Latest / Spiders Sound Off / Episode 21: Spiders Take Manhattan

Transcript

Episode 21: Spiders Take Manhattan · Spiders Sound Off

0:06
Everybody, welcome back to Spider.
0:09
Sound off. This is Tom.
0:11
And this is Porter. We are back in the Henrico
0:14
Studios for a weekend recording podcast releasing on Monday.
0:20
So we just had the Columbia game yesterday.
0:23
We'll go into that. We'll talk about the games we
0:25
got coming up, but first, Porter, just a little check in
0:28
what you do this weekend. You have a good weekend.
0:29
I had a great weekend actually, and it's always better when our
0:33
Spider basketball teams get us a win and a win against the top 35
0:36
team on their homecourt. So yeah, it was really good.
0:39
Well, I know we've had some listeners ask if we're going to
0:43
do other sports and in general the answer is no.
0:45
But I did go to a Spider football game this weekend.
0:47
Really, I'm not going to go over the game in too much detail, but
0:51
I will say I went to Spider Brews, which is always a great
0:54
deal, a good event. I recommend we'll have some for
0:57
basketball coming up. So sign up for the Spider Brews.
1:00
It's $15.00 for kind of unlimited craft beer and a
1:03
little bit of food. You got about an hour and a half
1:06
to get your value in, but that that wasn't hard for us to do,
1:09
did. Did you get your value in?
1:10
Yes, we, yes, we did. I would say, you know, so I went
1:13
to the game, you know, we lost, you know, we can, we could spend
1:16
the whole half hour talking about this season in football
1:18
and the Patriot League and all that.
1:20
But I really just have one message for the University of
1:22
Richmond. Figure out how to serve beer at
1:25
the football game. I don't know what the agreement
1:28
is or what the rules are, but you, you've got to figure that
1:31
out or tell us when that's going to start happening because, you
1:34
know, tailgating or doing spider brews and then going into a game
1:38
and your options are Diet Coke is is is not ideal.
1:41
Obviously we have great beer in the Robin Center, but there is
1:45
no beer. And now again, if you're in the
1:47
luxury tents, they have beer and potentially in the luxury boxes,
1:50
they have beer, but you got to get a special reservation for
1:55
that or you need to sneak in like a friend of mine might have
1:58
this past weekend to get a a free beer.
2:00
But but anyway, I'm moving on from that Columbia game Saturday
2:06
night Porter. Why don't you tell us kind of
2:08
your, your, your feedback from that?
2:10
It was a it was a fantastic effort by our ladies.
2:13
First off, hats. First off, hats off to Coach
2:16
Redisse who did the scout. I heard that in Allie's post
2:19
game remarks. She did a great job of scouting
2:22
Columbia. I think if you remember for our
2:24
predictions, I actually predicted A1 point loss and I
2:27
said, you know, I can't see us beating them without Alicia
2:30
Newells defense. And you predicted I think a 12
2:33
point win, something like that. And you were darn close.
2:36
We won by 10. But I also am going to take a
2:38
little bit of solace in the fact that we had Alicia Newell's
2:41
defense and it turned out to be everything we thought it was
2:44
going to be and that we've been saying it would be.
2:47
So that was that was awesome. So, so a couple of thoughts I
2:50
had kind of after the game is that, you know, you're on the
2:53
road at Columbia, but when when I saw some post game photos, you
2:57
saw like Katie Hill was there with the team.
3:00
I think Maggie's family was there.
3:02
And then it made me remember, and I might have been Katie,
3:05
when we asked like, where are some of the great places to
3:06
play? I think it was either Kate or
3:08
Addy. One of them said was New York.
3:11
Some of it's kind of going to the city, but also being closer.
3:13
And it just made me realize like, yo, yeah, Columbia is an
3:17
away game, but we might have players who are from the
3:19
Northeast who kind of look forward to that.
3:21
So versus like, uh oh, we're going on the road.
3:23
It's like I get to see my family.
3:24
I get to see my friends, so maybe that kind of home field
3:28
advantage isn't it Wasn't as strong.
3:29
Probably a good turn out for the Spider fans.
3:31
At one point the announcer on TV did say there's a lot of Spider
3:35
fans here can they did not like that call.
3:36
So clearly they were making a lot of noise in the arena, which
3:39
is great and. Congratulations to Maggie Dugan
3:42
who scored her 15 hundredth point. 15 hundredth point.
3:47
She's the ninth player to do that.
3:50
And, and I, you know, I don't know Maggie well, but I'm
3:53
guessing she wasn't jumping up and down celebrating a 1500
3:55
point cuz she's going to be celebrating a 2000 point at some
3:58
point. And also that's more you like,
4:00
you reflect on that after you've left.
4:03
She just wants to win and, and thankfully we did.
4:06
Yeah, I mean, for Maggie, it was, you know, I hate to even
4:09
say this line out loud and say it was kind of a pedestrian
4:11
night. Like 16 points, 9 rebounds and
4:14
and four assists. I mean that, you know, she
4:16
didn't have to be the best player in the country.
