Latest / Spiders Sound Off / Alisa Kresge Era Begins at Richmond + Kaiser Transfer Reaction | Spiders Sound Off

Transcript

Alisa Kresge Era Begins at Richmond + Kaiser Transfer Reaction | Spiders Sound Off · Spiders Sound Off

0:06
Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Spiders.
0:09
Sound Off. This is Tom.
0:10
And this is Porter. You know, with changes on the
0:14
women's side, coaching, as we're here to mainly talk about today,
0:17
I thought we had to change up our set up a little bit.
0:19
So we're trying some new camera angles.
0:22
Just Phase 1 of Season 2. Yeah, that's right.
0:25
We're still, we're still in Season 1.
0:27
If you hear any construction going on, we've get, we've hired
0:30
a very professional construction crew to redo our Henrico
0:34
studios. But we are here mainly because
0:38
got some good news today that we said. 36 hours of good news,
0:43
yeah. And we'll start with the the
0:45
biggest news is that we did fill our women's head coach position,
0:50
which it'll which it'll with Alyssa Kresge.
0:52
That's a. Great hire, by the way.
0:55
So. Super excited about that.
0:57
Came from Vermont if you haven't heard.
1:00
Kind of after I guess 3 the last four years took her team to the
1:05
NCAA tournament. And that's a league where you
1:07
got to win their conference tournament to get to the NCAA
1:10
tournament. So that's, you know, three out
1:12
of four years they won the conference tournament, got to
1:14
the NCA as and almost, you know, arguably as impressive is the
1:18
year they didn't get to NCA as they went to the women's NIT and
1:21
went to the Final Four or the women's NIT and lost to Saint
1:25
Louis, which is kind of ironic in A10 school.
1:28
But that's four years in a row post season for Vermont.
1:31
She's been, I guess she played at Marist.
1:35
So she's a former player, which I think is always nice.
1:37
Like they can. Not only a former player, very
1:40
successful former player. Yes, she led the program and
1:43
assists averaged 5. I think about 5 1/2 assists a
1:46
game her last three years. I think she still has the all
1:49
time assist record. All time assist record there
1:51
they while she was a player made three in C AA tournaments,
1:55
including one Sweet 16. So this is a lady who knows how
1:58
to succeed in the. Tournament.
2:00
And when you talk about the Vermont program, you talk about
2:03
her as a player. Three years she was the Mac
2:08
Defensive Player of the Year. I think we're going to see a
2:10
defensive identity on this new Spiders team, which is great for
2:13
like Rain, right? Who's a great defensive player.
2:16
If we could somehow get Newell back out of the portal, I mean,
2:18
she could take another huge step forward.
2:21
Yeah, that would be, that would be phenomenal.
2:22
So. Talking a little bit about
2:23
Vermont, So we've tried to do some research in the last few
2:27
hours when when that announcement have like they are
2:31
offensively very low turnover team, kind of very methodical
2:35
offense. It's an efficient offense and
2:38
they shoot well from three. But if you the one stat you look
2:43
at, if you how many, you know how many teams there are in
2:45
Division One, I think it's 363. I look 365.
2:48
Well, in the men's, it's 3. 65 if you look at their rank on
2:51
tempo last year was 360, so they play slow, so they play well
2:57
again, the black the Vermont the Vermont team played slow, low
3:03
turnover, super efficient on offense, but.
3:06
Super. Aggressive, but very slow and a
3:08
very aggressive a defense. I don't think they cause lots of
3:11
turnovers. This isn't, you know, another
3:13
version of Havoc, but it's like kind of fundamentally super
3:17
strong defensively getting out on the shooters.
3:19
So what you're saying is a George Mason Richmond game next
3:22
year could go 2927? It could.
3:25
I do think she's the type of coach who would love, you know,
3:27
I think of I'll, I'll do it this way.
3:29
When you looked at our team last year, there are a lot of games
3:33
where there are like 3/4 that were even.
