Latest / Spiders Sound Off / Episode 26: The Belmont Bomb & The Birthday Boy

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Episode 26: The Belmont Bomb & The Birthday Boy · Spiders Sound Off

• 0:12
  Hey everybody. Welcome back to Spider.
• 0:16
  Sound off. This is Tom.
• 0:17
  And this is Porter. And we are back for a midweek
• 0:22
  episode. We had some games and some
• 0:25
  successful games. Very good games, this.
• 0:27
  Week this week. And we've got center and down in
• 0:30
  Nashville. That's right, and we've got more
• 0:31
  games this weekend before we get into that Porta, you had a
• 0:35
  birthday this week, so happy birthday.
• 0:37
  Thank you. Thank you. 30 years old, the
• 0:39
  30th birthday. I've had that the birthday a few
• 0:41
  years in a row now, so going back.
• 0:43
  But yeah, it was my birthday. Good birthday.
• 0:45
  Yeah, had a great birthday. I went to checked out a new
• 0:47
  restaurant in Scott's edition called The Brooklyn which I got
• 0:50
  to give a shout out to. Really cool spot.
• 0:53
  Might be the hottest restaurant in Richmond right now.
• 0:56
  Hard to get into but very much worth it, especially if you're a
• 0:59
  foodie. They've got some some great food
• 1:01
  brought to you by the same people who who do Lost Letter
• 1:03
  and Lillian. So great.
• 1:05
  Well, to our games, you know, AJ Lopez is from Queens, so not too
• 1:10
  far from Brooklyn, but he's our only, I think, New York guy on
• 1:13
  the roster. So we don't have someone from
• 1:15
  Brooklyn, but we do a. Lot of New York listeners, I
• 1:17
  don't know if you saw that New York City specifically, we have
• 1:19
  a lot of listeners so that's cool thing I know one little sub
• 1:22
  note I. Did I guess before your birthday
• 1:24
  on Monday? I went to The Local to see the
• 1:28
  first Chris Mooney show of the year, so that was fun.
• 1:32
  It's the first time at The Local.
• 1:33
  I've been in that building a few times because it's been a few
• 1:35
  different restaurants. Was that the old Cuba?
• 1:37
  Cuba dose? Yeah, yeah.
• 1:38
  It was, it was so we had a good time.
• 1:40
  There was a lot of chatter, so sometimes it was hard to hear
• 1:43
  what was going on because I think everyone was having some
• 1:45
  good conversations. Jaden Daughtry was there.
• 1:51
  Nice. And when he spoke, everyone got
• 1:54
  quiet. So it was nice.
• 1:55
  I think they they knew there was a player there and they wanted
• 1:58
  to hear him. So it was nice to him.
• 2:00
  That told an interesting story of or Mooney actually told the
• 2:03
  story of when he was recruiting him off the portal that he
• 2:09
  brought him in for a visit. And it sounds like Mooney was
• 2:12
  juggling a few different players at the time and said in a sense
• 2:16
  said, like, we're interested, but I really can't offer you
• 2:19
  today. Let's stay in touch.
• 2:23
  And then Mooney later that night was like, why did I do that?
• 2:27
  That was terrible. Why did I feel give him that
• 2:29
  uncertainty? And Daughtry said like he was at
• 2:33
  that that evening, like taking other calls and planning another
• 2:37
  visit. And then Mooney the next morning
• 2:39
  reached out to him and his dad. I think we're both part part of
• 2:42
  that and and apologized and said that was dumb of me.
• 2:46
  I made a mistake. Like, I want you here.
• 2:48
  And if you're if you still want to be here, like I've got a
• 2:51
  space for you. And he I think he I think he
• 2:53
  committed the next day. But yeah, it was nice to hear
• 2:55
  Mooney fall on his sword and take that and apologize and
• 2:59
  landed a recruit. I think I know we're very happy.
• 3:01
  Yeah, he's daughter, he's a beast and he's, you know, just
• 3:05
  lucky to have him in the program on the team.
• 3:07
  So really, really excited to see what he brings this the rest of
• 3:10
  this year and next next year as well, having two years of him.
• 3:12
  So we had the. Coaches show.
• 3:13
  Then we had a birthday and then we had some basketball and
• 3:16
  Wednesday the men's team travelled to Nashville to play
• 3:21
  Belmont. Did we played Belmont?
• 3:23
  And if you remember the last podcast we did, I, I called the
• 3:28
  men's team an above average team.
• 3:30
  I went out of my way to say, look, we're not yet a great
• 3:32
  team. We're not a good team, but we
• 3:33
  are an above average team. I'm ready to upgrade that to we
• 3:37
  are now a good team. We we are a lot of teams have
• 3:41
  postseason aspirations, but they're not legitimate
• 3:44
  postseason aspirations. They just hope they make the
• 3:46
  postseason. This team has legitimate
• 3:48
  postseason aspirations. After this win, we're now into
• 3:51
  Ken Palm 100 top 100. We have a great win on the road
• 3:56
  against a very good team in Belmont.
• 3:58
  Who's 8? No, they were quad 1.
• 3:59
  I don't know if they'll stay quad one forever, but they
• 4:02
  that's a quad one win right now for our program.
• 4:04
  And is that on the road? Top 75?
• 4:07
  Is that quad? One, that's a great question.
