Latest / Spiders Sound Off / Episode 30: Inconceivable! Misery at Elon, Women Have Fun Storming the Castle & A-10 Grades

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Episode 30: Inconceivable! Misery at Elon, Women Have Fun Storming the Castle & A-10 Grades · Spiders Sound Off

0:06
Hey everybody. Welcome back to Spider.
0:09
Sound off. This is Tom.
0:10
And this is Porter. And we are here for another
0:13
midweek pod. Porter, you want to give a
0:18
little? Yeah, additional info on this
0:20
podcast. Just a reminder to the folks who
0:21
are finding us for the first time.
0:23
We are a fan driven podcast. We like to educate, inform, but
0:28
most importantly entertain Spider basketball fans with both
0:32
great stories from Spider basketball past, but also talk a
0:37
little bit about the present using things like advanced
0:39
analytics. But I also want to clarify what
0:41
we're not. We are not a gambling podcast.
0:43
So you won't find Tom or I making recommendation on on
0:46
sports betting on this podcast. In fact, neither of us have bet
0:48
on a college basketball game this year.
0:51
Nope. So we're not we're not looking
0:53
to do that. We will give you our hot takes.
0:54
We'll give you our our thoughts on outcomes, but we're not using
0:58
it to do that. If if you're a youngster and you
1:00
have additional capital in hand, take it.
1:02
Invested in the stock market, buy an index fund, consult a
1:05
financial advisor. Do not, you know, bet on sports.
1:07
That's our recommendation to you.
1:09
So. There's our legalese for.
1:11
The day that's our legalese for the day we are not getting
1:13
caught up in all of that stuff. Doesn't mean that we don't.
1:16
We're not passionate though about outcomes.
1:18
OK, so as, as I guess all of you know, there was a tragedy this
1:22
week. No, I'm not talking about our
1:25
game at Elon. We'll get to that in a second.
1:27
But talking about the the the death, the tragic death of Rob
1:33
Reiner and his wife Michelle, kind of the murdered, what
1:36
sounds like by their son. I don't want to go into a lot of
1:39
details, but allegedly, allegedly.
1:42
Allegedly, everybody's innocent. But we're going to try to honor
1:45
Rob Reiner in this episode and some of his great movies, like
1:48
there was a streak of from 86 to 92, which is comerative years
1:52
for US, high school alleged years for us.
1:55
These are 5 movies in a row that he directed Stand by Me in 86,
1:59
loved it. Princess Bride in 87, When Harry
2:02
Met Sally in 89, Misery in 90, Stephen King book Misery and
2:09
then A Few Good Men in 92. So but the variety in that, it's
2:12
like comedy, this horror. There's a great drama.
2:17
I don't actually think I saw Misery by the way.
2:19
I saw I saw the other four. I didn't.
2:20
See, you need to. You need to see Misery.
2:22
That is one guy. I didn't think I saw that
2:24
awesome movie. Yeah.
2:25
But anyway, we're going to try to honor him today in some of
2:28
his great movies, maybe just to put a little twist in our normal
2:31
pod and we'll talk about the other tragedy happened last
2:36
night. The men traveled to Elon for a
2:40
game that I said in the last pod, like if we're 100 sort of
2:44
ranked team, like we're going to have a tough game.
2:47
But I thought we would beat them more handily because I think
2:50
we're I thought if we are better than that.
2:52
And if you watch the game on Flow sports or listened as I did
2:58
to Scott Unger and Bob Black, there were moments where you
3:02
just thought we were going to run away with it.
3:03
But we ended up with a tough loss on the road.
3:06
Yeah, I mean, I watched it on flow.
3:08
So, you know, The funny thing is I I personally am not as upset
3:13
about the Elon loss as I was about the Furman loss.
3:16
And here's why. I felt like with the Furman
3:18
loss, we were coming off of a protected in bubble right at
3:22
playing teams at the Robin Center, playing some bad teams
3:24
at the Robin Center. And so that was our first real
3:26
test of a new of a, of a decent team on a neutral court.
3:31
The Elon game, I think it was in your in your scout.
3:34
You gave me that one statistic which stuck in my mind that
3:36
Bartorvic said we were only 51% likely to win that game.
3:40
And so when it's a toss up, I was like, OK, I'm overestimating
3:43
the outcome. So that was that was sticking
3:45
with me as we went into the game last night.
3:48
Here's my take on the game. We thoroughly outplayed Elon.
3:51
I actually think it was a pretty good coaching plan because
3:55
without the turnovers, I think we beat them by 20 points.
3:57
I really do. We played, I mean it looked like
4:00
we were the better team in all facets except the turnovers.
4:03
Now you can't ignore the turnovers, right?
4:05
There were 20 turnovers. So the question is why were
4:07
there 20 turnovers, most of them this thing that we've been
4:10
calling the non steel turnover unfortunately.
4:14
Not great defense by Elon. I have a that led to.
4:17
That I have a theory on that too, by the way, if you want to
4:19
share that, go ahead. Yeah.
4:20
OK. So you know, we play, we're
4:23
playing very fast this year and we're doing a lot of of
4:26
substitutions. We're pulling a lot of different
4:28
players. When you play fast and you
4:30
substitute a lot, you often get folks on the court who you know,
4:33
may or may not have a lot of reps, you know, in the exact
4:35
same lineup. So maybe a guy cuts left, the
4:37
guy thinks he's going to cut right, you throw the ball out of
4:39
bounds. I'm not saying it's not the
4:42
right way to play. I'm actually a big fan of the
4:43
way Mooney's playing it this year.
