years a 16th seed.
• 8:48
  So like, while we don't have history winning above a 12, you
• 8:53
  know, we'd I'd love to be in a place where we have those
• 8:55
  opportunities, or at least we're getting kind of 12 seeds when we
• 8:59
  come out early. No, I don't think we did OK up
• 9:02
  now it all comes kind of frustration of where our program
• 9:05
  is and just the plight of mid majors right now.
• 9:09
  And and just a correction to what you said before you.
• 9:12
  I was talking about the A10. You're like, yeah, but you know,
• 9:14
  VCU went to the final four, the A 10.
• 9:17
  They did not. They went to the Final Four as
• 9:19
  the CAA team. That's right.
• 9:20
  Yeah, that's a good. Point.
• 9:22
  And if you look at this stat, this is kind of a damning A10
• 9:24
  stat. So George Mason, VCU and Butler
• 9:28
  twice went to the Final Four before they joined the A10.
• 9:32
  And obviously Butler kind of came and went pretty quickly,
• 9:34
  but none of them have been to the Final four since joining the
• 9:37
  A 10. So they all came to kind of
• 9:39
  elevate their program and I'm and they've seen it, but they
• 9:41
  haven't seen it in Final Fours. And if you look over the last 10
• 9:45
  years, we've got some feedback of like, hey, the A10 is just as
• 9:47
  good as it used to be. Or like, hey, it's not as bad as
• 9:49
  you think. If you go over the last 20
• 9:52
  years, like the first ten of those 20, we had 10 teams ranked
• 9:57
  at the end of the year in the AP and 35 made the NCAA.
• 10:01
  So basically we averaged 1A year, that's a top 25 team and
• 10:06
  give 3 1/2 in the NCAA. The last 10 years we've had two
• 10:09
  teams in the year in the AP and we've had 17, maybe 18 if we get
• 10:16
  2 teams in this year in the in the NCAA.
• 10:19
  So we're averaging what, 1.71 point 8?
• 10:21
  So it's clearly about half as to me, it's half as good as it used
• 10:25
  to be. It's still a multi bid league.
• 10:26
  So I mean that's we're not averaging .8, we're averaging
• 10:29
  1.71.8. So we get 2.
• 10:31
  Sometimes we get one obviously much better than kind of the
• 10:34
  Patriot could dream of. So, but there is a problem with
• 10:38
  mid mid majors right now. We know and we'll talk about the
• 10:40
  women's team in a second. But like the net is the kind of
• 10:44
  the magical number that people look at.
• 10:47
  And if you're in a a mega conference or a power
• 10:50
  conference, like you can get your tier, your one quad 1 and
• 10:54
  quad two games just from your conference, right?
• 10:56
  Like you don't need to try to schedule those.
• 10:58
  And you may if there's a big money making game, you'll see
• 11:01
  every now and then kind of UConn will play Michigan or something
• 11:04
  like that pre season. But it's tough being a mid major
• 11:08
  right now. It is I mean, at the end of the
• 11:11
  day too, the the message that I think we didn't really talk
• 11:13
  about 1:00 when we just like and I'll tell you guys remind you
• 11:17
  guys again, we don't plan what's going to be on these episodes.
• 11:19
  We come out. We.
• 11:20
  Plan a little. Just a just a very rough straw
• 11:22
  man, but we come out, we have a conversation, we put a
• 11:24
  conversation on air. Sometimes we we listen to it and
• 11:27
  we're like, why did we say that or why did I not follow up with
• 11:29
  that? But at the end of the day, we
• 11:30
  pretty much try to just be be as authentic as possible.
• 11:33
  I mean, I could have said the American E Conference.
• 11:35
  You could have said the American E conference or the SWAC or the
• 11:38
  NEC or something that's like way down the power rankings.
• 11:41
  But at the end of the day, like, I mean, you know, we want we
• 11:44
  want the team to do well, we want the program to do well.
• 11:47
  I mean, we're not, you know, here for the agenda that, you
• 11:50
  know, the real people who are super mega frustrated with the
• 11:53
  men's program want us to be here for.
• 11:55
  We don't have that same agenda. We do want to win.
• 11:58
  We want to be competitive. We want to see us do our best.