4:19
That's the 2025 Maggie Dugan, not the 2026 Maggie Dugan
4:22
that's. You know what that you know what
4:24
it was, it was Maggie Dugan not needing to win the game for us.
4:27
And that was the probably the most encouraging thing that I
4:29
saw on that game. I mean, a couple things that
4:31
stood out right off the bat. We, we started a little cold.
4:34
I mean, it was we, I think it was, you know, 6 minutes in
4:37
before we had our first field goal.
4:38
So we. Both teams were cold.
4:40
Too, Both teams were cold to start.
4:42
You know, they have Riley Weiss. We were worried about how we're
4:45
going to slow her down. Let's go back to the first time
4:48
we talked about the ladies. We went to practice.
4:50
If you remember back, I think it was episode 6 for us and we came
4:54
out with the hot take that Alicia Newell was a top 4 player
4:58
on this team. Why did we say that?
5:00
What did we see in that one practice we took in?
5:02
For me, it was how much of how much havoc she wreaked on Ally
5:08
bringing the ball up the court in a standard intrasquad
5:11
scrimmage. I mean, I said if she can do
5:13
this to one of the best point guards in the Atlantic 10, she's
5:16
going to be a defensive menace for us.
5:19
And I watched her last night on on Riley Weiss.
5:21
Riley Riley went one for 10 from 3 point land.
5:23
Riley Weiss did not was not expecting the kind of pressure
5:27
that was put on her last night. It was it was special.
5:30
I listened to the Columbia's coaches post game comments and
5:32
she said if you want to win this game you're going to start with
5:35
stopping #44 #22 and #14 and to her credit all three of those
5:40
ladies for us had an amazing game.
5:42
Maggie had a great game. Ali had her best game this
5:44
season. She was, she was unstoppable in
5:46
a lot of ways. And then Rachel's 3 point shot
5:48
was, was coming home. But the number she didn't
5:51
mention that I was the difference maker of the game
5:53
with #3 Newell was a defensive menace and gave us a offensive
5:58
boost I don't think anybody was expecting where she scored 16
6:01
points, grabbed 5 rebounds, 4 of them offensive.
6:05
She just played a heck of a ball game.
6:07
And I, and I think I won't say that Richmond is a NCAA
6:11
tournament team yet. We're still a work in progress.
6:13
We still have work to do. We had 17 turnovers in the game.
6:15
I think we have the five is not yet optimized.
6:20
What I mean by that is there we have our best game from the five
6:23
is yet to come. We've got 4 good players to
6:25
rotate it to five and we still haven't quite got that magical
6:29
game from the five position yet. Yeah.
6:31
Let me just make a comment to that kind of a, a side note.
6:33
It was a tight, tight game for, you know, say half the game.
6:36
Then we got a little bit of a lead, but it was never super
6:38
comfortable. But you can see the coach really
6:40
tighten the bench in yesterday's game.
6:42
Like even while you know Simon, you know, we haven't had our
6:45
first double double yet and it's coming.
6:47
But she played a lot of minutes she did.
6:48
So there was really five players who played most of the game and
6:52
then it looked like more of a mid season rotation of the
6:55
bench. Columbia has a big as a big
6:57
front court and they were physical, I think.
6:59
I think it's Rafu. Rafu was one of the big, one of
7:01
the one of the biggest, strongest players.
7:03
She was 10 rebounds in the game. I mean, they were tough inside.
7:05
What was nice about the game and and and giving Alicia credit,
7:08
like I think when we were cold, like I think she had twelve of
7:11
her points in the first like. 10 she did first.
7:14
Quarter right so she was like the she was our offense in that
7:17
first quarter and we needed it because we were cold and and and
7:22
you think of like her potential still because I wouldn't say
7:26
that she like most of her points are stealing the ball or doing
7:30
something to drive one-on-one and score like she's still not
7:36
you know where she's getting assists.
7:39
She's like a lot of give and go. So there's like so much like I'm
7:42
looking forward to like what is she like in two months from now?
7:44
Because right now it's a lot of one-on-one stealing the ball,
7:47
like just being like you said, havoc.
7:49
She hit a three. But I think as she continues to
7:52
like get in the flow of of kind of the goat give and goes that
7:56
you see kind of Ally and Rachel and Maggie, because they've been
7:58
playing together for for for three years, an hour, 2 1/2
8:01
years. Like there, there's Even so much
8:03
more that I think we're going to see out of Alicia as a season.
8:06
Progress. I mean, I think if you go back
8:07
to the Texas game for 5 minutes, she wreaked havoc on Texas.
8:11
We were leading the game before she got injured in that game.
8:14
If you take her last 35 minutes, the 5 minutes from the Texas
8:16
game in the 30 minutes from the Columbia game, she has 22
8:19
points, 6 steals, 5 rebounds and an assist.