4:45
I just didn't. I think that might be
4:47
contributing to games like this where we have a spike in
4:49
turnovers which, you know, caused the outcome that we saw
4:53
last night, right so. Yeah, let me and let me give a
4:56
maybe a different view of that and I'll use a, a quote from
4:59
Spinal Tap. There's a fine line between
5:01
stupid and clever. He says it with an English
5:05
accent. Yes, he does.
5:06
There's a fine line between clever and stupid.
5:08
You know, now you said it back. Oh, I said it backwards.
5:10
OK. So anyway, you know, we wanted
5:13
almost all the categories, but turnovers, as you said, Yes.
5:15
Well, something that when I look back at the box score that
5:19
surprised me and made me question some of the the
5:22
strategy in the game is you look at all the turnovers.
5:25
But Tyne only played 15 minutes. He had no turnovers.
5:29
So he's our, let's say our veteran returning point guard.
5:33
He's he's put up 25 plus minutes multiple times this season, only
5:37
played 15 minutes, had no turnovers.
5:40
David Thomas, another guard who can handle the ball, only played
5:43
6 minutes. So I think these are places
5:46
where Mooney, for whatever reason, kind of shorten the
5:50
bench some yesterday. From a minute's perspective, I
5:53
think 2 guys who I mean, David's not playing as much as time, but
5:58
I think he's averaging more than 6 minutes a game.
6:01
So I think there were, you know, two guys who have been able to
6:04
handle the ball, did not have turnover issues when they went
6:08
in yesterday. But for whatever reason, kind of
6:10
Mooney made choices to play them less and we end up with in the
6:17
second-half poor shooting half. And while the turnovers got
6:22
better, they didn't kind of get shut down in the second-half.
6:25
The first half we shot great. And like I said, the first half
6:27
it looked like we are the dominant team.
6:30
Their best player didn't really do much in the first half, but
6:34
we just we couldn't make the important plays down the
6:36
stretch. And that happens.
6:38
You know, hopefully it's a great lesson for the team.
6:41
To me, it felt like we're a little in between the, let's see
6:45
the old, the traditional Mooney where he pay plays five guys,
6:48
you know, 25 plus minutes and has a few guys off the bench and
6:52
the I'm going to play 10 guys and they're all going to play 15
6:55
to 20 minutes and I'm going to go with the hot hand.
6:59
I didn't see all of that yesterday.
7:02
Again, it's it's not the end of the world, but it does tell me
7:04
that we are. If you look go to Bartovic, you
7:08
know, it said prior to the Elon game that we're A9 and 9A10
7:12
team. And I think I went into it with
7:14
the optimism. I think we're much better than
7:16
that. After you lose at Elon, it's
7:18
hard to say we're much, you know, we're a top A10 team.
7:23
That doesn't mean we can't be. I think this team continues to
7:25
improve and and I'm sure Mooney is making sure this team learns
7:29
the lesson of going on the road. That's not the place to be
7:32
turnover. Prone.
7:34
I can't. I can't complain about the
7:38
minutes distribution last night when he plays Argarbright, 26
7:41
minutes when I've been saying, you know, the advanced stats say
7:44
Argarbright is the, is the best guard on the team.
7:47
So I'm not going to, I'm not going to Ding the coaches for
7:49
that at all. I think they played the guys
7:51
that they thought, you know, were the right guys to play.
7:53
I don't know why Thomas only got 6 minutes.
7:55
I can't speak to that. I think Thomas actually has
7:57
pretty good, you know, advanced metrics.
7:59
So he's I, I would like him to play more, But I mean, again, I
8:02
don't, I don't, I don't have a problem with the minutes
8:04
distribution. I thought the game plan was
8:06
excellent. I just think we threw the ball
8:08
out of bounds time and time again and careless sloppy
8:12
turnovers. And I don't think there's any
8:14
one person that you know is like played particularly, you know,
8:18
really badly. I will shout out to API thought
8:20
he had his best game as a spider.
8:21
I mean he was he was a really defining force for the team for
8:25
good last night. So I give him props.
8:27
I thought Mike Walls is dunk at the end of the game to tie it up
8:31
off of an offensive rebound was what I I have been saying Mike
8:37
Walls can do for the entirety of this podcast and he did it.
8:40
And so I want to give him props for that.
8:42
I loved it. I thought it was a great moment
8:43
in the game. You know, I just we were the
8:47
better team. I think honestly, the the the
8:49
kids made or the players made too many turnovers.
8:52
They we gave up too many points off those turnovers and you play
8:56
a team on the road Rd. basketball is hard and then to
8:58
play, you can't you can't win games even against.
9:00
I would call him a decent opponent.
9:02
If you're going to turn the ball over 20 times, just can't do it.
9:05
So shot the ball well from three.
9:07
We shot their free throw as well.
9:10
The main thing was just like literally we made careless
9:12
mistakes and that might be a function of the way we play.
9:16
And if the way we play gets us into the NCAA tournament, which
9:19
I'm not saying again, it is and I'm not, I'm definitely not
9:21
saying we're in that large team. I think we are not.
9:24
We're not in that large team. But to get to an at large team
9:27
on with this schedule, we're going to need and then this is
9:31
through the A10 tournament. When I say this number, we're
9:33
going to need 27 wins. We're going to have to go 27 and
9:36
seven across the A10 tournament and the regular season to get
9:39
having that large chance. Now that being said, here's what
9:41
I will say positively that I'm really encouraged about.