• 12:02
  You know, and we're we'll we'll keep trying to tell you the
• 12:05
  best, the best story we can about spider basketball, telling
• 12:07
  spider basketball stories to spider basketball fans.
• 12:10
  I don't know, I'm just. Rambling.
• 12:11
  Yeah. And so talk, I want to talk a
• 12:14
  little bit more about the the major mid major plight and some
• 12:17
  some information I saw. So I believe if you really
• 12:22
  surveyed the athletic directors of the Power 5 conferences, they
• 12:26
  would say we don't need any of the other conferences to be in
• 12:29
  the NCAA tournament if they could just snap their finger.
• 12:32
  And I know it's like, yeah, but remember all these great games
• 12:34
  and of course we remember them because, you know, we're part of
• 12:36
  that story. But at some point, this comes
• 12:39
  down to money and the advantages that the big schools have.
• 12:42
  And it also carries to the NCAA tournament.
• 12:45
  So you get roughly $2,000,000 per game that your conference
• 12:51
  goes in. So your conference gets that to
• 12:53
  split. So think if we have one team
• 12:55
  going into the tournament, there's $2,000,000 that gets
• 12:58
  allocated to the 14 teams. Now, I don't, I think the A10,
• 13:01
  every conference has its own formula how they do that.
• 13:03
  It's not just peanut butter spread to all of them.
• 13:06
  You also get it over six years. Now, if every year you get a
• 13:09
  team in which the A10 certainly does, you're basically getting
• 13:11
  $2,000,000 a year. You're getting some of the old
• 13:13
  payments, some of the new payments.
• 13:15
  SEC last year, if you look at what they're going to earn over
• 13:18
  the next six years, got $70 million.
• 13:22
  We got 2. And this is our conference, not
• 13:24
  teams. This is a conference.
• 13:26
  So you think the SEC is like I'm glad the A10 got 2 or they would
• 13:29
  just love to take R2? I'm pretty sure they'd love to
• 13:31
  take R2 and I think that's where it's headed unless the mid
• 13:36
  majors and the small schools build some sort of coalition to
• 13:42
  force change. Because otherwise, like it's
• 13:45
  going to happen to us, we ought to be proactive and either
• 13:48
  prevent it from happening. Coalition of the Willing.
• 13:50
  Yeah, and I say the small conferences too, because if you
• 13:53
  don't get them involved, they're just going to take buying games
• 13:55
  from the big conferences because they need that to fund
• 13:57
  themselves. So you've got to get the small
• 14:00
  conferences in as well. But right now, like, I, I I
• 14:02
  think the problem is bigger than it's talked about because what
• 14:05
  you hear mostly is from the ESPN folks who love the Power 5 or
• 14:10
  talk radio who's talking about like the big conference teams.
• 14:14
  You know, there's not a lot of talk on the small teams and how
• 14:16
  much trouble they have. But the one thing that we know
• 14:19
  is going to change is the A10 commissioner is changing.
• 14:23
  And so hopefully, like that's a step in the A10, you know,
• 14:27
  taking some leadership in this space because the A10 is one of
• 14:31
  the most successful non, you know, big 5 conferences that's
• 14:36
  going to bat has a basketball focus interviews for the
• 14:39
  commissioner happening next week.
• 14:41
  So we'll I don't know how quick they'll make decisions there.
• 14:44
  Porter and I were not invited. You know, we we made our call.
• 14:47
  For we weren't invited to interview for interview for the
• 14:50
  position. But like, if you know, and I
• 14:53
  think you'll hear a lot of these ideas, I think we just need to
• 14:56
  get the right, we need to get the commissioner to get people
• 15:00
  in the room to come up with ideas that aren't just the
• 15:04
  traditional ones, whether it's kind of we've we've had this
• 15:07
  conference challenge before. A lot of conferences do that.
• 15:10
  And sure, that would be good. I'd love to see like conference
• 15:14
  tournaments where we're playing another conference, you know, in
• 15:17
  a Christmas tournament or do something innovative.
• 15:21
  Like let's have non like this whole rule that conference
• 15:24
  starts from January and you don't do anything else like
• 15:27
  it's. Play it backwards.
• 15:29
  No, but we just need to do something different.