8:24
She is the she's becoming the two, but it's a different 2 than
8:28
we're used to. It's not the three-point
8:29
shooting, although she did go for two for three yesterday.
8:31
It's not the deep threat. It's the I can take my person
8:35
off the dribble and take you to the rack or I can take the
8:37
three-point shot. Not quite as tall as our
8:40
traditional 2. She's not a six foot 1, you
8:43
know, defender, but the pressure she puts on the ball is a unique
8:48
dimension. And and hats off to Coach
8:50
Russell for figuring out how to use that in his system.
8:53
Because I think you saw last night the potential that we have
8:56
in this system and the potential this team has.
8:59
Not a win that's going to guarantee an NCAA at large bid.
9:02
We have a long way to go, but it's a win against the top 35
9:04
team on their homecourt by double digits where we were
9:08
clearly the better team and we didn't even play our best game.
9:10
I mean, we we still have too many turnovers.
9:12
We had, you know, some issues at the five that we got to figure
9:15
out. And that's just simply like, how
9:16
do we grab that rebound box out a little bit better?
9:20
The five played OK. It wasn't a bad game out of the
9:22
fives, but like it was still like we have another gear left
9:25
to go. And I think you'll see that as
9:26
this team continues their maturation and continues their
9:29
development. But tough win on a, tough
9:31
against, a tough point on the road and A and a great win for
9:34
the program. Yeah, I mean what you, you take
9:36
a step back like this is still early in the season.
9:38
We played three games and I think after three games, like we
9:42
know who is filled one of those two open roles in the starting
9:46
line up where if you go two months ago, you know, you were
9:48
high on Alicia, but you weren't pounding on the table and saying
9:50
she's definitely going to be that that number 2 or kind of
9:54
one of our starting 5. And so now I think we know who
9:57
one of them is like it's bearing any more injury she had that she
10:00
did have the mask on. So, you know, keep protecting
10:03
kind of her injury that'll go away and she'll be able to take
10:06
off that mask. But we, we know who one of those
10:09
feelings are kind of, you know, taking the place and it's,
10:12
they're obviously very different players.
10:14
But, you know, we lost two seniors who were really, you
10:17
know, tons of minutes for multiple years for the Spiders,
10:20
kind of 1 potentially future Hall of Famer.
10:24
And so we know who one of those is.
10:27
Heck, three games and we know who won.
10:28
Like I, I never expected after three games that we would know
10:32
who all, who all 5 guaranteed, you know, All Stars are on our
10:36
team. So if we've got a a little more
10:38
time to work on the five, like, so be it.
10:40
Like I'm not worried about it. I'm going to add the prediction
10:42
to my, to my list of predictions that Newell will be all A10
10:46
defensive team by the end of the year.
10:48
She's just that good on defense. And I think it's a, it's a
10:50
dimension that we we love real quick on Ali.
10:53
Ali had an unbelievable game creating for others 9 assists,
10:56
15 points. The thing about Ally that I
10:58
loved this game was she took her, her player off the dribble
11:02
multiple times. Should she should we know she
11:04
has one of the best 3 point shots on the team?
11:06
We know she's dangerous from outside.
11:08
She also is the best creator for others on our team.
11:11
Like she can, she can dribble and then quickly, you know,
11:15
rotate to where the defense is collapsed and find the open
11:17
shooter. But she she added a new
11:19
dimension that I hadn't seen as much of this game where she was.
11:22
She was scoring at the basket as well as doing all of those other
11:25
things. So great game from her, great
11:26
game from Newell. The coolest thing too, is like,
11:29
you know, we'll talk about the new recruits that we, we've
11:31
added here over the last week in, in formal signings.
11:33
But you know, with Newell and with Ali and with Persichetti
11:37
coming back next year, we actually, you're seeing what,
11:41
you know, a successful program building looks like.
11:43
I mean, I, I'm, I was worried after we lose Maggie and Rachel,
11:46
what are we going to do? But now I'm seeing the potential
11:49
to keep this unbelievable role that Coach Rusale has us
11:53
ongoing, and you can see how these players are developing in
11:56
his system. Every single year somebody steps
11:59
up and develops into the next great Spider.
12:02
And you know, it's just exciting because you don't know who it's
12:04
going to be, but you know somebody's going to do it.
12:06
Yep. OK, well let's move on to the
12:08
men. Now.
12:08
The men didn't play this weekend, so we're going to just
12:10
look forward a bit. We'll start with the men.
12:14
Both the men's and women have midweek games.
12:16
The men have VMI at home. You know, our teams had a week
12:21
off and I know we heard the post game from Mooney last week.
12:25
He needed the team needed some rest.
12:27
So he was looking forward to that.
12:28
Also just some time to kind of analyze their performance in
12:31
their early game. So come game next week, they'll
12:34
have had a week off. So we'll be well rested and kind
12:37
of ready to go. You know, VMI, you know, they're
12:41
not a great team, but they're also a bit of an incomplete team
12:45
right now. They had.
12:47
So just get a little, maybe a little data.