3:36
And then there was a quarter where we scored like 23 points
3:38
and the other team scored 10. And that's how we ended up
3:41
winning by 15 to 20 points. It wouldn't surprise if I
3:44
haven't looked this much into Vermont, but it wouldn't
3:46
surprise me if they have games where they're like holding the
3:48
opponent to two points in 1/4 and they may only score 12, but
3:52
that's like their dominant quarter because they just shut
3:55
teams down. Which, you know, on one hand,
3:58
like I think it's going to be nice to see a team that can win
4:01
defensive battles like if. I think if like 2 years ago we
4:05
played Texas pretty competitively.
4:06
I think last year Texas and VCU weren't competitive in the
4:09
second-half and it just and not that.
4:11
Texas and TCU. I'm sorry, Texas and TCU, but
4:15
like those are teams. I don't know if we're going to
4:16
get to play those exact teams again, but at some point, like
4:19
when it to pull it upset on like a top ten team, like defense is
4:23
going to have to get you there. Like it's hard to like try to
4:25
outshoot. I mean, we saw Nebraska, like if
4:28
the strategy was to outshoot Nebraska in the tournament, like
4:31
that's really hard to do when I mean, they played incredibly on
4:35
the offensive side and had all year.
4:37
So it's like it'll be nice to have kind of a new something new
4:41
to look at where it's like the way we would this the way she
4:44
would coach against Nebraska would be like, our defense has
4:47
to win the game, not that we have to outshoot them, which was
4:51
like, you know, obviously we couldn't outshoot a team that
4:53
was kind of that efficient. If you remember our hastily
4:56
released episode middle of the week where we were kind of
4:59
looking over a list, that was. The emergency.
5:01
Pod, the emergency pod, as we were releasing, we're talking
5:03
about the the hires that were reported to the people we were
5:06
reported to be interested in. She was one of the two we
5:09
endorsed as a go forward. She looks like a really good
5:12
coach, so super. From the list.
5:14
I didn't let you dig into anymore from the list.
5:17
Right, So like I, I love that we got her.
5:20
I think it's a, it's an A minus higher.
5:24
I would say A+ is hard to do when you have when the portal
5:28
has started and you've got, you know, you're back against the
5:31
wall. Right, yeah, this was not a job
5:33
we've been looking to fill for the last month during the season
5:36
and, you know, talk to. Everybody to me, this lady is a
5:38
winner and she knows how to win. Let's let's go back to playing
5:42
career. She was a winner as a player.
5:44
She was an assistant coach at Marist where they made I think
5:47
the postseason 6 out of eight years.
5:49
So she was a winner as an assistant coach.
5:52
She's a winner as a head coach. She took over from a guy.
5:56
His name was Chris Day. There's a story there, which
5:59
maybe you know, O'Connor can dig into with his professional
6:01
reporting. But there's something happened
6:02
with Chris Day at Vermont. She took over from him.
6:06
I think they were just, I mean she took what the article I read
6:09
was like a program that like had multiple years of like really
6:12
poor winning percentage. There was some other little
6:15
nugget out there, but I didn't not I didn't have enough time to
6:17
research. But I guess she didn't take over
6:18
a team that had won, right? The American E 3 They were.
6:21
Struggling. Yeah.
6:22
Christian, by the way, is is is now an assistant coach at La
6:25
Salle, and he's still on the roster, only on the coaching
6:28
staff there. So she will get to play her,
6:30
either her guy who hired her or the guy she took over for
6:32
whichever one or two times a year now.
6:34
And by the way, most of the South team is in the portal and
6:37
they have two kids in the portal that are phenomenal, including
6:40
Mac Tuna, who I think was the defensive player of the year in
6:43
the A10. And then Connor has another one.
6:44
Both are juniors coming in into the portal.
6:46
So it's it's a good hire from the fact that she was a winner
6:50
as a player, a winner as an assistant coach, a winner as a
6:52
head coach. She plays a very defensive
6:55
aggressive style, as you mentioned.
6:57
So it'll be different than what we've seen with Roussell.
6:59
Different can be good when you win.
7:01
So I think I think this was an A minus higher.
7:03
I think under under a lot of pressure to get it right and a
7:07
lot of and a quick turn around because the portal is open.
7:11
I give I give heart credit. This was a good one.
7:15
One other stat I looked at, and this is last year's team.
7:17
I'm sure every team is going to be different in this regard, but
7:20
she had four players last year who averaged 80% or more of the
7:24
minutes. So if you're thinking about like
7:26
the, the her and I looked at the year before was similar.