• 4:09
  It might be, yeah, yeah. So that there.
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  But that was a huge win for for the men.
• 4:14
  And it's worth saying the team never gave up on on what they're
• 4:19
  doing and, and Coach Mooney didn't give up on what he's
• 4:21
  doing, which is playing lots of players, rotating people in and
• 4:24
  out of the lineup. We were without time for that
• 4:27
  game. He was, he injured A hamstring.
• 4:30
  So we ended up playing a man down.
• 4:32
  But a couple things happened #1 David Thomas emerged in a way
• 4:37
  that I think got all of our attention.
• 4:40
  Hey, but before you get there, just a reminder that when we did
• 4:42
  our, what are we thankful for? Yes, I said I was thankful for
• 4:45
  Michael tying. She did and then he got injured.
• 4:47
  So yes, I'm still thankful for you, Michael.
• 4:50
  I hope you get over this injury soon.
• 4:51
  Just don't jinx the next guy. Yeah, that's.
• 4:53
  What we're saying. But yes, David Thomas from
• 4:55
  DePaul had a really nice day shooting the three in particular
• 4:59
  was he had that shot going great.
• 5:01
  Yeah, I went back and I looked at his his career again because
• 5:03
  remember, he started out as Mercer and had a really good
• 5:05
  freshman season. Then he entered the portal, got
• 5:07
  lots of offers, got one from Richmond, got one from DePaul,
• 5:11
  chose DePaul, went to DePaul, had a, I'll just say a forgetful
• 5:15
  year at DePaul. And you wondered, you know,
• 5:17
  which David Thomas was real. But the David Thomas that showed
• 5:21
  up here at Richmond, either through, you know, a more
• 5:25
  heightened interest and, and playing basketball or through
• 5:29
  great coaching or through a great system for his skill set
• 5:33
  or a combination of all three, has legitimately become a very
• 5:37
  good player for us. And if you look at his his
• 5:40
  metrics, if he had, if he had a little bit more time on the
• 5:44
  court, he would be ranked one of the top players offensively in
• 5:48
  the country right now. But he's 13 from 21 from 3 point
• 5:52
  land. That's number four in the nation
• 5:53
  and three-point percentage. So that's shooting over 60% from
• 5:56
  3 point land. He is playing really good
• 6:00
  defense. So that's another thing we're
• 6:02
  seeing out of him. And last, yeah, against Belmont,
• 6:04
  he, he carried us the entire first half, I mean.
• 6:07
  I mean, what I what I really like about him this season is
• 6:09
  that you can tell he's like he's happy and and wants to just play
• 6:15
  a part in this team winning. So he's been off the bench.
• 6:18
  His minutes haven't been big, probably less than even played.
• 6:21
  Maybe it's sometimes as a freshman at Mercer, but he goes
• 6:23
  out there and plays hard. His defense is consistently good
• 6:28
  and you can see that he's going to have a role all year and
• 6:30
  whether it's 20 minutes some nights or 15 others or 25, like
• 6:34
  he's a guy I think Coach Mooney knows can can play the point,
• 6:38
  can play the shooting guard, can play the lockdown defender has a
• 6:41
  three-point shot. So he's very versatile and he's
• 6:45
  going to be important part all year.
• 6:47
  You know, it's funny, Mercer listed him at 62.
• 6:50
  DePaul listed him at six one, We listed him at six two.
• 6:53
  I think he just got pissed off at DePaul for listed him at 61.
• 6:56
  David, you're 6 foot 2. Keep up the good work.
• 6:58
  You're crushing it for us. So thank you for for those
• 7:01
  efforts. That was fantastic.
• 7:02
  Yeah, so that was a that's a really good win for us.
• 7:05
  You could tell the team was excited when that when that game
• 7:08
  ended. Shout out to Walls for that big.
• 7:12
  Shot heard around the world. Yeah, that the long distance
• 7:15
  bomb. Before you bring that up,
• 7:17
  though, let's talk about like, So with 1.8 seconds left,
• 7:20
  Belmont's on the foul line. They're up like almost a four
• 7:24
  points kid makes the first Mooney Subs Walls in it for
• 7:29
  Thomas. And the announcers on the on the
• 7:31
  broadcast said, why are they putting Walls in when Thomas is
• 7:33
  such a good three-point shooter? Well, the other guy goes, well,
• 7:36
  I think he's there to get the rebound.
• 7:37
  And so sure enough, the kid misses the second free throw.
• 7:40
  Walls chucks it 75 feet for the three pointer to cut the lead to
• 7:44
  two. That carried a lot of momentum.
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  They cut it to 1. Was cut it to one, OK, so cut it
• 7:48
  in one or two at halftime, but that literally cut that, that
• 7:51
  carried momentum into the halftime.
• 7:54
  And when we came out of halftime, we actually look like
• 7:57
  we were shot out of a cannon because we I think we all scored
• 7:59
  them 8 to 0 to start the second-half.
• 8:00
  So credit to Walls, credit to Mooney for putting them in
• 8:03
  there. That was great.
• 8:05
  I didn't think our bigs played a great first half.
• 8:08
  It was not our best effort inside.
• 8:11
  We were outscored 22 to two in the paint in the first half.
• 8:13
  That wasn't great, but the guards really picked us up.