• 15:31
  Like you can't like playing it by the old rules is going to get
• 15:33
  us the same thing. So that like, again, this is
• 15:35
  probably a stupid idea, but hey, in February, like that's when
• 15:38
  you have your challenge with another conference.
• 15:40
  Yeah, I love that. A10 Mountain and we've also like
• 15:43
  if you guys, if you guys are NFL fans, like where the schedule is
• 15:45
  flexible like the last. Flex our four best teams against
• 15:48
  their four best teams to try to get some.
• 15:50
  Extra wins or you know what if if getting pick a school, if
• 15:55
  getting George Mason in the NCAA tournament is only going to
• 15:58
  happen if they get a few more quad two games, let let them go
• 16:01
  play another top team in our league three times in the last
• 16:04
  two weeks. You know, it's like it's like
• 16:06
  you've got to just be. And then again, these are all
• 16:08
  probably dumb ideas, but you got to get the right people in the
• 16:11
  room and hopefully that commissioner does that.
• 16:13
  What's? Either dumb ideas they're just
• 16:15
  radical ideas how about like you basically band together with
• 16:17
  four other conferences and you say we're going to keep we're
• 16:20
  going to keep flexibility for these three days in February and
• 16:23
  like we're going to take our four best teams from each
• 16:25
  conferences and match them up in a way that maximizes each of
• 16:28
  their chances to get a quad one or two win right so it's it's
• 16:32
  like let's say it's Saint Louis at 28 and in the Mountain West.
• 16:35
  I don't know insert who's who's good in the Mountain West these
• 16:37
  days. They.
• 16:37
  Don't know a mountain so. Many times, yeah.
• 16:40
  So let's just take, you know, some some media or let's take
• 16:42
  Gonzaga for a second. Gonzaga against Saint Louis,
• 16:44
  Saint Mary's against who's our second best team?
• 16:46
  VCU. Yeah, you basically try to you
• 16:48
  try to create a three day tournament where you match one
• 16:51
  against 1-2 against two and the goal is simply to get extra
• 16:54
  power. Now if Gonzaga doesn't have the
• 16:55
  same problems, we do scheduling. But you know.
• 16:58
  That that's just an example. Like I, I was talking to Porter
• 17:01
  at the game, women's game yesterday.
• 17:03
  Like what? What would happen if the A10
• 17:05
  commissioner went to the Big East and said we want to play
• 17:07
  you. We only, we promise we'll just
• 17:10
  play you on the road and you can pick who plays who.
• 17:14
  Like again, they, the biggies guy might not even pick up the
• 17:18
  phone. But the point is like we need
• 17:20
  some innovative and some off the wall ideas.
• 17:22
  And you, I thought you were going to keep that idea to
• 17:25
  yourself, by the way, that one, that you were supposed to bury
• 17:27
  that one down deep. OK, before we get to the
• 17:29
  disappointing women's weekend in Richmond, I guess we got to talk
• 17:32
  a little bit about the men's and I mean, we did have the, what
• 17:36
  you say, the first best half. I said we played the first half
• 17:38
  of our season. I mean, it was exactly what you
• 17:40
  had wished for in the last episode where you said, hey, we
• 17:43
  get out to the slowest starts. What's up with that?
• 17:46
  We got out to a 38 to 8 start in this one, Tom.
• 17:49
  So for those who don't know, we lost 79 to 77.
• 17:52
  It was we were had a 30 point lead in the first half.
• 17:55
  It was 2021 at halftime. We lost that lead.
• 18:00
  And if you look at the box score, it's insane.
• 18:02
  So we shot for the game 64% and 60% from three, and Duquesne
• 18:09
  only shot 40% and we lost. Now how did that happen?
• 18:15
  We got out, rebounded 32 to 22. That's typical.
• 18:19
  What's not typical is we had 16 turnovers, they only had 10.
• 18:23
  So that's. 11 in the second. Half that's that's the big part.
• 18:25
  And they we, they had 11 more points off turnovers.
• 18:29
  So yesterday for me, like, so I was getting score updates texted
• 18:33
  to me about the men's game. I was at the women's game with
• 18:36
  you. We, we had a really bad day.
• 18:38
  We'll talk about that in a second at the game.
• 18:41
  And then I'm walking through the parking lot.