7:29
It wasn't that extreme. But you know, she's not a coach
7:31
who has, you know, 10 players who are all playing 15 to 20
7:35
minutes. That's not the philosophy.
7:36
It's kind of, you know, it's A and, and I would say more
7:39
traditional philosophy. Personnel she had too, like, we
7:42
don't know, we didn't watch a lot of her mountain women's
7:44
basketball last year, so it could have been her personnel
7:45
that dictated that. I mean, I think the thing that
7:48
is exciting is she presumably we'll have a lot more money than
7:54
Vermont has to throw at women's basketball.
7:57
She's in a better conference. She was in the top 90 in the
8:02
Bartorvic the last two years, which is not easy to do from any
8:05
conference, much less the American East.
8:07
And so that puts her right now in my mind in the upper half of
8:11
all coaches in the Atlantic 10, because there's not a lot of
8:13
coaches I can say they were top, top 92 years in a row in the.
8:16
Atlantic, Yeah, Or in the NCAA. Tournament or in the from.
8:18
Their prior program, yeah. Right, so like that.
8:20
So she's she's a good, good get for us.
8:23
Now it's all going to be about how do you build the coaching
8:26
staff around her and how do you build the roster?
8:29
I I think that'll be the interesting thing to figure out.
8:31
And I'd love to get her on the show to understand what her
8:34
philosophy is, But I'm sure she's going to be busy for the
8:37
the near future making calls, trying to lock up players,
8:39
trying to lock up recruits, whether they be Vermont recruits
8:43
or Richmond recruits, I have no idea.
8:45
One thing I did like these are like when you're trying to read
8:47
the tea leaves is that, you know, when I you of R today put
8:51
out their press release, they also put it on Instagram and I
8:55
saw just like when the last hour Rain Wright and Anisha Scott
8:59
like reposted it. So like, so those are like, you
9:03
know, you're reading between the lines like it's, you know, you
9:05
hearing that you don't do that. If you're definitely leaving
9:08
now, that doesn't mean they're definitely staying, but.
9:10
It was good. Neither of those guys is in the
9:11
portal, right? So you know, that's good.
9:13
So I mean, in the portal we got Mansi, we got Newell, we got
9:16
Jada Green. Yeah, no one else yet, which is
9:18
nice, but. I like the fact that like at
9:21
least like the players on the team are going to have
9:23
conversations with the new coach about staying and hopefully we
9:26
can lock everybody else up and and get Noel back is one of the
9:29
best defensive players we've seen and so.
9:31
One thing you we had talked about earlier is like whenever
9:34
coaches change schools, there's always a question, do they have
9:37
players to bring with them? So we looked a little bit at
9:39
Vermont roster. She had a lot of seniors last
9:41
year. There wasn't like an obvious,
9:43
here's the superstar from the American E who was a sophomore.
9:46
Let's go get her. But then got me thinking, there
9:48
are other schools in the American E that have people on
9:52
the portal that are sophomores that might have scored like
9:55
that. Someone from like NJIT average
9:57
like 15 points a game who was a sophomore.
9:59
So like she'll know that conference better than we will
10:02
and better than Russell will. So she'll know, like, are there
10:06
players there that are worth talking to?
10:07
So there may be an angle of the, you know, we may see not only a
10:11
recruit or two that she had coming to Vermont, but but maybe
10:15
some American E stars that she can bring over to a bigger
10:18
conference. I have a very important first
10:21
step she's got to take when she finally when we finally get her
10:24
on the pod, she needs to to bring us heady Topper.
10:28
It's one of the best IP as in America, it's straight out of
10:30
Vermont. You can't buy it outside of
10:32
Vermont and you will win a lot of favor with Spider Sound Off
10:35
by providing us Heady Topper. I do think you can get Heady
10:38
Topper in Richmond now, can you really?
10:40
I do think, OK, well then not all the time.
10:42
Why have you not got? Me something I don't.
10:46
Know that so anyway before we talk about some of the men's
10:48
news like I Porter, I know you're kind of you're out this
10:51
week and that's why we're kind of doing this pod maybe today
10:54
versus Sunday. So we may miss a little bit of
10:56
news, but I heard this rumor that your trip this week was
11:02
because you were putting yourself on the podcasting
11:06
portal and you were going to be visiting other podcasts.