9:45
I still think we have not played anywhere close to our best
9:48
basketball yet with this team. And I think that the players on
9:52
this team and the coaches are still learning what we can be
9:56
together. And that's a Hoosier's line
9:58
actually. So I that's not a Rob Ryder
10:00
line, but we're still learning. And I think come the a 10
10:04
tournament with the rotation that Mooney has built and the
10:08
minutes he's given these guys to learn, you know, how to, how to
10:11
come together as a team, I think it will all benefit us.
10:13
And I, I think there's a very strong chance we could go on the
10:16
run in the A10 tournament. Now team rankings has a number
10:20
for that. There's about the only site I
10:22
know that actually is actually tracking what the probability of
10:24
US winning the A10 tournament is.
10:27
And I'll give you that here in a. 2nd So while you're looking
10:28
for that, I guess the, the, the, the last point I want to make is
10:31
like, it's one thing to play a team and lose and know that you
10:36
lost to the better team. Right.
10:39
I think when you have a game that you the the eye test and
10:44
really all the stats outside of turnovers would say we should
10:48
win that game and we don't. And I'm not saying I'm assigning
10:54
blame to one player. What are the coaching?
10:57
What are the strategy? But you you have to look at that
11:00
and say there's a problem because those are games you
11:03
cannot lose. It's like, if, if Eli just
11:06
whooped our butt because their big guy had 28 points and we
11:09
couldn't stop him, Like, yeah, I'd be frustrated too because we
11:12
lost. But it'd be like, hey, we're on
11:14
the road and that guy just killed us.
11:15
But like, that's not like, again, I hope it's just a step
11:20
in the growth of this team. We are a third of the way
11:24
through the season. We'll do some grades later in
11:26
this podcast. We're three and two against
11:28
decent teams this year, which isn't great, but it's but it's
11:31
also not terrible. So it's like we are like what I
11:33
said after the firm in law. So we are an above average team,
11:36
not a good or great team and we've got some really
11:38
interesting athletes. I think we are somewhere between
11:41
an above average team and a good team and I think that we still
11:44
have a couple chapters to write in the season that could be
11:50
special. Yeah, it'll be interesting
11:51
because I think if when we get, let's say, another 10 games in,
11:55
do we look back at a game like this and say, gosh, our team is
11:59
so much different now, we're so much better.
12:01
Or I get a little bit worried, like I think we're about the
12:05
same team over the last three or four games.
12:08
And so like, what is that next level and how do we get there?
12:12
Is it just gelling because he's playing a lot of new players, a
12:15
lot of rotations that are different that they get used to
12:17
that? Or does some things need to
12:20
change in minutes and rotation to like get to where now all of
12:24
a sudden, like we're like, woo, this is a different team.
12:26
We were in, you know, mid-december.
12:28
I mean, I think I'll, so I'll, I'll, I'll, you know, and, and
12:32
everybody I think who listens to us and even the coaches know
12:35
that I, I doubt advanced stats quite a bit.
12:39
I, I go back to our goals for the podcast when I, when I say
12:41
this next sentence, we want to elevate the women's team because
12:43
we know how special that team is right now.
12:46
We want more people showing up for the girls.
12:49
We want an analytics, you know, person embedded in the athletics
12:53
department that helps the coaches achieve better results.
12:57
I think that right now what Mooney's done is actually
12:59
brilliant in that, you know, he's played twelve guys a lot of
13:03
minutes. So we have a lot of data that we
13:05
can use right now. I think, you know, you want to
13:07
start looking at that to try to figure out, you know, you know,
13:10
what are the optimal lineups? How do you play guys together?
13:13
What should the shifts be? There are things that we can do
13:16
there. I also believe, by the way,
13:17
that, you know, analytics can help with recruiting.
13:20
I believe it can help with, you know, what Jim Merritt's doing,
13:22
raising money for the program. Evan Maya is the one side I've
13:25
been using a lot to talk about the the optimization features.
13:28
There's a great article that just came out about the
13:30
University of Michigan. Everybody knows University of
13:32
Michigan, right? They're pretty good at
13:33
basketball. We're not talking about
13:35
analytics for the next 10. Minutes.
13:36
No, we're not. I know, but.
13:37
It's lost half the audience. I'm just saying, I'm just
13:40
saying, you know, I think that we can use analytics to not
13:44
right to ship, but to to achieve better results than even we're
13:46
seeing right now. That's what I'm saying, OK.
13:50
Did you find out what's the probability that they have for
13:52
us? I'd say I say this but I don't
13:54
love team rankings guys. They give us 1.6% chance of
13:57
winning the A10 tournament, so not good.
13:59
But like I said, there are things we can do to to change
14:02
that outcome for the better. OK, so in a in a better outcome
14:06
the the day before, I guess it was the women had education day
14:11
at 11 AM game at the Robbins Center.
14:14
I did not make that game. I have a job, but Porter was
14:17
able to make that game. And what was the screaming
14:21
level? Was it?
14:22
It was as definitely as you. Expect it wasn't as bad as I
14:25
actually remembered it and and but it was great.
14:28
Like it was a there was a lot of energy.