• 8:16
  Arga Bright was Arga Bright. Like, you know, he was playing
• 8:20
  fast. He scores and then right down
• 8:23
  court he draws a charge and it's like he is, he's still a master
• 8:27
  at, you know, creating the foul and getting the ball back for
• 8:30
  us. And he and and like a lot of our
• 8:34
  players, I'd like we have even this year, like I know he's
• 8:37
  going to grow as as as he goes to him, a sophomore, junior,
• 8:41
  etcetera. But even this year we've got so
• 8:42
  much more to see. There was a play in that game
• 8:44
  where he made some move that like blew the announcers away
• 8:48
  and then he like missed it. Gimme layup.
• 8:50
  So like there are parts where it's like we there even flashes
• 8:54
  now that tell you how much better he's going to get.
• 8:56
  And I don't mean in a year from now.
• 8:59
  I think when we get into a 10 play you're going to see an even
• 9:02
  an even better version of Argabrite.
• 9:04
  I mean, it was, it was an interesting game because like, I
• 9:07
  felt like we were the better team.
• 9:09
  I mean it, it felt like the whole game we were the better
• 9:11
  team. I mean, Belmont was playing
• 9:13
  well, but Belmont's a good team. But we we were always either
• 9:18
  pushed down a little bit or fighting back.
• 9:19
  And then when we took the lead, it just said, OK, we, we can do
• 9:22
  this. We just have to hang in there.
• 9:23
  So the team was resilient. They played hard down the
• 9:25
  stretch. There were, I mean, some folks
• 9:28
  are saying, well, hey, it was a little bit lucky because you had
• 9:30
  a, you know, a banked in three pointer from Johnson.
• 9:32
  You had the, the walls 75 foot Chuck.
• 9:35
  But there were some calls that were pretty questionable in that
• 9:37
  game too. So there was a lot of things
• 9:39
  that went against us. People forget about #1 I mean, I
• 9:42
  don't know if you saw the, the, the foul call on Beagle Beagle's
• 9:44
  face accidentally fouled a guy's elbow hard and, you know, sent
• 9:49
  the guy to the line. I mean, come on, You don't get
• 9:51
  elbowed in the face and call that on the face, right?
• 9:53
  So there was some, there was some questionable calls in that
• 9:55
  game. Yeah, I mean, I would say like
• 9:57
  if you look at where we still can improve, it's with
• 10:00
  turnovers. Yeah, I think we had some and a
• 10:03
  little bit of, you know, we've got, you know, maybe the some of
• 10:05
  the the things we like about the team, right.
• 10:07
  We put in like the non traditional Richmond Spiders,
• 10:10
  you know, AJ who just wants to drive all the time, Daughtry who
• 10:15
  wants to take it to the paint. And they both at times got a
• 10:17
  little sloppy, turned the ball over and that kept it.
• 10:20
  Like you said, we looked better but we just couldn't get over
• 10:23
  that hump until all of a sudden our defense really picked it up
• 10:26
  and they didn't score for like 5 minutes straight.
• 10:29
  AJ continues to give us, you know, 3 levels of scoring
• 10:32
  options. He can, he can take it to the
• 10:34
  hoop because he has a nice mid range shot and he's and he's
• 10:36
  actually hitting the three really, really.
• 10:37
  Well, let's not forget, I mean, it probably his in a weird way,
• 10:40
  his biggest weapon is that he is great from the foul line.
• 10:43
  Yeah. And so he drives, gets fouled
• 10:46
  and he's making all of his foul shots when they matter.
• 10:48
  And coming in, he had that I think last year he was like 80%
• 10:51
  from the free throw line. So that's not a surprise.
• 10:53
  To start that game, Thomas carried us and then after Thomas
• 10:57
  scoring waned a little bit, Argarbright picked us up and
• 10:59
  carried us scoring wise. And in the last 10 minutes it
• 11:02
  was all about Will Johnston. I mean, he just, he just was
• 11:04
  unconscious at times and so. Hard to hold down the rat tail
• 11:07
  for long. This thing that I keep talking
• 11:09
  about, this team is they're we're very hard to scout because
• 11:13
  you'd never know. I mean, last game we were
• 11:15
  talking about how much Daughtry needs to play more.
• 11:17
  And you know what? Mooney played in 15 minutes
• 11:18
  again. And Mooney was right this time
• 11:20
  because Daughtry didn't have his best game.
• 11:21
  Yeah, I mean, he did have some nice buckets at the end, but it
• 11:23
  wasn't his best game. Have some turnovers in the first
• 11:26
  half. Didn't look like, you know,
• 11:27
  typical Daughtry. Can I just a a point on that?
• 11:30
  There are moments where I think part of the challenge with with
• 11:35
  our system in Daughtry is still trying to figure out how to get
• 11:39
  him in the paint. Like there was a few times and
• 11:41
  he he he had nice moves and scored baskets, but he's still
• 11:44
  like getting the ball at the three-point line and then taking
• 11:48
  his guy one-on-one and succeeding.
• 11:51
  But like it's our traditional offense is not, hey big guy,
• 11:56
  post your person up and let's have someone get it to you in
• 11:59
  that position so you can then make the shot.