11:09
Is that over the next week? Is that true?
11:11
I don't know if. Let's just say the studio behind
11:14
me was the Step 1 and retaining the podcast talent.
11:17
That's why I got to do whatever I can keep.
11:18
You here it's it's not a high compensated position as we know.
11:22
Right. You could get three times the
11:23
compensation from another program and it would still be 0.
11:26
Two heady toppers, by the way, go a long way at winning this
11:30
this, this guy's favor. So.
11:33
Hey, two other things we get to the men's news.
11:34
So one on Monday is the WNBA draft.
11:37
So fans as this pod will probably be just getting out
11:40
then we're not going to obviously have news on that, but
11:42
check it out Monday night. Hopefully we see Maggie get
11:44
drafted talk second round. If you didn't know, there are
11:48
not as many WNBA teams as there are NBA teams.
11:51
So the second round could be like your 16th or 17th picked
11:55
because the league's just not as big.
11:56
These they have a couple expansion teams in the in the
12:00
draft as well. So anyway, so that's Monday.
12:02
And the last thing, a little bit of a, you know, me admitting my
12:06
my faults and a little bit of apology to a friend of ours.
12:10
What So those who listened to the last pod, I saw how shocked
12:15
I was that Porter was mentioning these D3 coaches.
12:18
And, you know, I, I made some statements that were a little
12:20
bit over the top based on really, I think my mind was more
12:24
thinking, you know, the jump from division 3:00 to 1:00 if
12:28
you're a player versus from a coach perspective.
12:31
And there are lots of D3 coaches who are been successful.
12:34
I do think the right step for AD 3 coach is to get the D1
12:37
experience at A at a smaller conference or an assistant coach
12:41
experience anywhere before Richmond goes to hire them.
12:44
But there are some. At some point I made a comment
12:47
like don't know what they're doing, which was intended to be
12:50
like the worst case scenario, not a blanket.
12:52
State. So what you're saying is your
12:53
phone blew up a little bit after the pod?
12:55
Yeah, I might have had some feedback about.
12:58
I did see like a mutual not the one that's that you're
13:01
apologizing to which I'm sure he will appreciate that you're
13:04
putting this out there. But the other some somebody we
13:06
both know also we were separate thread where I think there were
13:09
12 or so coaches thrown your way that was succeeded with that
13:11
jump. So you were catching it from
13:13
multiple. Angles I did like at some point
13:15
which coach was it was a Quinnia Pack or some coach that you were
13:17
like we need to we need to get that person.
13:19
Then I looked it up and like that, that that coach retired.
13:23
Yeah, we. Like I said, we put that episode
13:24
out hastily and the goal was, you know, let's go over the five
13:29
names that we're seeing in the in the Twitter Twitter sphere
13:31
and then let's come up with some new names.
13:33
And so we were looking across resumes quickly.
13:36
I looked at as much D1 as I could get through on the East
13:38
Coast. And then I focused a little bit
13:40
on, I actually looked up some, some of the assistants on South
13:43
Carolina, UCLA as well. But then I focused on D3 the the
13:46
top winner. So we were really putting that
13:48
out fast. There's some like I I talked
13:50
about the Princeton coach, they've already taken a new job.
13:52
So there were some some things that were clearly not well
13:54
researched. But I think the good news is
13:56
when we got to Kresge, we called her a winner.
13:58
Yeah, I think I pointed out she's won 100 games in the last
14:01
four years. Yeah, I think she's the all time
14:03
winningest coach at Vermont. So I'm like, this is an example
14:06
of somebody we need to recruit. So like, yeah, we got we got one
14:08
that we wanted and that's fantastic and well done by John
14:11
Hart for making that happen. OK, on the men's side, our last
14:15
pod or maybe was the you never. Did say you're sorry?
14:17
By the way, I did say I was sorry.
14:18
No, I said. I need to, I need to say
14:20
something about some. I don't think you said I'm
14:21
sorry. So can you say I apologize for
14:23
my D3 statements just to say well.
14:25
Didn't I just say? It I think you kind of talked
14:27
around it without. Politics.