12:49
So they're Bardovic ranking is 276 right now, Obviously not
12:52
strong. Their offensive efficiency is
12:54
302, but their three pointer efficiency is 16th in the
12:59
country. I mean that's their game is 3
13:00
pointers. Their defense is 216, but they
13:04
have the pre season player of the year and the Socon and he's
13:07
been out OK. It's kind of an undisclosed
13:09
injury so. Is he back for us?
13:13
I I don't know, there's really not much information on on on on
13:17
on why he's not playing kind of what the story is, but he's at
13:20
he's been out. He averaged 16 a game last year.
13:25
So if he's back, they're a different team.
13:28
They're three and two right now. Two of their wins are against D3
13:31
teams. They got crushed by Missouri.
13:34
They beat an O and three Southern Indiana team on the
13:36
road and then they just lost to Jacksonville in a heartbreaker
13:40
at home. So they're not playing great,
13:42
but they're missing their best player, One of their players
13:45
that has taken over that role, TJ Johnson, he's a 66.
13:50
He's averaging 25 points a game so far.
13:52
So he's having to carry the load, 9 rebounds a game.
13:54
He's a three-point shooter. That's his that's his game.
13:57
They do have a, you know, a few other players in double figures,
13:59
but they've been, you know, in these D3 games scoring a lot of
14:02
points. So I, I don't really know what
14:03
to take of that. Their leading rebounder is 6
14:06
foot 4. So one thing that's clear about
14:08
this team is they are not big. Guess what?
14:11
They averaged 37 three-point attempts a game.
14:15
So, you know, they, they play different.
14:17
I don't think it's going to be just like the William and Mary
14:19
game, but that was a game that we, you know, just played high
14:21
scoring. You know, the William and Mary
14:23
took tons of threes. Kind of that's part of what they
14:25
do. So we're going to play a small
14:27
team that's going to try to shoot as many threes as they
14:30
can. So we ought to be able to kind
14:32
of out muscle them, kind of get a lot of two pointers.
14:35
As long as we play, you know, decent 3 point defense, we
14:41
should be OK against VMII. Think inside we will have a huge
14:46
advantage against VMI. Just looking at at who kind of
14:49
their their their players are size wise.
14:52
There's no way that we shouldn't get, you know, 20 points out of
14:55
our five and probably 20 rebounds out of our five against
14:58
a team like this. I mean, that's a combination of
15:00
Beagle and Walls. Those guys aren't aren't
15:03
dominating inside and we're not doing something, we're doing
15:05
something wrong. Yeah, and I think that's could
15:07
hopefully a good game for Daughtry and Robinson to get,
15:09
right. Like they weren't great in the
15:11
William and Mary game. We saw a lot of AP out there and
15:15
that's good. But I'd love to see kind of
15:17
Jayden or Jaylen kind of get a little more minutes now and
15:21
maybe you kind of use that muscle to get some easy baskets.
15:24
For any risk of, you know, just like I know it's a Wednesday
15:27
game, middle of the week, you know, VMI, they have a very
15:31
loyal fan base and there's a lot of VMI grads in the Richmond
15:34
area. Any chance that it turns into
15:36
kind of a neutral court game because not enough Spider fans
15:39
show up and you get 1000 loud VMI fans in there?
15:43
Good question. I don't know how passionate they
15:46
are about this team. I mean, I think just the start
15:48
that they've had, I don't think this team they're not predicted
15:52
to win the Socon, even though I think basketball is probably VMI
15:55
is like most popular sport. I'm I'm not expecting kind of a
15:59
raucous Robin center, but we'll see.
16:02
OK, OK, so the women on Tuesday, they have a tight turn around.
16:06
We've got Temple at home. Temple is good.
16:09
I know the coach was saying in the post game, like when they
16:12
kind of and somewhat mapped their schedule to kind of, you
16:15
know, where they've kind of made a, you know, a certain
16:18
accomplishment or been able to say like, Hey, we, you know, we,
16:20
we got through these four games. Like they look all the way
16:23
through the temple game. Kind of the start of the season
16:25
is like those four games because there's not a lot of rest in
16:27
between a bunch of good games to be played.
16:30
Like they they're they're not, you know, patting themselves on
16:33
the back too much after Colombia and saying, Hey, we can take a
16:35
break. They know they got a tough game
16:37
on on Tuesday against Temple. Yeah, Temple is, it's going to
16:41
be a, it's a very dangerous game.
16:43
Temple is a, is a good team. I wouldn't say yet, they're a
16:46
great team, but they are a, they're a good, possibly very
16:49
good team. They beat George Mason at home.
16:53
George Mason is, was considered a top 50 team before the season.
16:57
They were very close to being tied with us in the A10
16:59
preseason rankings as to who is the number one team in the, in
17:03
the A10. So that got my attention.
17:05
When you beat George Mason, you get my attention.
17:07
The second game of the season, they had another good result.