• 12:01
  It's always you're even Beagle when he has his good games, he's
• 12:04
  like at the foul line and has working his way one-on-one to
• 12:07
  the basket. So I'm hoping, you know, over
• 12:10
  the next 15 games we see more of our offense work to get inside
• 12:15
  to someone like Daughtry, someone like Beagle, someone
• 12:17
  like Walls versus them having to always create from the
• 12:20
  three-point line, dribbling in one-on-one.
• 12:23
  I think it was interesting if you watch the post game press
• 12:26
  conference with Mooney on that one for one, I'll come back and
• 12:30
  tell you about something that I noticed in that in a second.
• 12:33
  But he talked about with Daughtry, both sides are still
• 12:37
  learning, like Daughtry is learning to play the Richmond
• 12:40
  system and the Richmond system is learning how to use a talent
• 12:44
  as unique as Daughtry. And I thought that was really
• 12:47
  self reflective and a great thing to say because it just
• 12:50
  shows you that we're not playing our best basketball yet.
• 12:52
  Like we still have steps left to take, right?
• 12:55
  These guys are ingredients that have been pushed together.
• 12:57
  They practice extremely hard. Over the summer.
• 13:00
  You and I went out and saw some of that.
• 13:02
  They worked and they worked and they worked.
• 13:03
  Then they go and they win five games at home that everybody
• 13:06
  expected them to win. People complain that the
• 13:08
  schedule's terrible and you know, we frankly agree, right?
• 13:11
  The schedule was terrible. They go on the road, they lose
• 13:15
  their first neutral Rd. game to Furman.
• 13:17
  Again, two foul calls that weren't made could have been the
• 13:19
  difference really. Furman didn't shoot the foul
• 13:22
  shot. Well, we still don't know what
• 13:23
  we have. We come back for a nice bounce
• 13:25
  back win against Charlotte. We know all of this, yes.
• 13:29
  But what I'm getting to a point when we beat Belmont at Belmont,
• 13:33
  that is a a win that says, OK, these guys have something here.
• 13:39
  And if you looked at the Mooney in the post game press
• 13:42
  conference, it was almost like a huge weight had been lifted off
• 13:46
  the shoulder. Like he understood how important
• 13:48
  that game was for the team to win.
• 13:51
  It just looked like, you know, massive relief and and a lot of
• 13:55
  happiness for the team because by winning that game, we are now
• 13:58
  on people's radar. Well, I wish I remembered the
• 14:00
  stat. I don't know if you have it, but
• 14:02
  like we hadn't won a road non conference game in years.
• 14:08
  Yeah, it was. It was.
• 14:09
  So there's a there's a bit of a wait there as well, because I
• 14:12
  think that's that's something that, you know, naturally
• 14:15
  Mooney's not going into like this season versus last season
• 14:18
  and like thinking about that all the time.
• 14:19
  But now when it's over, it's like he can reflect and be like
• 14:22
  that. That's whatever that was is
• 14:24
  gone. We can win on the road.
• 14:27
  I mean, he's proven it in a 10 for sure.
• 14:29
  But now at a conference that that's a nice win.
• 14:31
  For I'll say this too, they did had a great game plan for Orme
• 14:34
  and Lund Lund Blade. They were two those two guys
• 14:36
  combined for two for 17 from 3. That was great defensive set up
• 14:40
  on that. And lastly, Johnston and Thomas
• 14:43
  both got over 30 minutes, which bells your notion that you know,
• 14:46
  we're not ready to play 30 minutes because both guys played
• 14:48
  30 minutes and look pretty good at the end of the game.
• 14:50
  So that was that was fantastic. Just hats off to the guys for
• 14:53
  that game. We know you you guys are super
• 14:56
  excited and we're happy for you because that is a that's a win
• 15:00
  that puts you on a lot of people's radar and can't have
• 15:03
  any let downs. We've got some teams we should
• 15:04
  be coming to the Robin center. We have to go take care of
• 15:07
  business, but that was a great win guys.
• 15:09
  Congratulations. Well, and then earlier that day
• 15:12
  we had the women's team hosting Loyola Chicago.
• 15:17
  We knew that team wasn't having a good year and we expected a
• 15:20
  blow out and that's what we got. We did Rachel Ostrom, who's the
• 15:24
  answer to the trivia question, who is the first ever active
• 15:28
  player to appear on the Spider Sound Off podcast, scored the
• 15:32
  first seven points of the game for us on route to a dominant 18
• 15:35
  point first half. It's almost like she heard you
• 15:38
  when you asked, like why isn't she quite keeping her scoring
• 15:41
  average from last year and went out and demonstrated what she's
• 15:44
  capable of in any given moment, which is just an impressive,
• 15:47
  impressive performance. Yeah, still don't know why we're
• 15:50
  having an A10 game the first week of December, but for
• 15:52
  whatever reason they scheduled it.
• 15:54
  We got probably one of the worst teams in the league, so it was a
• 15:57
  a good moment for our team to get back home, you know, feeling
• 16:03
  super confident after a kind of a nice Rd. win and now we're
• 16:08
  home. It was a dominant defensive
• 16:12
  effort from our spiders. In the first half.
• 16:14
  We held Loyola to 10 points, 10 points and a half.