• 18:43
  I couldn't do the post game show.
• 18:44
  I was just too depressed. And I, I don't, I mean, I want
• 18:47
  to bring my energy, but I don't also want to show up and just
• 18:51
  kind of like be morose. So I literally decided to skip
• 18:54
  the post game conference walking like somebody kicked me in the
• 18:57
  stomach with a steel toe boot to the parking lot, get into my
• 19:00
  car. There's Bob Black and I think
• 19:03
  it's maybe with Scott, I can't remember who was traveling with
• 19:05
  him for the radio call, but you know, driving home and it's like
• 19:09
  we still got the lead and it's like just kind of slowly going
• 19:11
  downhill. And then at one point in time,
• 19:13
  you know, Bob mentions we were up 30 in the first half and I'm
• 19:16
  like, holy cow. And then it's, you know, the the
• 19:19
  tip in happens, they win. And I just turned off my radio,
• 19:23
  went upstairs, took a nap. I just couldn't handle any more
• 19:25
  basketball for the day. I was done with the spider
• 19:27
  basketball. You know, we're emotionally
• 19:30
  invested in this stuff, especially, you know, we're so
• 19:32
  close to an at large bid for the ladies.
• 19:34
  Just, you know, I, I, I felt we needed to win that game
• 19:36
  yesterday. I've now looked at things a
• 19:38
  little more. I have another take for you guys
• 19:40
  today. But yeah, it's just a really
• 19:42
  tough day. OK, so just a couple things to
• 19:44
  wrap up the men's. These are some of the the
• 19:46
  despite all of that great shooting, some some low lights I
• 19:50
  got put together. So Argo, Bright and Johnston,
• 19:52
  you think of the two guys who are kind of running our offense
• 19:54
  most of the game. They had four assists combined
• 19:58
  and eight turnovers. Tanner played 32 minutes, he was
• 20:04
  second on the team time 32 minutes over 32 minutes.
• 20:08
  He had eight points, 5 rebounds, no assists and finally Mike
• 20:12
  Walls was one for three shooting.
• 20:15
  He took three shots. We end up five and 13, same
• 20:21
  regular season record as last year.
• 20:24
  We are in the pillow fight, as they like to call it.
• 20:28
  We play Wednesday at 2:00 PM, prime time for game watching.
• 20:33
  Wednesday at 2:00 PM. That's on the USA Network
• 20:36
  against Loyola Chicago. Porter is the loser of that
• 20:39
  team, the worst team in the A10. Absolutely, absolutely.
• 20:43
  They're the worst team in the A10.
• 20:44
  If they beat us twice, I can't say we're not the worst.
• 20:46
  The winner gets Davidson, OK. And then I think the winner of
• 20:50
  that likely. Here's what I will say.
• 20:52
  We won't go. We won't go in three against
• 20:54
  Davidson. If we can get out of the pillow
• 20:55
  fight, we'll beat Davidson. OK, so let's jump to the
• 20:58
  disappointment we had with the women.
• 21:00
  Maybe first we should talk about Friday.
• 21:02
  So if we had a, it was a fun game Friday.
• 21:04
  Lovely day. Women won 70 to 51 over LaSalle.
• 21:08
  Didn't really shoot the three well, but really controlled that
• 21:11
  game really from the from the beginning.
• 21:14
  Played played three freshmen, 4 freshmen in the fourth quarter a
• 21:17
  little bit together. That was really cool to see.
• 21:19
  And before that, I didn't get to see it.
• 21:21
  Porter did. There was the crazy Dayton
• 21:25
  George Mason game. I was sitting there.
• 21:27
  Tell us about that. Yeah, I texted a few people to
• 21:29
  score. We were up the tweet.
• 21:30
  Dayton was up 10 on DCU with minutes, just a minutes to play.
• 21:35
  And I was sitting next to another Spider fan.
• 21:37
  I didn't get his name. And, you know, I think it was
• 21:40
  like, it got to be like 71 to 50.
• 21:43
  What was it, 71 to 63? And he said to me, the first
• 21:47
  team to 75 is going to win this game now, 71 to 63 with less
• 21:51
  than two minutes left or two minutes and 13 seconds left.
• 21:53
  I couldn't disagree with him, right?