17:10
They beat George Washington handily, get another 8-10
17:13
opponent of ours. They beat, I think it was
17:17
LaSalle in the most recent game, another 810 team with one bad
17:21
loss, which was, and it wasn't a bad loss, it was just they got
17:23
beaten pretty handily by 28 points like we did to West
17:27
Virginia. Now, West Virginia to this on
17:30
Friday night beat #15 Duke and they're now three and O and
17:33
they've destroyed everybody they've played.
17:35
So West Virginia, they were 27 going into this week, is
17:39
probably going to move into the top 25.
17:42
Did you see the note about that game?
17:43
The West Virginia Duke game. I did not.
17:45
So there was a melee right before half.
17:48
West Virginia had six players ejected, so they had only 5
17:52
players play the entire second-half and they upset Duke.
17:54
Holy cow. Yeah.
17:55
I don't know if that looking at what West Virginia has done, I'm
17:58
not sure that's going to be a considered an upset by the end
17:59
of the year. What what we're saying though,
18:01
is Temple is very good. They've beaten some very good
18:03
teams. They've beaten them by a large
18:05
margin. They feature four kind of
18:07
people. You have to worry about Kayla
18:09
Turner being the person that's got the most name recognition.
18:12
She was All American pre season, first team.
18:16
She's a guard. She's 5-6.
18:18
I can imagine Newell probably being her up in this game.
18:21
They also have another guard, Taylor, who's 55, who's
18:24
averaging about 6 assists a game.
18:26
They got 2 bigs that play a lot. 1 of them's last name is Molina.
18:30
Has 8 rebounds a game. Molina said at least 2 double
18:33
double so far. And then Sanaya Craig, who
18:37
averages 11 1/2 rebounds a game and has also had at least one
18:41
double double. They're 6, three and six one on
18:45
their on their front lines. It's going to take a big game
18:47
out of Maggie Dugan on the defensive side is going to our 5
18:50
is going to have to play really aggressive inside to kind of
18:53
neutralize some of that size that they've got.
18:57
I like that this game is at home for us.
18:59
Like, I would be more worried if we're playing at Temple because
19:01
they seem to really be rolling teams at Temple still, even with
19:05
all that, they're probably a top 50 team and you get a top 50
19:08
team on the homecourt, you know, it's going to be a very close
19:11
spread, like 3 or 4 points I would imagine.
19:13
And you're going to have a really tough game.
19:14
So really important for our fans to come out and support our
19:18
women's team. They're doing everything they
19:21
can do to to make it, you know, back to that special level that
19:26
they achieved last year in the NCAA tournament.
19:28
But really, it's up to us. I mean, bring a friend, you
19:31
know, tell your friends about this, about this team, how good
19:34
they are, what they are capable of.
19:36
Get them out to the Robinson. Are these these these women play
19:38
better with big crowds behind them.
19:41
I've seen that in action last year.
19:43
Let's give them a big crowd on Tuesday night.
19:45
Support them. I think you're going to see more
19:47
good things coming out of this team.
19:48
Yeah, I'm curious to see Monday too, some of the polls when they
19:51
come out because there were some of the kind of the 20 to 25
19:54
ranked teams that lost. You know, we dropped out of the
19:55
poll after losing to Texas and that's just going to happen
19:58
because there's a bunch of undefeated teams.
20:00
I saw some, some of the, you know, lower top 25 teams lost.
20:04
You know, we're in that next batch.
20:06
Like do we move back up with the win at Columbia or is there
20:08
somebody else who's undefeated who takes that spot?
20:10
I mean, those things don't matter too much right now, but
20:12
it's just interesting as a fan just when you when you see kind
20:15
of your team ranked. Yeah, it's going to be, we'll be
20:17
right on the cusp again of the top 25, maybe slip into it.
20:20
I know West Virginia will definitely slip into the top 25
20:22
after that win. So it'll be it'll be good.
20:25
We've got a lot of, we've got a lot of work to do still to, to
20:28
become the team that we're capable of.
20:31
But I mean, I, I, we're on the, we're on the right path.
20:33
Again, a great coaching staff through and through the team
20:36
that buys in the leadership of the players on the team,
20:39
especially the senior leaders. That's what that's what builds a
20:42
program that continues to sustain itself.
20:44
And I mean, that's what we, that's what we have here at
20:46
Richmond. Yes, we got some midweek games
20:47
with both teams. They'll be games over the
20:49
weekend and then it comes kind of Thanksgiving tournament time.
20:52
We'll talk about all of that stuff later.
20:54
I thought I'd do a little bit of around the A 10.
20:57
OK, we'll come up with some cool sound effects for that at some
21:00
point later. It's, you know, it's really
21:03
early and it's hard to judge too much of what's going on.
21:05
I mean, use us as an example, like when you when you look at
21:08
the stat services that are out there, like our division
21:10
three-game doesn't count, right? So we've played two games and
21:13
that's true for a lot of teams. So I'm just going to do a couple
21:15
highlights here. You know, one thing we don't
21:18
have yet as a conference is any like big wins.