14:28
Well, I apologize. Thank you.
14:30
OK, so on the men's side, I think when we potted last or
14:32
maybe the one before that, we knew, you know, Argar Bright was
14:34
the first news that he was returning.
14:37
Then the next big news, which I know made Porter really excited,
14:40
was Colin Tanner announced he's coming back.
14:42
Hey, I like Colin. I think Colin is a great role
14:44
player on this team. I don't think you know, Colin is
14:47
a 30 minute game guy, but on the right role I think Colin is an
14:52
excellent player on this team. I think Rob favorite player.
14:55
I think, yeah, Rob certainly is is excited about the news.
15:02
OK, but the real big news is that we got our first player off
15:05
the portal. Now it is Jamie Kaiser Junior.
15:09
You're excited about that, aren't you?
15:12
Before we talk about Kaiser, let's talk about Mojo coming
15:13
back. That's actually really good.
15:15
So Mojo Maurice Joseph is coming back as an assistant coach,
15:18
presumably because a, he's comfortable with Mooney and he's
15:22
a great recruiter and I'm guessing there was some ability
15:26
to go and get players that we wanted so involved in this too.
15:30
So that's just a guess. But like with Maurice Joseph,
15:33
right after that came this this player from Butler who's I think
15:36
going to be a really good fit for us, but.
15:38
And if you didn't know, Butler's coach retired Thadmata and I
15:43
wasn't he the was he the Xavier coach when we had the fight with
15:46
Xavier in the in the tunnel? We talked about that earlier.
15:50
But yeah, so Jamie Kaiser, who's somewhere between 6:00 four and
15:55
six six, I've seen both. Who's a shooting guard small.
15:59
Forward I'm listed as 6/6. I mean, I think, you know, he
16:03
could start at the two or the three for us.
16:05
He was, he was, he was rated kind of equally between
16:08
Bartorvic and Evan Mia. His rating was was good, not
16:13
great. I mean he was like a 272 and BPR
16:16
on Evan Mia 2.3 and PRPG on Bartorvic that put him in the,
16:21
you know, pretty good company. Like, you know, would have been
16:23
a good would have been a starter for us last year, but but yeah,
16:26
not in that like Robbie Avila 3.9 rating type level.
16:31
But still, I'm talking about a player who should should play a
16:34
lot of minutes for us and is going to be the starter at
16:36
either the two or the three. I like his size.
16:40
We don't typically have a 2 that's 6 foot 6.
16:43
So it's A and he's A and he's a really nice 3 point shooter from
16:47
a like from a like looks like gets a shot off pretty easily
16:50
from three. And I think that's important.
16:51
It's Argybright runs the point to have somebody that, when you
16:53
kick it to, doesn't need to like, you know, find a way to
16:56
get around somebody because he's 6/6, he can shoot over them,
16:59
right? So I think that's going to be a
17:00
really nice dynamic to see. I think, you know, overall, this
17:05
is the second of what I'll call 5 key moves we need to make,
17:10
right? Well, number one was argabright
17:11
#2 is this. And then I think there's three
17:13
more key moves that still have to come.
17:15
Yeah, I'll say what I what I like about him is, you know, I
17:19
think even if he doesn't go from a 10 point score to the 15 point
17:23
score, like he's a he, he's a rebounder and he's a defensive
17:28
player kind of, I think it LED their team in steals, plays good
17:32
defense. So that's one of those like we
17:34
need at a minimum, he's going to be a good defender, a good
17:37
rebounder for a guard. And then the question is, does
17:39
he go as he develops because he's going to be a, you know, a
17:41
junior from an eligibility standpoint, Can he take that
17:44
next step from being a, you know, almost double digit score
17:48
to being, you know, 15 points a game?
17:50
And I think we'll have the opportunity to do it here.
17:52
It's just a question of does it get, you know, I think more
17:54
efficient in his shooting. We needed, we needed to get
17:57
longer on the perimeter. We needed a guy who when you get
18:01
longer, you don't sacrifice foot speed so you know, you can
18:04
actually cover, you know, the 6th 3 guard that you're in front
18:07
of. And I think, you know, you need
18:10
somebody that can can stretch a defense that you know, can shoot
18:14
over top of a six three guard easily, right.