• 21:54
  Two more shots, even 4 foul shots and Dayton's got that
• 21:57
  game. Somehow we went from that to
• 22:01
  like a six point. It felt like a six point play,
• 22:03
  but it was more like 6 points in six seconds or something like
• 22:06
  that. For, for, for GMU and I, I have
• 22:12
  the reputation of being bad luck at times.
• 22:14
  They call me the Black Widow and all my friends now say I
• 22:16
  widowed, widowed Dayton by saying they're up 10 with two
• 22:19
  mistakes. Yeah, he said the text showing
• 22:20
  the scoreboard, which I think it was more of like a like without
• 22:23
  saying anything like how shocking it is that George Mason
• 22:27
  by 10. And so anyway, I widowed.
• 22:28
  I widowed Dayton. Dayton getting through after
• 22:31
  having played two games in a row would have been a much better
• 22:33
  match up for us. We did.
• 22:34
  We don't match up well against George Mason's to my, in my
• 22:37
  opinion, it's the hardest team for us to play in the Atlantic
• 22:40
  10, not because they're just that much better than anybody.
• 22:42
  It's just a not a good match up for styles of play and.
• 22:46
  Well, one thing I sort of think for the season they are top ten
• 22:49
  in the country in three-point defense and that we are 18 and
• 22:54
  one when we hit more than when we hit double digit 3 pointer so
• 22:58
  that we don't have to do that. But it's it's it's how we're
• 23:01
  most successful. And if you look at that game, we
• 23:05
  are 5 for 24 I'll. Say this that's, I mean, look,
• 23:10
  the coach is a really good coach at George Mason.
• 23:12
  She's very, very good. 810 is lucky to have her.
• 23:16
  You know, I, I say, I still say Roussel is my, he's a top 10
• 23:19
  coach in the nation for me. She's very, very good.
• 23:22
  Walton dominated us. I mean, it gives Araya Walton
• 23:26
  credit. She dominated us.
• 23:27
  She's a, she's an all 810 first team player.
• 23:30
  She had two good games in a row against us.
• 23:32
  We got the better of her in the first game where we beat George
• 23:35
  Mason, but she dominated us in the in the second and third
• 23:37
  game. And Georgia Mason's a good team
• 23:39
  and they beat us. And there was a great crowd for
• 23:41
  Richmond on both the both Friday night and Saturday.
• 23:43
  We had the people show up and we just, we just had a bad game.
• 23:47
  It just it. Happens and and just some stats
• 23:49
  on there like you know, what are what are the best players do in
• 23:51
  that game. So both teams had two players.
• 23:54
  On that first team, A10 team, there are two players, Walton
• 24:00
  and Harris scored 42 points. Ours, Maggie and Rachel scored
• 24:05
  19, so we only scored 45. Their two best players at 42
• 24:09
  points. They play a very physical style
• 24:12
  where they chip. I feel like they chip you.
• 24:14
  And I say chip because sometimes it's a hip, sometimes it's a
• 24:16
  jersey pull, sometimes it's a little bit of a forearm.
• 24:19
  Slow down. They chip you every single play
• 24:21
  and every single interaction. And if the refs, refs call a
• 24:24
  loose game, I'm not complaining about the rest.
• 24:26
  The rest did not cost us that game, but the rest just call a
• 24:29
  loose game versus a tight game. It's it's definitely advantage
• 24:31
  George, George Mason. If they call a tight game, it's
• 24:33
  advantage us. But it was a loose game.
• 24:36
  They're a very physical team. You got to show up with your
• 24:39
  your physical attitude to be a team like that.
• 24:42
  And they got the better of us. It doesn't it doesn't short what
• 24:46
  the ladies did on the season. We just ladies have had a
• 24:49
  magnificent season 26 and seven. We sit #37 in the net.
• 24:54
  This is Sunday evening. We're recording this.
• 24:56
  The final was just played moments ago where Rhode Island
• 25:00
  beat George Mason for the final. First time in 30 years they're
• 25:04
  going to the NCAA tournament. Rhode Island is really well
• 25:06
  coached. They're a very good team.
• 25:09
  Charlie Cream Can I? Can I?
• 25:10
  Before you get to that, can I? I said.
• 25:11
  I had a little surprise for you. Oh, more.