14:29
There's a lot of noise. I had a couple people sit with
14:33
me. One of them said they might be
14:34
renaming their fantasy football team screaming bats of the
14:37
Outback. So I think I think you're on to
14:40
something from our last episode. I here's a couple things I'll
14:44
say about that team or about the team the.
14:46
Outback. Bethune Cookman, they were
14:50
overmatched and we knew they were overmatched.
14:52
I probably should have said there were 0.0% chance that
14:54
Bethune Cookman was going to win that game.
14:56
I am a dated guy and it is not necessarily true because there
15:00
was always a chance, right? But we knew that we were going
15:03
to be the better team. The ladies came out and they
15:06
played like you would expect. I mean, Maggie Dugan at times
15:10
looked like a college player playing against high school
15:14
kids. She just was the best player on
15:16
the court and it wasn't even really close.
15:19
She just dominated. Well, I mean, Rachel had a great
15:22
game too. Rachel, I'll get to Rachel in a
15:23
second, but like, I mean, I'm saying like Maggie could do what
15:25
she wanted to do and and if she played more than 24 minutes, she
15:28
could have had 40 points, she could had 20 rebounds and she
15:30
could had a 10 assists. That's how.
15:32
I was wondering if we get the triple double but we did not.
15:34
We didn't. Well, we mentioned she would
15:36
have to play 34 to do it. I mean, it was close.
15:38
She had passes that you know. She had a double, double.
15:40
There's yeah. And here's the thing, there were
15:42
multiple times she had a cutter to the layup and that cutter got
15:45
fouled and made the foul shots. She doesn't get an assist for
15:47
that, but she created those points.
15:48
But yeah, Maggie looked unstoppable in that game.
15:51
Rachel. And in my mind, I was hearing
15:54
the song Forgot about Dre. Like, you know, like when it
15:57
comes to Rachel, like all it takes is 1 game to wake up the
16:00
three-point shot and then you forgot about.
16:01
You just lost the other half of the audience.
16:05
So Doctor Dre, great, a great, a great producer and and also rap
16:10
artist of the 1990s two thousand.
16:13
But anyway, I thought Rachel, you know, we've called her a
16:16
future Hall of Famer here. Coach called her that.
16:18
John O'Connor wrote an article, I think yesterday or the day
16:21
before it said the same thing. She just, she showed up in a
16:24
major way and looked like, you know, the Rachel that is going
16:27
to carry as far in, in the in the potentially carry as far in
16:31
the post season. And you know what I was thinking
16:32
about when I was watching her game yesterday.
16:33
You remember Chris Fleming? Yeah.
16:36
Of. Course 3 point shooter.
16:37
Back in the 1991 time frame when we beat Syracuse, which is how
16:41
we started this whole park podcast episode one right, we
16:44
went and beat Syracuse. We lost the second game to
16:46
temple. This came from a a spell a
16:48
fellow spider fan. So I've I got to give credit to
16:50
my sources. They want me to mention this.
16:52
So Chris Fleming against Temple in the second round of the NCA
16:55
tournament went seven for 10 from 3 point land.
16:58
If you put a Rachel like performance in the NCAA
17:01
tournament with Mag, what's Maggie's doing, what Ali's
17:04
doing, what Ali's doing, you're going to beat a lot of teams.
17:07
I mean, so like, that's the thing I love about what Rachel
17:09
brings any game. She can literally take over the
17:11
game with a three-point shot. She stretches the defense.
17:13
She gives us the ability to have cutting lanes.
17:15
So yeah, she looked really good. Hey, just a note, reporter
17:18
mentioned there's a a Richmond Times Dispatch article from John
17:21
O'Connor talking about Rachel. And we did interview Rachel back
17:24
in episode 16. Yeah.
17:27
So go give that a listen. You'll hear Rachel's, well,
17:30
Rachel's words of what brought her to Richmond, her connection
17:34
to a former Richmond great player.
17:37
But anyway, Episode 16, go check that out if you can.
17:40
I think my buddy who was with the game with looked it up and
17:43
there were there been 8 triple double s in women's college
17:45
basketball this year. So I'm waiting for it to be #9
17:49
with Maggie because I think she's going to get it.
17:51
She's going to get it. Let me give you a couple other
17:53
Nuggets. So Simon and Dewey played
17:54
together some. I thought Dewey, I thought Simon
17:57
was really good defensively. She played a really physical
17:59
game inside because I was sitting right down kind of close
18:02
to the basket. I saw how physical that was.
18:04
She played really well and I thought Dewey shot the ball
18:05
extremely well. So I think our five really had a
18:08
nice game. We played all the players on the
18:11
team. So you got all you got to see a
18:12
lot of run from a lot of kids, which was great.
18:15
And then 11 shout out to Ally, like right before halftime, we
18:17
were up big and it was a simple thing.
18:20
But this is like what a what a smart point guard does.
18:22
So there was only maybe 2 seconds left on the clock or a
18:25
second and a half and there's not time to get the ball and get
18:29
it up court. So you have to take at least a
18:30
dribble. So Ali pressures the in ball
18:32
pass. I mean, I watched a lot of folks
18:34
start running on the court. Ali pressures the inbound pass.
18:37
Coaches are trying to get everybody to turn around to
18:39
pressure the ball so they can't get to the half court shot,
18:41
right? And she ended up deflecting it
18:43
out of bounds. They didn't even get a chance to
18:45
have a possession. Just a smart play that you don't
18:47
that doesn't show up in the box score.
18:48
So I want to give Ali a shout out on that.