• 16:17
  I mean, it was dominant. And let me give you a a a rant,
• 16:22
  a positive rant for a second. We talked about Alicia dual
• 16:26
  starting the summer as when we saw her in practice, you know,
• 16:29
  she just looked different. She took the next last step
• 16:32
  forward. We've seen this happen again and
• 16:34
  again with this women's team between freshman and sophomore
• 16:37
  year. She is an absolute menace on the
• 16:42
  defensive end of the ball. I mean, there is just no world
• 16:45
  that I can envision or that I want to be part of where she
• 16:48
  doesn't win a or she's not in the all A10 defensive team at
• 16:51
  the end of this year. She's just that good.
• 16:54
  She's also starting to make a lot of really impressive moves
• 16:58
  to the basket where she's getting around her girl that's
• 17:01
  covering her and getting to the basket.
• 17:03
  Now in this game, she missed I would say 4 layups, but they
• 17:07
  weren't missed because of of tough contest.
• 17:10
  They were missed almost because the adrenaline kick had her just
• 17:14
  push it a little too too hard or she's.
• 17:15
  Expecting. A foul, right?
• 17:16
  Or she's expecting contact, right?
• 17:19
  So those those shots will go down, those shots will fall.
• 17:22
  And when they do, you're going to go from like an all defensive
• 17:25
  player to to an all A10 team performer at some point in time.
• 17:29
  I don't know if it'll be this year, but she will be an all A10
• 17:32
  for second or third team or as early as next year.
• 17:35
  That's my prediction. She's just a really, really
• 17:39
  coming along in her development and it's great to see.
• 17:42
  And let me give credit to the coaches too.
• 17:45
  I don't know, every coaching staff in America decides to play
• 17:49
  2 point guards on the court at the same time, but that's what
• 17:51
  we've done here and it's working and it's working really well.
• 17:53
  So credit to coach or Sale and the rest of the coaches for
• 17:57
  seeing the potential and and working with that.
• 18:00
  The other thing I'm noticing about the coaches is instead of
• 18:03
  getting a 40 point win versus Loyola, they play the freshman
• 18:07
  quite a bit towards the second-half.
• 18:09
  They're letting them get seasoning.
• 18:11
  Even Russell mentioned this in the post game.
• 18:13
  We need them to get seasoning. We need them to be able to make
• 18:15
  some mistakes that don't cost us the game.
• 18:18
  So he's letting them make mistakes as he builds towards
• 18:20
  game 3233 and 34, which is where he's working towards as a team
• 18:24
  and as a program. Well, part of what was going on
• 18:27
  too, which is always great to see, is that when the starters
• 18:29
  were on the bench they were the biggest cheer squad for.
• 18:33
  Both teams do. For the freshmen, so I'm.
• 18:35
  Always impressed by how much the players have each other's back
• 18:38
  and are rooting for each other. It's a sign of good leadership
• 18:40
  in both the men's and the women's programs.
• 18:43
  One other thing I'll say too is Maggie.
• 18:45
  Maggie played a season few minutes for her, but when she
• 18:48
  was on the court, she was still doing Maggie things. 20 points,
• 18:50
  9 rebounds, 5 assists. But we got a little glimpse of
• 18:53
  what the future looks like with no Maggie because we had 8
• 18:55
  minutes where she wasn't on the court.
• 18:57
  And you start to see like folks like Newell and Persichetti and
• 19:00
  others really start to come into their own.
• 19:02
  So really excited to see it. We moved up to #37 into the net.
• 19:07
  Ladies are 37 in that Top 40 team.
• 19:09
  That's that's squarely in at large range folks, with that
• 19:13
  win. We were already in the Top 40
• 19:15
  before that game, but still #37 in that we got a game coming up
• 19:19
  this weekend Sunday against Fairfield.
• 19:20
  They're also top 45 in the nation.
• 19:23
  So we need to get, we need to get a big crowd out for that
• 19:25
  one. OK, here's a bet for you Porter.
• 19:28
  OK, over under of number of games until Maggie gets us a
• 19:34
  triple double. So she's been she's had a lot of
• 19:37
  double double S this season. Had a triple double.
• 19:39
  No, I'm going to give you the over under, you tell.
• 19:40
  Me. OK.
• 19:41
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Eight games under.
• 19:44
  Under, yeah. It's coming soon.
• 19:45
  It's coming soon to a theater near you.
• 19:47
  Absolutely. I mean, she's just still leading
• 19:50
  the nation in the advanced stat, the Bartorvic advanced stat we
• 19:53
  mentioned in the last episode, by the way #1 in the nation,
• 19:55
  yeah. OK, great.
• 19:56
  So anything else you want to talk about the women's game or
• 19:59
  should we go look ahead to this weekend?
• 20:01
  Just overall great performance from the ladies.
• 20:04
  You know, 23 point win, took care of business.
• 20:07
  Great first half, great defense being played.
• 20:10
  Really excited to see where we keep going.
• 20:11
  Yeah. OK, how about before we get to
• 20:14
  the men's and women's game this weekend, Men in our home with
• 20:18
  ODU, women are home with Fairfield.
• 20:21
  So we got a Saturday, Sunday, Robinson or date.
• 20:26
  We are. Some of you listen to us on
• 20:28
  Spotify. Spotify, as many of you know who
• 20:32
  have Spotify, they do like a year end Wrapped session.
• 20:35
  As a listener, they tell you who your favorite artists are.
• 20:38
  They tell you your listening age based on what you listen to.