21:20
Most of our top teams are undefeated.
21:22
They've won the games they're supposed to win.
21:24
VCU lost to Utah State, so that's one of those games that
21:28
it's not a bad loss. It was on the road, but it would
21:31
be a good win for them. Duquesne also lost at Villanova
21:35
and that's not a bad loss, but Villanova's not a top ten team
21:38
either. Like that's a game if you win,
21:40
it kind of helps the conference. So I think the conference is
21:43
doing OK. I'll talk about Richmond's stats
21:46
in a second, but you know, sometimes it's the bottom teams
21:49
that really hurt your conference in Loyola Chicago.
21:52
Yuck. They're right now 293.
21:56
They're one and three with losses to Mercyhurst, North
22:00
Texas and Wichita State. Their defenses ranked 350 in the
22:04
part of it ranking. So they've had a really rough
22:08
start. Hopefully they turn that around
22:10
because they're, they, they should be a good team in the
22:12
A10, but right now they've, they've, they're not helping the
22:15
conference. For those of you guys who
22:17
remember us talking about net, I mean, the key is to win your non
22:19
conference games and then if you're going to stink, stink in
22:22
the conference. So it's to our benefit.
22:23
But like getting crushed in your non con and then actually
22:26
getting good by conference time actually backfires because it
22:30
makes it look like the conference is weak and even
22:32
though your team has improved dramatically.
22:34
So we really need these guys to be winning in their non con.
22:37
Now, interesting, just looking at Richmond, these are two games
22:39
and we had that William and Mary game that really I think kind of
22:41
hurts our stats. Like our offense efficiency in
22:44
our two wins is 86. Our defense is 180.
22:47
So we're ranked one O 9 in the Bartovic ranking.
22:50
So it's defense that's taking us down in that ranking.
22:53
Again, this is 2 games. If you look at where we're
22:57
really bad according in those two games, it's an on the
23:02
defensive side. This is like a 300 or worse
23:04
ranking. It's not causing enough
23:05
turnovers, allowing way too many free throws.
23:08
And we've seen that lots of fouling and we know coach is
23:11
happy and three-point percentage defense.
23:14
And you know, it's funny. It's like through two games, one
23:16
of the places that we're looking great is defensive rebounding.
23:19
So it shows you how I, I, I don't think by the end of the
23:21
season we're going to be a top defensive rebounding.
23:23
Team work credit is due. But it does show kind of how,
23:26
you know, two games in like, who cares?
23:28
You know what, you know what we did in that first game, which I
23:30
loved was we, we have so much depth.
23:31
We pressed the whole first half of that first game and we kind
23:35
of got away from it probably, you know, get game planned away
23:38
from it. So I imagine it's coming back at
23:39
some point in time, but I really love to see the team press
23:43
because we have so much depth, especially at the guard.
23:45
I mean, our guards are so deep. It's just, you know, I, I love
23:48
that press. Yep, and just some games coming
23:50
up this week. VCU is at NC State on Monday.
23:53
It's a big game, so. That's a good game.
23:55
That's kind of their old coach Wade welcoming Martelli junior
24:00
to NC State. So that's one of those where
24:02
again, it's not a bad loss at VCU losses, but it'll be a nice
24:04
win for the conference. On Wednesday, Dayton's at
24:07
Marquette, So that's a big game. You know, Dayton's usually and I
24:10
expect one of going to be one of our top teams this year.
24:12
Marquette's an NCAA team pretty much every year.
24:15
That's Shaka Smart. So think of that does Grant
24:18
against Shaka smart. So those are ex VCU coaches
24:20
there. And then Thursday, kind of a
24:23
smaller game, but still important.
24:24
Saint Joe's is at UNLV and UNL VS pretty good team.
24:28
It's one of those where you're on the road.
24:30
Again, it won't be a bad loss for the conference, but those
24:32
are the kind of wins your conference needs to get to move
24:35
up and hopefully, you know, go from A1 big lead to a two or
24:40
three big league. I see Davidson's got Boston
24:42
College coming up. That's an important game.
24:44
You got to win these games against the bigs when you get a
24:46
kind of a a chance to play them. It's just, it's just helps your
24:51
overall conference rating to have, you know, some cross
24:53
correlations into these big conferences where you've won
24:55
games. OK.
24:57
Let's talk about kind of the, I guess the official recruits that
25:02
were announced in the last week. Now, you know, this is yeah, I'm
25:06
not going to pretend I'm an expert on all the rules, but a
25:08
lot of these players signed a year ago kind of, you know,
25:12
verbally agreed. But when it it wasn't official
25:16
and where the school kind of announced it until last week.
25:19
So, you know, some of these names aren't brand new.
25:21
That's not kind of the any shocking things came out, but
25:23
it's now official. The school is allowed to talk
25:26
about it and these are all folks who are coming in next year.