• 25:13
  Surprise, he's great. Surprise, surprise.
• 25:15
  I got an e-mail yesterday telling me that I was one of the
• 25:20
  press members selected to vote for the alternate team.
• 25:24
  I got to vote for the alternate team.
• 25:26
  He, he did it. I did wow.
• 25:29
  I'll keep waiting to see if the tournament team is out.
• 25:31
  So I can see like, how did you vote for him?
• 25:33
  Well, I want to, I want, I'm waiting for the team to come out
• 25:35
  so I can say kind of how I did so that, I mean, it should be
• 25:38
  out now. I just can't find it.
• 25:40
  But but I, I, I got that vote in now.
• 25:44
  You had until 5 minutes before the game was over to put the
• 25:47
  vote in. I did it at half time so oh.
• 25:51
  This game. This.
• 25:52
  Yeah, this game. Like you had to get it.
• 25:53
  We just watched Rhode Island, George.
• 25:54
  Mason Yeah. You had to get it in before the,
• 25:56
  you know, 5 minutes so they can actually tally it and all of
• 25:58
  that stuff. So when I find it, I'll come
• 26:01
  here. I know.
• 26:02
  Given how serious we are about women's basketball, you took
• 26:04
  that seriously. I did yes.
• 26:06
  It did not include like 5 spiders.
• 26:08
  I appreciate. That you you vote for five and
• 26:10
  you pick the MVP. Yeah, well, congratulations,
• 26:15
  dude. Yeah, it was.
• 26:15
  Kind of fun I was. Left on the tracks.
• 26:17
  Well, they can't let everybody vote.
• 26:19
  It would be kind of silly. You know what it?
• 26:20
  Was it's because I asked all those questions in the post game
• 26:22
  and you stayed silent and they were like I don't like this
• 26:24
  question and so therefore he's not going to vote.
• 26:26
  Hey, buddy. Respect.
• 26:27
  It could be. Respect I get.
• 26:29
  You. But anyway, you wanted to talk
• 26:31
  about our NCAA chances. Oh yes, let's talk about the
• 26:34
  NCAA chances. So women are 37 in that.
• 26:36
  Look, here's the here's the bottom line, folks.
• 26:39
  Tom and I've been talking about this a lot tonight as we get
• 26:41
  ready for this this episode. You know, you build the net
• 26:44
  because you're trying to figure out a way to compare teams that
• 26:46
  aren't going to play. It's more important in a lot of
• 26:48
  ways when you have teams, you know, that only schedule cream
• 26:53
  puffs in their non con and then they go into the conference and
• 26:56
  play all good teams because some of the power conferences have a
• 26:59
  lot of these power conferences have 90% good teams, right?
• 27:03
  The A10 probably has 50% good teams.
• 27:05
  And so you start to get a nice move up in the rankings because
• 27:08
  you're playing all good teams, win or lose, you're still not
• 27:10
  really hurt that much, right? So take Virginia Tech for
• 27:13
  instance #41 in the in the net, they are I think 23 and eight
• 27:18
  very good team. Of course, we beat them in a in
• 27:20
  a scrimmage before the season started on on their.
• 27:22
  Home secret scrimmage again. But they did not schedule a lot
• 27:25
  of really good men majors. They scheduled one right?
• 27:28
  They scheduled a bunch of creep puffs and then they played in
• 27:29
  the ACC. They did not schedule a bunch of
• 27:32
  good mid majors. They schedule 1 JMU who promptly
• 27:34
  dispatched them by 9 points. So if you play a tough schedule
• 27:38
  against tough mid majors, you are going to take losses.
• 27:41
  It's just basketball. You're going to have days where
• 27:43
  you're off and they're on and you're going to lose some games,
• 27:45
  right? So Florida #47 in the net, 18
• 27:48
  and 15 out of the SEC lost by 15 to Navy right before we beat
• 27:52
  Navy. So I mean, like the net in and
• 27:54
  of itself is a guidepost, but it it also shows you when a team's
• 27:57
  collective effort is, is really good.
• 27:59
  By the way, Richmond #1 mid major team in the net as of
• 28:01
  Sunday night. Rhode Island, I don't think
• 28:03
  they'll jump us there in the 40s somewhere.