18:50
That was just really good. Yeah, so and a good win and
18:52
expected win, and hopefully the elementary school and middle
18:56
school players all came out of their fans of the women's team.
18:59
It was, it was loud and it and it was great.
19:02
I don't know if it was screaming bats of Outback loud, but it
19:04
was. It was really loud.
19:06
OK, so before we get to the previews of the upcoming games,
19:11
we kind of noticed we're about 1/3 of the way through the
19:13
season and thought we should do some grades of both the men's
19:18
team and the women's team and also grades of the A10, men's
19:23
and women's. So we'll spend a little bit of
19:25
time on that. I'm going to start and talk
19:27
about the men. I was making some notes before
19:31
the game last night like what, what grade am I giving the men?
19:34
And I was, I was thinking an A and then that game happened and,
19:39
and that loss was inconceivable. And so I'm giving the men.
19:44
Princess Bride shout out for you guys.
19:45
Please don't tell people where these quotes are from.
19:48
If they don't know where they're from then that's OK, they just
19:51
need to go check out those 5 movies I mentioned in the
19:53
beginning. But anyway, so I'm I'm giving
19:55
the men's first third a stretch of B minus.
19:59
OK, so you dropped them from an A to AB minus?
20:01
I did 1A to B minus. Man, we are emotional fans,
20:04
folks, so. I mean, I think we're kind of
20:06
where we should be. It's hard.
20:09
Like you can like if you say C is average, like I think we're
20:12
care. We ought to be.
20:14
If you went back and said like over this stretch, like what
20:17
would our record be? I think it's where it it
20:19
probably was predicted to be. Again, B minus is is above
20:24
average. I'm not sure we're all the way
20:26
to the B yet. We're certainly not an A because
20:29
you think if they're kind of our two losses are both ones that
20:33
we'd love to try again and get back.
20:35
But anyway, B minus is not a bad grade.
20:36
I think of this room as well. I think of the, I'm hoping in
20:38
the second third, I could have, you know, elevate that to AB
20:41
plus and by the end they could be an A.
20:43
But I think right now through 10 games, like we got some good
20:46
things going on. I think kind of the rotation is
20:49
still a bit kind of changes a lot.
20:53
We've got the same starting rotation even though that's not
20:57
really the five who are playing the most.
21:01
But anyway, I'll just be minus. I won't go into much more
21:04
detail. I think that's where they are
21:05
now. We'll see where they end up, but
21:08
it's hard coming off a loss like that.
21:10
I too had an A going into the game and I was when I wrote my
21:12
notes for this episode, I lowered it to AB Plus after the
21:16
game one loss. Again, it wasn't a loss.
21:18
That is I don't want to read too much into it.
21:21
We just we just played a game where the kids had too many or
21:24
the players had too many turnovers.
21:27
I mean, I go back to our pre season expectations.
21:29
You know, they, we, we, we put together a good team this year.
21:33
I mean, Jaden Daughtry, Aiden Argebrite, Will Johnston, AJ
21:36
Lopez, these guys coming in and then you got elevated play from
21:39
guys like Beagle and Ruma Glue who are playing really, really
21:41
great. Mike Walls is showing
21:42
leadership. I mean, we're better than what
21:45
the prognosticators said we were going to do.
21:47
I mean, we were 810 preseason 10, which I called
21:49
disrespectful. I, I don't think we're the 10th
21:53
best team in the 810. I think we're top 67 team.
21:56
You know, I'd say probably stop six team right now.
21:58
So I'd say that's above above expectations.
22:01
Not an NCAA tournament team as far as I can tell right now.
22:04
Doesn't mean we can't be one, but we're not playing like it
22:06
right now. But there's some real reasons
22:08
for optimism. A A we've gotten a fair bit a
22:11
fair bit younger. We're getting production from
22:13
younger players, whereas last year I just coming out of that
22:17
season, I didn't see a lot of room for hope.
22:19
I really have a lot of room for hope with with some of the play
22:22
of Thomas and Daughtry and and others Augerbright.
22:24
So I think that we're at B plus I mentioned three and two
22:28
against decent teams on the road or against decent teams this
22:31
year. I could see us still getting
22:34
better and better as we refine this this product that we're
22:37
working on here. And I think by the end of the
22:39
A10 tournament I wouldn't want to play us because I we're very
22:41
hard to scout, as I keep mentioning.
22:44
Yeah, I mean, we talked last podcast about like, you know,
22:47
how good are we going to be in the A10?
22:49
It's really hard. The A10 is, we'll grade them in
22:51
a bit, but there's been some up and downs in the A 10 so.
22:54
Let me give A1 quick award. It's the these go.
22:57
To 11 award on the men's team these go to. 1111 players are
23:01
still averaging double digit minutes, which, you know, I'm a
23:03
fan of. I think that's been a really
23:04
good, a really good thing this year.
23:06
So will that shorten it perhaps by the end of the year?
23:09
But I love what I love what the coaching staff has done to
23:12
generate minutes, generate playing time so that they can
23:16
assess what's working and what's not.
23:17
OK, let's talk about the women's grades, Porter.
23:19
I know kind of you're their number one fan, but before I
23:24
give your Gray or hear your Gray, let me give mine.
23:27
I'm going to say AB plus, OK, and I'll I'll use a quote and
23:33
try to explain what it how it relates to the team.
23:36
But this is there's too much pepper on my paprikash.
23:42
Can you say that, Porter? There's too much pepper on my
23:44
paprikash. I cannot.