25:29
So let's let's start on the men. I one thing there's always like
25:33
this math part and obviously the rules are different now with NIL
25:36
and all the transfers, but you know, we are losing 5 players
25:40
for certain. So these are graduate player
25:42
people who will graduate that have no more eligibility left
25:45
and that includes 2 centers. So, you know, we have, you know,
25:49
one center who is a red shirt in Hominik, but we're losing our
25:54
two bigs next year. We signed three players.
25:58
So there's room like when you're thinking about transfer, like in
26:01
the old days, you'd be like, oh, there's room for two transfers
26:04
in the new world. Like you can't guarantee.
26:06
And we know it's unlikely that every player comes back who can
26:09
come back, but there is room for transfers for sure.
26:13
And you know when you get to the the portal time period, you'll
26:16
know if any of your players have left to kind of how much more
26:19
room there is. We signed a little guard.
26:24
So that seems to be part of the routine.
26:25
A59 super highly regarded point guard from Kansas.
26:32
Sam Deuce Simmons. Sam Simmons, yes.
26:35
So kind of, he's really a kind of a the, the, I think the star
26:39
of the class. He played in the same AAU
26:41
program as Jacob Gilliard, I think.
26:43
Gilliard actually helped with his recruiting too if I read.
26:45
That could be so so anyway, so another small guard.
26:49
It's interesting, you know, you it's I start doing the hey, why
26:53
would we get a small guard? We got Argabrite, you know, and
26:55
we and time's got another year. But I think in these days you
26:58
just like you, you got to recruit the best players you can
27:01
get. And maybe 10 years ago you'd be
27:03
thinking about like, how do all these fit in my 4 year plan?
27:06
But now, like, that book should be thrown out, like, let's get
27:08
the best players we can because you just never know what's going
27:10
to happen, right with your players.
27:12
Yeah, he's a really super highly regarded, had a lot of really
27:14
good offers from from good programs.
27:16
And and then we signed 2 forwards that Dane Caldwell and
27:19
Chad Cook. One's the first of 6/9, the
27:22
other 6-8. They seem more of a four than A5
27:26
and they bring in kind of different qualities.
27:28
Seems like Dane's more of a three-point shooter than Chad's
27:32
more of an inside presence. But I like that we're bringing
27:35
in some big guys, you know, at least in height.
27:37
We'll see how they develop. We're going to.
27:40
Need it because, you know, we're, we're both of our, our
27:42
two bigs. That's right.
27:43
Or both of our fives are gone. Yeah, I mean, So what this tells
27:46
me is like, if if you're thinking, OK, the portal opens
27:49
tomorrow, like we have to prioritize a big like you can't
27:52
have Dylan be the only 610 guy on your again, you can play
27:57
smaller and we've got these 6768 guys on the team.
28:00
To me, it also shows the importance of hominick stacking
28:02
good practices right like you want you want him because I we
28:06
watched him in practice. He's he's got the size, he moves
28:08
well for a big it's the speed of the game.
28:11
I think that, you know, he needs to he needs to come up to speed
28:14
on. But like if he if he continues
28:16
to develop in this season of developing and you can get 20
28:19
good minutes out of him as a freshman next year.
28:21
I mean, you're just in. Yeah, I know.
28:22
But that's, I mean, I love that thinking, but Mooney's not going
28:25
to know come the portal that Hominick is.
28:28
Oh yeah, He's got to get it big. He's going.
28:30
To he's going to get it big and you know, hopefully it works out
28:34
and we get kind of an, you know, obviously we've got bigs that
28:38
have transferred in before and done really well.
28:39
So hopefully we see that again. The women's team, they have 5
28:47
leaving the roster, including, you know, Maggie Dugan, who's,
28:52
you know, pre season first team and was first team last year,
28:54
player of the conference last year, kind of Rachel leaving.
28:58
So we got some big shoes to fill.
28:59
We do have 5 in the class. And the one thing, the one point
29:02
I want to make, and maybe this is obvious for all of you, but
29:05
you know, these ladies all again about a year ago is when they
29:08
verbally said, you know, maybe 10 months ago, hey, I want to be
29:12
a Richmond Spider. So they were influenced by the
29:16
team that won the A10, won the A10 tournament, got to the NCAA
29:20
tournament, lost in the first round.
29:21
Like that's what they saw and they saw the team probably early
29:24
last year a few games. And but the the point I'm trying
29:27
to make is like the next recruiting class should be even
29:30
better. And the 27.
29:32
That's right, because they saw the team win an NCAA tournament
29:35
game. So I mean, I think we we were
29:38
fans of the men's team first. And we kind of experienced that
29:41
in the 80s and the early 90s where our big recruiting classes
29:44
came after we had success in the tournament.
29:46
So I'm looking forward to seeing, you know, we'll hear in
29:48
the next probably 60 days of players who are verbally
29:51
committing to the next class. But in the meantime, we got five
29:55
players coming in and it seems like the number one player on
29:58
that list is a star. Erica Gribble.