• 28:04
  Well, there's an interesting part too.
• 28:06
  We've chatted a little bit about that.
• 28:09
  When you're making the case for Richmond in the tournament, it's
• 28:13
  hard to ignore the scheduling change we had because of the
• 28:16
  snowstorm up in Fairfax, where we ended up with three, three
• 28:20
  games Rd. games in five days and different cities.
• 28:23
  And that last game of the three was our only quad four loss
• 28:26
  legs. I think if we didn't have that
• 28:28
  loss against George Washington, it.
• 28:30
  Wouldn't be disgusting. Yeah, we'd probably be kind of
• 28:32
  more than just like on on the Bubble.
• 28:34
  But anyway, so that happened, we don't really know what happened,
• 28:39
  why the game didn't get rescheduled better.
• 28:42
  So the store like, you know, if you go back to in time, go on
• 28:44
  our time machine, like everyone knew that snow was coming.
• 28:47
  It was supposed to come late Saturday and then be bad on
• 28:49
  Sunday. There was talk and there were
• 28:52
  other games that were rescheduled across the A10 in
• 28:55
  that area that they removed days.
• 28:58
  So I think there was a hope that our Sunday game to get moved to
• 29:01
  Saturday, George Mason didn't have a home game Saturday on the
• 29:04
  men's side that we could have had that game Saturday moved it
• 29:08
  up a day. And and yes, you got to figure
• 29:10
  out things like refs and broadcasting.
• 29:12
  But anyway, the decision was made to not do that.
• 29:16
  The storm came and you know, and like that's a George Mason
• 29:21
  decision, I assume as they're the home team.
• 29:24
  Storm came, moved the game, kind of the rest is history.
• 29:26
  But, you know, it's interesting. You know who's on the women's
• 29:30
  NCA committee? It's the AD of George Mason.
• 29:34
  Oh. So but you think he'll do us a
• 29:36
  solid? I well, I don't know about that,
• 29:38
  but Marvin Lewis, I did also, I researched him, but he's ACPA
• 29:41
  really. Or he was he, he was ACPA at
• 29:43
  some point. So he's a smart guy, you know,
• 29:45
  from one CPA to another, like do the right thing, like let people
• 29:50
  know that, you know, kind of fall on your sword and say
• 29:53
  that's. Yeah, that is definitely A2 bid
• 29:55
  league in this case, maybe even a three bid league, but I don't,
• 29:57
  I don't think they'll give us 3, but 2 is definitely merited.
• 30:01
  Richmond, again, the number one mid major team in that in the
• 30:04
  country, 37 that that stands for something.
• 30:07
  By the way, Indiana, who's in the mid 40s in the net, 18 and
• 30:10
  14. I just listened to one of their
• 30:11
  players, you know, give a sound bite for social media saying we
• 30:14
  won't play in any tournament other than the NCAA tournament,
• 30:17
  IE don't, don't insult us with the WBIT or the WNIT.
• 30:23
  You know, we're we're NCAA only. And again 18 and 14.
• 30:26
  OK, so I got three of the five right on the all A10 team and I
• 30:30
  did not get the outstanding player, OK, correct.
• 30:33
  So the outstanding player was Albinasila.
• 30:36
  Yeah, she was really good. So she was great yesterday as
• 30:38
  well. So I had her on the team.
• 30:39
  I did not have her at the as the outstanding player.
• 30:42
  I had Zariah Walton, yeah, as the MVP.
• 30:45
  She made the team as well as Kennedy Harris.
• 30:47
  I also had. But I think if Walt, if they if
• 30:49
  they win that game and you had to do it at halftime, if they
• 30:51
  win that game, then Walton is. Well, I could have waited.
• 30:53
  I should have waited. I did not vote for Sophia Vital
• 30:58
  and Brooklyn Gray, who are both I think on Rhode Island.
• 31:02
  Rhode Island's an interesting team.
• 31:03
  Like you look at their stats over the the few games like
• 31:05
  they're, they didn't have that dominant player.
• 31:08
  I mean, Silla had a great game yesterday, had a good, great
• 31:10
  game today. But all season long they've kind
• 31:12
  of had like 3 or 4 players were averaging like 10 points.