23:46
OK, I use that reference. I think if I look at the season,
23:50
I think B plus good grade. I think the team is is playing
23:53
well. I think this I wish there was a
23:55
little less reliant on Maggie being, you know, that much
23:59
better than she was last year. When you look, I mean, I'm glad
24:03
that she's looking like a, you know, one of the best players in
24:05
the country. But I think there are times
24:07
where it's like as she goes, we go.
24:09
So we've been slow getting out of the gate and her shooting
24:11
percentage in the first quarter is her worst quarter shooting
24:15
percentage. So I think, and now it's great
24:18
that we're coming from a game where Rachel had her season
24:20
high. So I think there's a lot of
24:22
opportunity for that to change. But I think that when I say
24:26
there's too much Pepper on my pepper, Ikash, just a little too
24:29
much of like this is the Maggie show sometimes.
24:32
And I love that she stepped up. I don't want her to change a
24:34
thing, but it's like, how do we get the other four out there to
24:38
step up their game and the next third so that she can, Maggie
24:42
can score her 23 points, but now we're beating teams that are,
24:46
you know, the A10 top teams by 15 points because everyone else
24:50
has elevated their game. Yeah, so I.
24:54
But I would be proud to partake in your pecan pie.
24:59
I I I too have AB Plus but for different reasons.
25:03
All together we came in with a preseason top 25 ranking.
25:07
We have two future Hall of Farmers on this team.
25:10
You've got Ali and Alicia at least two at least.
25:13
Got some fresh? Right.
25:14
I know, I know. And like I was good.
25:16
And my next step is is Ali and Alicia, I think are making
25:19
serious strides in in their cases going forward to be, you
25:22
know, all great, all time great spider players.
25:25
We've played a brutal schedule. Give the team credit for
25:29
stepping up and playing anybody anywhere.
25:31
I mean, Fairfield's a Top 40 team.
25:32
Green Bay's the good expected to win their conference.
25:34
Columbia was expected to win their conference at the start of
25:37
the season. Liberty expected to win their
25:39
conference. Navy expected to win their
25:40
conference. And then, oh, by the way, two
25:42
top under 10 undefeated teams in TCU in Texas.
25:45
You could not have asked the team in the coaching staff to
25:48
have put together any more of a challenge, right?
25:51
So it hasn't been a setup where I think you're going to see a
25:57
lot of the players that you want to emerge as you know, major
26:02
contributors where they have been able to do it.
26:05
Alicia has clearly done it. She has taken the level on her
26:07
defensive side to the next level.
26:09
There were three steals in a row she made in that game against
26:11
Bethune Cookman. Like she stole the ball, they
26:14
inbound it, she stole it again, then they inbound it.
26:16
Then we she shot foul shots or whatever.
26:18
And then with the third time down the court, she stole it
26:20
again. The 4th time they made a
26:21
business decision to not let the person Alicia was guarding bring
26:24
the ball up the court, right? She's taking a huge step
26:26
forward. Ali is playing like, you know,
26:28
an, an all A10, you know, first or second team point guard.
26:32
She's just such a good leader. Rachel is really coming alive
26:37
and playing well too. She even when she wasn't, you
26:39
know, being, you know, last year's Rachel, she's still an
26:42
all A10, first team caliber player.
26:44
So now you're seeing some games where we're going to actually
26:46
roll opponents. Bethune Cookman.
26:47
I think the game on Saturday will will win pretty handily.
26:50
All this Sunday will be a much tough, tougher test.
26:53
We're doing what I thought we would do.
26:54
I mean I said I think 20 we'd have 5 or 6 losses.
26:57
We have three I said. I said we'd lose the three games
26:59
we lost TC Texas and Fairfield would be the three that we'd
27:02
lose in the non con. I do think we'll win the other
27:04
two games. I.
27:04
Think you said we'd lose Columbia?
27:06
Did I say Columbia? Yeah, OK, we'll have to go back
27:08
and check that. But yeah, I think we're we're
27:10
right where we expected to be. I think Dewey and Simon are
27:13
flashing a little bit at the five and I think as they
27:16
continue to come in the form, if you remember, Alyssa Jimenez
27:19
wasn't the best Alyssa Jimenez until the end of the season.
27:21
Last year she was hurt to begin the year.
27:23
But yeah, but the transfers take time to come into the system a
27:26
freshman. I mean Perchetti and right look
27:28
really promising every other others are getting minutes to
27:31
start to get their feel for the game.
27:32
So I just feel like that they're right where we thought they're
27:35
going to be. Not an A because like, you know,
27:37
we didn't have anything that like blew our mind.
27:39
But we're still very much in the at large conversation for the
27:41
ladies. Hey.
27:42
Before we grade the A10, how they attend has done so far.
27:48
I got a request that we need to do kind of grading of our beer
27:51
choices at Spider Brews. So at the next Spider Brews, I
27:55
think we'll do something more formal.
27:57
We'll have to try every beer they have and give us a rating.
28:01
We won't be doing the post game presser.
28:03
No, but anyway, I'll, I'll just start and say, you know, the,
28:07
you know, the beer I enjoy the most at Spider brews was the
28:11
classic Hardywood Gingerbread stout.
28:14
They didn't have that available. I did not try it, but it's such
28:16
a good beer. It's it's a really good tasting
28:18
beer. It's also, again, you know, part
28:20
of the objective for me and Spider brews is how to get your
28:22
money's worth. So if you're going to, you got
28:24
to get that high ABV beer as part of your your drinking.