30:02
Yeah, I mean she. Top 100 in ESPN's list #80 just,
30:06
you know, watched some interviews with her, where she
30:08
was. She I guess her team won the 2A
30:11
state championship, then they moved them up to three a they
30:13
won the 3A straight championship.
30:16
She's a scorer. She is an efficient 3 point
30:18
shooter. She is really well regarded for
30:21
her basketball IQ and her play making ability.
30:23
She is a bona fide star and you put her together with the
30:28
coaches and the coaching staff that we have and I think, you
30:31
know, you've got what's potentially a, you know, a
30:34
great, you know, talent that could really develop at Richmond
30:37
and become a star. You know what's interesting
30:38
about her, too? She came to Russell Skill Camp
30:42
at U of R as an eighth grader. OK.
30:45
And we heard from, you know, Rachel was kind of the other
30:47
story. She went to the skill camp after
30:49
her sophomore year. But it's nice to hear kind of,
30:53
you know, we get some great players going to that camp and
30:56
that our coaching staff, our facilities and our coaching
30:58
staff are impressing people. And it, it sounds like Erica,
31:03
you know, was connected to U of R from then and not that she
31:06
committed then too young for that, but still kind of really,
31:10
really liked U of R from that experience and, you know,
31:13
committed a year ago to come. To I bet she ends up playing a
31:17
lot as a freshman. Just I mean, we're speculating
31:19
because we're just talking to high school kids right here.
31:20
But like, you know, just looking at her background and you put it
31:23
with the the need we're going to have given that we're
31:25
graduating, 5I mean she's going to play a lot.
31:27
What's interesting, and I'm not sure why this is, maybe someone
31:30
can help and explain it. When you see the, the men's team
31:32
announced, they talk about their height.
31:36
When the women are announced, there's no height.
31:38
Now I did see there are they were originally I looked at,
31:40
well, this picture is next to coach Russell because I was
31:42
trying to think of well, who's the guard?
31:44
Like I'm sure it wasn't 5 guards, right.
31:47
So then they have pictures with Coach Russell and I'm like, oh,
31:49
this one looks taller than the others.
31:51
And then I did, you know, did some digging and we do have two,
31:54
you know, potential fives in the class.
31:57
So we do, we are bringing in some height, which is good.
32:01
You know, we know we'll need some kind of young height to
32:03
come in. It's also we got two players
32:06
from Pittsburgh. So not just Erica, but Josie
32:09
Fontana. I don't, I looked at our coaches
32:11
as no one seems to have a Pittsburgh connection.
32:13
I don't know what led us there, but we do have two players from
32:16
Pittsburgh coming in. So that's, that's really nice to
32:19
see. But we got a, we got a good
32:20
class 5 players. I, I like the, you know, if
32:24
you're an Instagram follower of the rich and women's team, I
32:26
recommend you do kind of, you can learn more about all of
32:28
these players. If you are an Instagram follower
32:30
make sure you give us a like on Instagram for spider sound off
32:33
and or Facebook or whatever platform you're on.
32:37
But anyway, there's a lot more information there now.
32:40
They're all just starting their senior season, so hopefully they
32:43
all kind of have great things ahead and enjoy their their
32:47
senior year and then we'll see him on campus next summer.
32:50
Lila. Coogan 6 foot 3 from Arlington,
32:52
VA. That'll be, you know, exciting
32:54
project to to to develop. Bridget Reifenberg from Illinois
32:58
and Kate Schindler from North Carolina round out that five
33:00
person class. Kate Schindler looks like she
33:02
set the single game county scoring record for for her
33:05
county with 58 points in a game. So it's exciting, you know, this
33:09
is the the time of the year where, you know, you can talk
33:11
about those players. I mean, we can obviously talk
33:13
about them as soon as you hear there's a verbal commit or when
33:17
offers come out there. But it's nice to for the
33:19
university to kind of get past that hurdle.
33:21
They know these players who verbally committed are now kind
33:23
of signed and will be here next fall.
33:27
If you are a recruit too, and you're considering Richmond,
33:30
you've listened to this podcast, feel confident that you are
33:33
getting one of the best coaching Staffs in America at developing
33:37
talent. And that's borne out not just by
33:39
me saying it, but by the numbers.
33:41
Every single year from the time that the season starts to the
33:44
time that the season ends, these players get better and then they
33:47
take a huge leap. We're seeing between their their
33:49
freshman and sophomore year. So and that's been pretty
33:51
consistent the last three or 4. Years.
33:52
That's right. Well, you know, big games come
33:54
up middle of the week. We got some questions on how our
33:57
team performs. Also questions of Do we see beer
33:59
at the women's game and oh. Yeah, Richmond, come through on
34:01
the beer. And do we see Falcons smash back
34:03
after running out a week ago? You.
34:06
Don't want to be on this podcast midweek if we don't have Falcons
34:08
smash. So maybe not the most important
34:11
questions, what questions for us here at Spider sound off.
34:14
But anyway, until next time, this is Tom.
34:16
And this is Porter. And this is the spider sounding
34:19
off. See ya.