• 20:43
  And my listening age was exactly my age, which is interesting.
• 20:47
  Nice. They'll tell you your favorite
• 20:48
  songs, kind of just rank things. What's your favorite song?
• 20:51
  Well, all well you'll we'll talk about this later, but all of my
• 20:55
  top songs were from the band The Pixies.
• 20:57
  Yes, OK. But, and we'll explain why in a
• 21:00
  bit, but anyway, we had I think 48 people on Spotify.
• 21:06
  We're their number one show. So for those that's awesome who
• 21:10
  listen to us, there was a even a, you know, larger number who
• 21:13
  are top five, top 10. I I did get a question of like,
• 21:17
  for all the folks who have us as a #1 show, did they even have a
• 21:20
  a second show or was it is that all they?
• 21:23
  If we bring them to Spotify, that's great.
• 21:25
  And actually Spotify is not even the most listened to platform.
• 21:28
  Apple Podcasts has passed Spotify.
• 21:30
  OK, the other thing I love is that they gave us this little
• 21:34
  symbol, or maybe you call it a reward.
• 21:36
  They called us a 2025 instant hit show, which said that our
• 21:41
  debut season was more popular than 91% of other new shows. 91
• 21:46
  is a good winning percentage. So.
• 21:47
  Starting to look like the ladies winning percentage there, 91%.
• 21:50
  I'm also feeling really bad for like how bad could some of these
• 21:54
  shows be if like out of 191 or had less listeners and and less
• 21:59
  success than us? But hey, thank you all of you
• 22:01
  who listen, who have like subscribed to our show.
• 22:05
  It's fun to see that to be on the other side versus just a a
• 22:09
  regular Spotify user. We're now creators and get to
• 22:11
  see some of those stats. Long time show listener.
• 22:13
  RC Cola was in Fiji, the island of Fiji too.
• 22:16
  Gave us a listen from there. So that's our 22nd country we've
• 22:18
  broken into, folks. He is not a Fiji.
• 22:20
  He No, he's not a. Fiji, correct.
• 22:22
  OK, but. He went to the island of Fiji.
• 22:24
  OK, let's talk about this weekend.
• 22:25
  So we'll start in sequential order.
• 22:28
  Saturday, the men host ODU. There have been times where ODU
• 22:33
  has been a nemes for us because they always seem to be big and
• 22:36
  strong rebounding team. This ODU team needs some work.
• 22:43
  Before you start, because I know you did, you did more of a scout
• 22:46
  on ODU than I did. I'm actually worried about this
• 22:49
  game. Here's why.
• 22:50
  The men are coming off a huge win.
• 22:52
  Like weight off their shoulders. When we're coming back home, we
• 22:56
  have a week off until our next game after ODU.
• 22:59
  And it's a weird time. The game's at like 12:30 in the
• 23:02
  afternoon on Saturday, so it's not going to be your typical
• 23:04
  build towards the 7:00 time slot.
• 23:07
  It just feels like that's a classic trap spot.
• 23:09
  You know, ODU is still a Division One basketball program.
• 23:12
  Yes, they're not good. Yes, we should beat them, but we
• 23:15
  never, we always play these in state teams closer than we
• 23:18
  should. And it just feels like it's a
• 23:20
  trap game. So if you're if you're a player
• 23:22
  and you're listening to us, keep that in mind.
• 23:24
  They're going to come in motivated to beat you like we
• 23:26
  got to be up for this game. Let.
• 23:28
  Me tell you a little about this seems some interesting things.
• 23:29
  So their coach is Mike Jones. He's in their second season, so
• 23:32
  he's rebuilding this program. He is an ODU alumni.
• 23:35
  I think he played back in the early 90s.
• 23:39
  He was an assistant at Virginia Tech, but most of his career he
• 23:43
  coached at DeMatha in Maryland, which is basketball powerhouse.
• 23:46
  He was high school coach for a really long time, then went into
• 23:49
  college. One of his assistants is Odell
• 23:52
  Hodge. I don't know if you remember
• 23:53
  Odell Hodge. He was CAA player of the year
• 23:55
  and their MVP two years, 94. Then he got hurt and then in his
• 23:59
  senior 97 he was CA player of the year.
• 24:01
  So two times he was a stud at ODU same time frame, so he was
• 24:06
  right after he graduated. Those dually years is where
• 24:10
  Goodell Hodge was their stud. It's a good pull, by the way.
• 24:13
  They have two senior guards, which score about 13 per game,
• 24:19
  and they had. They're in a rebuilding program
• 24:20
  have a lot of folks that came in from other schools through the
• 24:24
  portal. What I did like, you know, I
• 24:26
  this is a marketing thing and maybe the Richmond did the same
• 24:28
  thing. They had like their e-mail out
• 24:30
  this summer of like here's our here our recruits for the year
• 24:33
  and they just it was like a recruiting e-mail and included
• 24:35
  freshman and included portal guys like put them all together
• 24:39
  and once announcement of like, hey, these are our new people.
• 24:43
  One of their players is from Coastal Carolina, Another was at
• 24:46
  NC State for two years and then went to Austin P, so he's played
• 24:50
  a few. Different ways well travelled.
• 24:51
  So that's Jordan Battle, LJ Thomas and then Casey Shaw is
• 24:55
  actually their leading scorer, 14 per game.