28:29
So. So that was my.
28:31
I got my #1. With that plate of food.
28:33
That you called attention. To on the last podcast, by the
28:35
way, so. Do you have a favorite beer from
28:37
Spider Brews? I so I only did a half pour on a
28:40
couple of the IPASI did AI did a highlight and I like the
28:44
highlight, but I love the I think it was clever girl, clever
28:46
girl yeah, the triple cross, which is the same place that
28:49
makes Falcon smash. So I loved the clever girl.
28:51
I was really impressed with it. So that would be my.
28:53
Favorite. You know, if I could have one
28:54
food for the rest of my life, that's easy.
28:56
Pez cherry flavored Pez, no questions about it.
29:01
OK, let's let's talk about the A10 grades.
29:05
I promise we did not. We did not actually take any
29:07
sort of preparation into this episode.
29:09
Like some of these lines are just dropping.
29:11
Baby. Oh, OK, Porter.
29:12
So we're going to talk about the A10.
29:14
What do you want to hear? Men or women's, I want you to.
29:17
If you were going to talk about a 10 teams, I want you to tell
29:19
me the truth. You can't handle the truth.
29:22
You need me on that wall. You want me on that wall?
29:24
OK, A10 men, I'm giving it AC minus.
29:28
So last year we ended at the 8th ranked conference.
29:31
According to Bartevic, that's exactly where we are now.
29:33
So the conference is not better than it was last year at this
29:38
point. And I think that that grade goes
29:41
not, I mean, it's not just looking at the top teams.
29:43
I mean, Saint Louis has got a a really nice ranking right now
29:47
whether you're looking at the net or Bartevik.
29:49
But it's also It's hard to ignore Loyola Chicago and what a
29:52
disaster that team has been, a team that was expected to
29:56
compete in the A10. Lost to Chicago State.
29:58
Is one of the worst teams in college basketball.
30:01
There's there's talk about will they replace the coach mid
30:04
season, which won't happen, but there's a they pay.
30:08
It's it's the rumors that they paid a lot for that roster and
30:12
it is just not worked out. And as great as Saint Louis has
30:16
been, the way the A10 schedule works, they get to play Loyola
30:20
Chicago twice and I'm making a prediction they lose one of
30:24
those games. So I think Loyola Chicago is
30:26
going to be the thorn of the A10 side because they're going to
30:28
end up going 9:00 and 9:00 in the A10 and they're going to
30:31
they're going to beat someone like Saint Louis.
30:33
They're going to beat someone else who's a top rated team
30:36
because they'll start coming together and it's going to just
30:39
drag the A10 down. So anyway, C minus, I think
30:41
we've had some teams I like Saint Louis, I'd say outperform
30:44
we've outperformed, but I but that you got to look at Loyola
30:48
Chicago and say that's really hurt.
30:50
The You're really salty this morning, by the way.
30:53
C minus. That's harsh.
30:55
You may call me a meathead. Not only that, I'm a pompous
30:57
ass. I would say the A10 is AB for me
31:01
this year. I here's why.
31:03
Saint Louis is has very strong at large aspirations.
31:08
Yeah if they lose to Loyola they'd be screwed but they are
31:10
an at large team right now. VCU, our nemesis down the road,
31:14
is an at large team right now. No, I don't think 2 top 50
31:16
teams, absolutely. They're a bubble team that
31:18
doesn't get in. They don't have any wins.
31:20
I think, I think that, I think, I think the A-Team is going to
31:23
get 2 teams in. I would give us an A if we were
31:25
going to get 3IN, but I see, I see us getting 2IN right now.
31:27
I think your best bets are Saint Louis, VCU, Dayton, George Mason
31:31
looks really good. George Washington, they, they
31:34
had that unexplainable loss to Delaware and that's killing
31:37
their, their, their chances right there.
31:38
But they looked like the best team up until that Delaware
31:41
game. I mean, I think we are better
31:43
than I think people were thinking we would be.
31:45
You got, you have Davidson playing well.
31:46
St. Bonavitcher is playing well.
31:48
Rhode Island's playing well. It's actually pretty good up in
31:50
the top 2/3. But I agree with you, Loyola has
31:53
been an F and they've been an F minus.
31:55
They've been a real disaster this year and Lasalle's not
31:59
helping things, Fordham's not helping things, and Saint Joe's
32:01
had their coach leave right before the season started.
32:03
That didn't help things. So.
32:04
OK, let's talk about the women's.
32:07
Let's do it. I got the women's a 10 out of B
32:11
OK, again, ranking wise, they ended last year.
32:13
This is Bartevich ranking the conferences with all the stats
32:15
when they were eighth ranked conference, so similar to the
32:18
men's are now. They're 6th right now, so that's
32:21
been nice. Davidson and Rhode Island have
32:24
had some good wins. They've been playing well.
32:26
Obviously I think Richmond is right where in that kind of at
32:29
large category as we expect them to be.
32:31
So I think on the women, I think the women's a 10 is had a good
32:35
year. Now it's it's still obviously
32:37
early. Well, grade it again in another
32:39
10 or 11 games, but I've given the 810 women AB I'm.
32:41
Going to give it AB plus. I mean, we're really good.
32:44
Davidson's really good. Love to see it.
32:46
Rhode Island looks good. Have a good win to Rhode Island
32:50
this year. George Mason was expected to
32:51
compete with us for the division.