18:16
And so I think this is a really good we talked about roster
18:20
construction in past episodes. This is a good guy to pair with
18:24
Arga bright. I, like I said, don't.
18:26
Don't do the ingredient recipes. Or what I'm going to say is
18:29
we're not, we're not, we're still not a post season team.
18:34
We have I, like I said, we need three more meaningful moves to
18:38
become somebody that we can get excited about.
18:39
As a team, Well, the good news, a very good step, yeah.
18:41
I mean, at this stage, like, there's probably no one in the
18:44
A10 that's, well, VCU's Brook and Saint Louis have a bunch of
18:47
guys coming back. But out of those two, there's
18:49
all these teams are kind of in flux right now.
18:51
So we'll see what happens. The one little nugget I got when
18:53
I was researching Kaiser, I saw that, you know, he played, you
18:56
know, he's from Burke, VA. He's kind of Northern Virginia
18:59
and he played for New World, AAU.
19:02
You know who else played for New World?
19:03
I do not Aidan Argebrite really. And I, I got also Aidan
19:07
Argebrite posted on the announcement.
19:09
They play together. Well, they're two years apart.
19:12
And AAU is typically like, let's say you know, 7 or 14 to 18,
19:17
like they were 16. They have different level teams.
19:19
So, and I saw when Argebrite posted, kind of reposted that
19:22
Kaiser was come and he said like, let's go, fam.
19:25
And I was like, huh, I wonder, like that could just be a
19:27
saying, but it made me think like, oh, they're both from
19:29
Northern Virginia. Because remember, before he came
19:31
to John Marshall, that's where Argor Bright was.
19:33
That was really his home. And, you know, Kaiser went to
19:37
IMG Academy for his, like, prep. So they both took a, you know,
19:41
played locally freshman, sophomore year and then, you
19:44
know, went elsewhere for their high school but the same AAU
19:47
club. So if they didn't ever play
19:49
together, I think they knew of probably knew people who knew
19:52
each other. Yeah.
19:53
So that was kind of interesting. And that's like, that's how this
19:55
happens, right? Like you're on the, if you're on
19:57
the portal, you're like, who do I?
19:59
There's a part of of course, money is probably #1 but number
20:02
2 is like where like do I want to play for this coach?
20:05
And do I already have connections?
20:07
So I'm not like playing with 10 strangers when I show up.
20:10
And so this is, it's a small, you know, small community in the
20:13
grand scheme of things. These players tend to know each
20:15
other. I.
20:15
Kind of think it might be crazy if you're saying this.
20:18
I kind of think Mojo is going to be equally important to our
20:20
success as Kaiser. And what I mean by that is Mojo
20:23
has a history of of being attached to pretty high level
20:27
players. And we need that, right?
20:28
We need that guy who can recruit, you know, the top 100
20:31
talent. And I think he's got that
20:33
reputation. So I'm super excited about both
20:35
of those guys. Like I said, we need three more
20:37
good pieces of news to go with it to have a team.
20:40
One piece of news that broke since our last episode, Jaden
20:43
Daughtry is in the portal. Yeah, that's right.
20:45
That actually kind of hurt. That one stung.
20:47
I mean, we heard it on when I interviewed Aiden Argebrite.
20:49
He says he said he thought he was going to return.
20:54
I'm disappointed we didn't keep Daughtry.
20:55
I mean, I know you know, obviously the the system has to
20:58
fit both from a minutes perspective and a play style
21:00
perspective. But I kind of wanted JD to be
21:03
part of the team. I really like his game and I
21:05
think he he's a good player. Yeah.
21:08
I mean what I, I mean, again, I think there was, there's
21:11
potential there with him to become better.
21:13
And so you want those guys who can do that.
21:16
I do hope. And this is really kind of a
21:18
hope because like you said, we've got three other moves.
21:20
So things will shift, but I'd love to see Robinson get more
21:23
time next year and obviously. Harper.
21:29
Well, Kaiser is going to be that kind of small forward potential
21:33
position. And so I think that's where kind
21:38
of Daughtry and Robinson are probably best served, although
21:41
sometimes they're playing the four and gosh, at some point
21:44
they had to play the five because we have no centers.