• 31:15
  They don't have that kind of big dominant star all season long, I
• 31:20
  think. Silla, though, like Silla gave
• 31:22
  gave Rhode Island a dimension against George Mason that those
• 31:25
  hard to prepare for because she's so tall.
• 31:27
  No. Agreed.
• 31:28
  Agreed. Well, one thing that we learned
• 31:30
  kind of before we wrap this thing up is that there are two
• 31:32
  postseason tournaments in addition to the NCAA, correct,
• 31:36
  For the women's did not know that.
• 31:38
  So I guess a few years ago, the NCAA, when they, if you know on
• 31:41
  the men's side, they bought the NIT into the NIT is now like an
• 31:44
  official NCAA tournament. Good job.
• 31:47
  They're hitting the camera, Porter.
• 31:50
  They did not buy the women's NIT.
• 31:53
  Instead they create, and I don't know what the negotiations were
• 31:56
  like, but they created their own tournament, the WBIT.
• 32:00
  So that is kind of the first tournament teams go to by.
• 32:04
  The way I'm just checking my e-mail right now, I did get the
• 32:06
  ballot. I didn't vote.
• 32:09
  My fault. My fault, folks.
• 32:10
  I'm not sure that's true, but anyway, so the the last four in,
• 32:17
  I'm sorry, the last four out of the NCA as automatically get the
• 32:20
  number one seeds to the WBIT and get home games.
• 32:25
  So there are a lot of opportunities for the women's
• 32:28
  team to play in the postseason. Hopefully it's the NCAA.
• 32:31
  If it's not, it's very likely we'll have a home game in the
• 32:35
  Robin Center. So you know, over the next few
• 32:38
  weeks we'll be we'll know that I guess in a week from now or it's
• 32:41
  I think it's on Monday when all those other things come out.
• 32:44
  So we won't know it on Selection Sunday, but we'll know it soon
• 32:47
  after. Here's here's my final take on
• 32:48
  the NC. Stop hitting the table.
• 32:50
  You can't tell a team that the Nets what matters, you know, or
• 32:55
  or matters a great deal that then destroys the net from a mid
• 32:58
  major perspective and then say, well, you had a quad four loss
• 33:00
  or you didn't win enough quad one games.
• 33:02
  We played the game that was given to us, put the best
• 33:05
  schedule we could together did really well against that
• 33:07
  schedule. Finished 26th and seven have a
• 33:09
  net that's 37 in the country. This isn't at large team folks,
• 33:13
  Let's make it happen. Don't disappoint, Spider, Sound
• 33:16
  off. OK.
• 33:17
  So over the next couple weeks, we'll obviously have that
• 33:19
  information hopefully. Next Sunday night, the 15th at
• 33:23
  8:00. I think it's a selection show.
• 33:24
  Yeah, it's a late selection show.
• 33:25
  How are we going to record after that?
• 33:27
  I don't know, you're just going to be banging the table and
• 33:29
  messing with the camera, so maybe I have to send you home.
• 33:32
  We also going to have some interviews with some Spider
• 33:35
  greats and you know, we'll obviously have some update on
• 33:38
  the men's tournament. We're not expecting us to have a
• 33:41
  5 game rally, but we will have some Spider greats interviewed
• 33:44
  over the next month or so. Like, you know, like we've
• 33:47
  talked about, we'll cover the women's postseason and, you
• 33:50
  know, as soon as the NCAA tournament is over, kind of your
• 33:53
  next season's team take shape. So we'd be pretty active over
• 33:57
  the next few weeks. Congrats to Aiden Urga by today
• 33:59
  named the HDI think was the name of it.
• 34:02
  Yes, Freshman of the year for the A10.
• 34:04
  Yes, HD. Some award we.
• 34:06
  Have a spider sound off freshman of the year for the A10?
• 34:08
  We can. Do it.
• 34:08
  I think we are Co freshman of the year.
• 34:10
  Co Freshman of the Year. For the A10 podcast, that's.
• 34:12
  Right freshman podcast of the year.
• 34:14
  Yes, that's right, as awarded by.
• 34:15
  Ourselves, we will take an award, folks.
• 34:17
  Well anyway, until next time, this is Tom, this is Porter, and
• 34:20
  this is Spiders sounding off.