• 24:57
  So they got three guys that are in kind of double digits.
• 24:59
  So like us, it's hard to you can't scout that and say like
• 25:02
  they got one dominant player. Got A7 footer.
• 25:04
  Too, Casey Shaw is a transfer from Maryland, E Shore, but
• 25:09
  another senior. So they've got a bunch of
• 25:10
  seniors who have been on their last year of eligibility, came
• 25:13
  in from other schools. So they've been a team that's
• 25:16
  I'm sure trying to figure out that chemistry 'cause you have
• 25:19
  three players who are their leading scorers who came from
• 25:22
  elsewhere. They are their Nets 241, they're
• 25:27
  3:00 and 6:00. They have two quad four wins and
• 25:30
  one non D1 win. So they they haven't had a
• 25:36
  Goodyear, they lost to William and Mary and so like opponent
• 25:38
  they lost. To Mary, William and Mary is
• 25:40
  looking like a better and better win everyday.
• 25:42
  So they lost to William and Mary at William and Mary by 13.
• 25:45
  So that kind of in the close at on the road against William and
• 25:49
  Mary Bartovic has US winning 80 to 69.
• 25:53
  OK, when I looked yesterday. So so this is a game we should
• 25:56
  win. It is should win it.
• 25:57
  ODU is always seems to be a problem for us just because
• 26:02
  they're not a I mean, you think of like Belmont and look at
• 26:06
  William and Mary both. We are two toughest games where
• 26:08
  we won, but these teams were kind of similar.
• 26:11
  Like I can see almost like the scout is like they got 3 point
• 26:14
  shooting, a lot of cutting, a lot of like similar like ODU has
• 26:18
  never played like us. It's like pounded inside and
• 26:21
  post up and use your strength to cut baskets and rebounds.
• 26:26
  And I don't you know, I don't know this team if they're
• 26:28
  exactly going to be like that. But if Odell Hodge is part of
• 26:31
  coaching, like that's what he was awesome at.
• 26:33
  So it'll be interesting, interesting to see if there's
• 26:35
  some contrastive styles of them, really just pushing it inside,
• 26:38
  pounding the pain. And you know, and obviously
• 26:40
  that's not our strategy, not that we don't have good inside
• 26:43
  players, but we're not a just kind of put it inside and try to
• 26:47
  get 2 point. I think strength, I think we'll
• 26:50
  win this game. I mean, I am worried that it's a
• 26:52
  strap game, but I think we'll win this game pretty
• 26:53
  comfortably. But it's important folks to come
• 26:56
  out and support the team they're doing.
• 26:57
  They're doing their part to get back into the post season
• 27:01
  conversations. We need to come out and have a
• 27:03
  big crowd for the Robinson. That's right.
• 27:06
  So that is Saturday afternoon, we have a game Sunday, the
• 27:11
  women's play Fairfield at home and Fairfield.
• 27:14
  Is good, yeah. That's they're #41 in the nation
• 27:17
  in that right now they're probably the best team that's
• 27:20
  coming to the Robinson or the rest of the way.
• 27:22
  I mean, Davidson looks really good and George Mason's going to
• 27:24
  be good. But I think right now Fairfield,
• 27:26
  if you looked at it, you don't, you have to say they are
• 27:29
  probably the best team coming to the Robin Center.
• 27:32
  They have a lot, they play a lot of players and they have a lot
• 27:36
  of good players. I think when we did our first
• 27:38
  interview with Redis, she actually said, you know, they,
• 27:40
  they model a lot of stuff what they do after, after Richmond,
• 27:43
  if they learned from that game where we beat them last year at
• 27:46
  Fairfield. So they have a lot of length
• 27:48
  guarding the perimeter. Their lineup, while not super
• 27:51
  tall, looks a lot like our lineup.
• 27:53
  They have 5 players who are really rated quite highly in the
• 27:56
  PRPG category, so there's a lot of different ways they could
• 28:00
  beat you. That's what that tells me.
• 28:01
  They've got a lot of other players who are still rated well
• 28:04
  that play a lot. So I'm not sure what is the key
• 28:07
  thing to to guard against here other than to say you know it's
• 28:10
  going to be a good team. They beat Villanova first game
• 28:12
  of the year pretty handily. They beat South Florida.
• 28:15
  They played a tight game against North Carolina.
• 28:17
  They lost to Iowa. And we played them last year,
• 28:19
  too. We did.
• 28:20
  Yes, that was the when I realized how good our ladies
• 28:22
  team was because Fairfield was good last year and we.
• 28:24
  Is that on the road? It was on the road, yeah.
• 28:25
  It was one of our best games. I saw us play all year.
• 28:29
  So they're they're circling this cause Fairfield.
• 28:31
  If they win this game, they're squarely in the at large
• 28:34
  conversation. I mean, they need a signature
• 28:36
  win. This would be that signature win
• 28:38
  for them. We could eat it too to defend
• 28:40
  our at large aspirations. So it's a very important game.
• 28:43
  It's two Top 40 teams playing each other in the Robin Center
• 28:46
  on Sunday. Come on out, watch it.
• 28:48
  It's going to be fun. Their coach is Carly Tibalt,
• 28:51
  Tibalt Dudanis, and this coach is excellent by the way. 31 and
• 28:57
  two in 2024 and went 20 and O in conference 28 and five.