21:46
But I so I can see there's a little bit of like, is he going
21:48
to is his? I can see where Daughtry would
21:50
imagine his time not might not go from 20 minutes to 30
21:54
minutes. And if he's looking for that and
21:55
money wise, you know, go somewhere else.
21:57
It could be very much money related if you get if you get a
21:59
big a really dynamic big, especially you could have you
22:04
could do a smaller lineup now because of of Kaiser, right.
22:07
So you could go with a big Kaiser, J Robb, Will Harper,
22:11
Arterbrite and then you got, you got 511 and whoever the big is
22:14
in the middle. And then you got three guys are
22:16
in that 6/4 to 6/6 range and all of them are decent rebounders,
22:20
right? So that actually could be an
22:21
interesting style. That one of the freshman's is
22:25
big, right? Oh yeah, Hominick's a big dude.
22:27
He's no, no, no, I'm sorry. One of the freshman coming in,
22:30
Yeah. Two of them are actually.
22:33
Yeah, I can't remember that, Caldwell.
22:35
'S the one he's. Got he's got some potential.
22:37
Mooney said he was He would be ready to play as a freshman.
22:39
So he's big. It's.
22:40
Kind of like 6 He's he's like a power forward.
22:43
He's skinny guy but he's tall. He's on a centre but he could be
22:46
someone to play skinny. Or not, but I know he was.
22:48
He's tall. I think he's like 6-8.
22:50
And then, you know, I think you got you got Hominek who, who
22:53
looked good when we watched practice.
22:54
I mean, he's still a freshman. Yeah, he's got some red shirt.
22:57
And so he's got some more work to do.
22:58
But I mean, like those guys to me are, are going to be kind of
23:01
key role players to give you your depth.
23:03
You need a guy who is an established threat to come in
23:08
and help. You need like, you're one, one
23:10
through 5. You got Aiden, you got Kaiser.
23:12
I think you need three more starters.
23:14
And then you've got then you have Will Donovan Richardson, J
23:17
Rob Hominick, all these other guys kind of like pushing to be
23:20
the 678. Yeah.
23:22
I mean, I think you're right. I would like when you're at some
23:24
point you're divvying out money, right, Like I would I'd probably
23:27
rather have two great players. Yeah, that's fair.
23:30
And then the third could be kind of maybe the 4th of the four
23:33
that we get and that gives, you know, Harp maybe someone who's
23:35
going to compete with Harper. Yeah, I.
23:37
Mean if you if you spend all your money to get one super stud
23:40
big, who was the best player, you know, available, you know,
23:43
to, you know, in a certain level, then I think you could
23:46
get you could certainly have, you know, J Rob, Will Harper and
23:49
and you know, Donovan Richardson, all those guys
23:51
fighting for, you know, the four and the fives or the the ability
23:53
to play, you know, as other starters because you got, you
23:57
know, three really established, you know, players at that level
24:00
who are really, really good. So a lot, a lot has happened.
24:03
There's still a lot to happen. We'll probably do another pod in
24:07
a week or so depending on the news.
24:09
Back at some point. And hopefully you're up.
24:12
No one's grabbed you off the portal.
24:14
Nobody just taking me off the portal.
24:15
Yeah, you're moving to UVA to just follow a coach.
24:18
Like a heady Topper, we'll go a long way to locking this deal
24:22
up. Right, so a lot to like, you
24:25
know, I'm sure we'll while we have the draft on Monday, we'll
24:28
have some more portal news on both teams.
24:30
I suspect we'll get the we'll I would hope in the next week.
24:34
We know what the staff looks like for Alyssa's team, for
24:38
Coach Kresge's team and, and, and maybe Newell comes off the
24:42
portal and comes back or we, we, we replace her with some.
24:46
Other players, how we feel about Newell, she's a great player and
24:48
I think under this coach who was a defensive minded coach, she
24:51
could even take another step forward.
24:52
So I think it could be really, really good.
24:54
But I mean, you know, she put the thank you farewell statement
24:57
out on the Twittersphere, so I think she probably is got some
25:01
place in. Mind.
25:02
Yeah, No, you're probably right. OK, well, until next time from
25:06
opposite sides of the camera. This is Tom and.
25:09
This is Porter. And this is spiders sounding up.
25:13
See you.