• 29:01
  They made a 13 seed in the in the NCAA tournament last year.
• 29:03
  28 and 519 and one in conference. 12 seed in the NCAA
• 29:08
  tournament four and two this year.
• 29:10
  This is the highest ranked team of those 3.
• 29:13
  This is. How?
• 29:13
  Where are they now? They're 43 is.
• 29:15
  This in the net, yeah. 4341 in the net. 43 This is according to
• 29:19
  Bartorvic. 43 in Bartorvic. So this is a really good team.
• 29:23
  It's going to be a really good game, probably a game you're
• 29:26
  going to want to see. So I would say if you have
• 29:28
  nothing going on Sunday afternoon, if you're a
• 29:30
  Commander's fan, that's completely worthless.
• 29:32
  I mean, they're not going anywhere this year.
• 29:34
  Come out, watch the ladies side fighters play and give them give
• 29:36
  them another cheerful voice in the crowd.
• 29:39
  Is there a theme I'm trying to remember?
• 29:40
  Is this like ugly Christmas sweater game?
• 29:43
  It might be. Is it?
• 29:44
  Yeah, no, I'm. Not I don't have any check
• 29:47
  richmondspiders.com they'll talk about some of that.
• 29:50
  I think it might be maybe it's the next game at some point.
• 29:52
  They have an ugly sweaters holiday game.
• 29:55
  But but yeah, Fairfield Sunday at 2:00.
• 29:59
  Think. It's 2:00.
• 29:59
  Yeah, it's going to be a great game.
• 30:01
  I will have a big crowd there. I know D Hall and his wife are
• 30:04
  joining us for that game and any other Spider fans that are
• 30:07
  looking to get out there, you know, get out there.
• 30:09
  It's going to be, it's going to be an important game for us.
• 30:11
  We know a a a few folks name Randy as we wrap up this
• 30:15
  episode. I do have to.
• 30:16
  Oh, before we get to that, OK, let me tell you.
• 30:18
  So we don't really talk too much about what we have going on in
• 30:20
  our lives outside of the podcast.
• 30:22
  But you you're, I'll tell a fun fact about Tom.
• 30:25
  He's actually a part of a band. It's a Pixies cover band.
• 30:28
  So he mentioned his favorite songs were Pixie songs.
• 30:31
  They're really good. I've seen him play.
• 30:32
  It's a lot of you are alum involved in the band.
• 30:35
  We'll call them seasoned. You are alum, yes.
• 30:37
  And you guys have a pretty big gig this Saturday night and it's
• 30:40
  for a good cause, which is why I wanted to bring it up.
• 30:42
  So tell us about where you're playing and what the 'cause that
• 30:44
  you're raising money for. I appreciate it.
• 30:45
  Yeah, we are. Here comes your band.
• 30:48
  Although this weekend we are the Pixmasies.
• 30:52
  So there's a holiday themed show from an organization called
• 30:55
  Punks for Presents. Punks for presents.
• 30:57
  And so there's a show Friday night, I think at Hardywood, and
• 31:01
  then we play Saturday night at the Camel.
• 31:03
  OK, we are playing with a No Doubt cover band, a Nirvana
• 31:08
  cover band and an Oasis cover band.
• 31:12
  Wow. So it'll be a fun night.
• 31:14
  So the ticket proceeds go to, you know, purchase presents for
• 31:18
  the Children's Hospital. This is the, I think the 10th
• 31:22
  year or maybe the 15th. This organization has been
• 31:24
  around for a long time. Nice.
• 31:26
  It's well run. They have kind of merch they
• 31:29
  they create every year that also kind of proceeds go to a
• 31:32
  presence for the for the children.
• 31:34
  But anyway, that's Saturday night at the camels when we're
• 31:36
  playing. It does mean I think I got band
• 31:39
  practice during the day. So I'm going to miss the ODU
• 31:41
  game. Well, I'll be at the game, and
• 31:42
  maybe since you're playing with an Oasis cover band, maybe we'll
• 31:45
  have a Wonderwalls game to talk about.
• 31:47
  Wonderwalls. I like that.
• 31:49
  That's good. Now I'm going to sing that, get
• 31:51
  that song in my head. Anyway, I was mentioning we have
• 31:54
  a a a Randy friend, we'll call him Randy from Virginia Beach.
• 31:58
  He's a a friend of ours from school.
• 32:00
  Also a fan of the show. He mentioned talked about how I
• 32:04
  brought up Bowser. Bowser from Bowser, who actually
• 32:06
  from Shannon. But I quoted or I sang a song
• 32:11
  from the Oakridge Boys. It was not a Shannon song.
• 32:14
  He brought that up, which is great.
• 32:16
  We love feedback like that. We can do corrections here.
• 32:18
  So thought we'd kind of end this show with a real Shahna song,
• 32:24
  which is I think it's called Goodnight.
• 32:26
  OK, and it goes a little like this.
• 32:29
  Goodnight, sweetheart. Well, it's time to go.
• 32:35
  OK, that's enough of that anyway, until.
• 32:38
  We're dating ourselves, folks. Yeah.
• 32:39
  Until next time, this is Tom. And this is Porter.
• 32:42
  And this is the spider sounding off women.
• 32:45
  And men.