32:52
They're always going to be tough.
32:54
Saint Joe's is always tough. Yeah, we've got, I would say, 5
32:58
marquee teams, and that gives us a chance to have marquee wins
33:01
down the stretch. And we play some of those teams
33:03
twice, so that'll even be more of a chance for wins.
33:07
Yeah, I'm very happy with the 18 Women's Conference this year.
33:10
OK, so we're going to try to do some previews quick.
33:14
First talk about this for the culture tournament, which it
33:17
starts Friday, VCU, Penn State is on Friday, then we play
33:22
Alabama A&M on Saturday, and then we play Penn State on
33:26
Sunday. Have fun.
33:28
Storm in the Castle, Alabama A&M stinks.
33:34
That game is going to be in in a blowout.
33:36
They have 3 quad four wins. They're three and seven.
33:39
So they're on only at home. They've had a tough schedule.
33:43
So if you look at some of the teams they've played, they've
33:45
played some really good teams. But every time they play a good
33:48
team, they're losing by 20. They're losing by a lot.
33:52
So I think Alabama A&M, which I think only has one game in this
33:55
tournament or again, exhibition, whatever you want to call this
33:58
thing, but we play them on Saturday and Friday night.
34:02
Penn State plays VCU. Now VCU women's team is they
34:05
have not had a good year. So Penn State's favored to win
34:08
that by a lot. But that'll be a good chance to
34:10
see how Penn State is doing on this neutral court, because
34:13
that's going to be a much tougher game on Sunday.
34:16
I, I, I mean, Penn State is a really good team and they have a
34:19
huge center inside. So that Sunday match up is going
34:22
to be a really tough match up for us.
34:24
I don't love that we're playing on Saturday and they play on
34:26
Friday. That means they have an extra
34:27
day arrest for us. But if you're looking to come
34:30
out and support the ladies, come to the Henrico tournament,
34:32
especially for the Sunday game that is going to be that's a
34:35
that is in that large kind of like that will get noticed if
34:38
you beat Penn State on a neutral.
34:39
So Penn State is 6 and four. They've lost three in a row, but
34:42
that's 2 Quad 1 losses and a Quad 2.
34:44
They lost in Nebraska, Arizona State.
34:47
They just lost to South Carolina's 95 to 55.
34:50
So I think we've been on the and maybe it wasn't that brutal, but
34:53
we've had some, you know, our two losses in top ten teams, we
34:57
they weren't really close. So I think we can appreciate
34:59
where Penn State is coming from. That doesn't mean they're a bad
35:01
team. They get whooped by South
35:02
Carolina. Porter mentioned their center
35:04
Gracie Merkel. She is 6/6.
35:08
Yeah, she's a she's, she's a tough player.
35:09
She's a senior, averages 21.8 rebounds.
35:14
She scored 39 points in a in a loss to Princeton.
35:19
So, I mean, you think of how great Maggie has been like, and
35:22
again, thankfully we haven't needed Maggie to score 39
35:25
points, but like, that's a lot of scoring.
35:28
Now. She is not a good free throw
35:31
shooter. So maybe there's a little hacker
35:33
Merkel. She also, which what I really
35:36
appreciate, she has shot No 3 point attempts.
35:39
If you're 66 in the women's game, you don't need to learn
35:44
how to shoot 3 pointers, like get inside, get rebounds, get
35:48
layups. I appreciate that she doesn't
35:51
try to learn a three-point shot. She doesn't need that.
35:54
She's going to be, I don't know, like how we're guarding her now.
35:58
Some of her losses, she hasn't scored a lot.
36:01
So I think there's a bit of like if we're shooting our threes,
36:03
we're doing our cuts. Like our offense is going to
36:06
make her not help really be an impact on the defensive side.
36:11
And then, you know, like we play a great kind of, you know, match
36:14
up switching defense. So while she'll get you know,
36:17
she's always going to have a smaller player on her.
36:19
Like I don't think she's going to be able to just or their
36:22
guards aren't going to be able to get her the ball in these
36:25
easy layup positions because of the rest of our D.
36:30
Yeah, it's going to be a tough game, so I'll definitely be
36:32
there. Hopefully we'll see a lot of
36:33
Spider fans there. We're in red, so yeah.
36:36
And then the men. Saturday we have a home game
36:39
play Citadel against the Citadel so you can real and you can see
36:42
both. The women's game against Alba
36:44
A&M is earlier in the day. Get to Citadel for the.
36:47
You can see that and then maybe enjoy a little happy hour and
36:51
dinner and then go watch the men bound off of that Elon lost got
36:55
hopefully a big home crowd to watch them be the citadel team.
36:59
Where where is citadel in like the rankings?
37:01
Are they like top ten, top 20? They?
37:03
Are actually the eighth worst team in Division One, coached by
37:06
Ed Conroy out of Charleston. Here's what I'll say about them.
37:09
Here's why I'm a little if you're looking for a reason to
37:11
worry, and I'm not. They have played well their last
37:14
two games. They played a tough South
37:15
Carolina team on the road, lost by 16, and they played a tough,
37:20
not a tough Charleston. They played a Charleston team,
37:22
lost by 4. And because it's a Military
37:24
Academy, you know they're not going to quit and there'll be no
37:26
give up in that team. They're going to fight like mad
37:28
all the way to the end. Bulldogs.
37:30
Is that what they are? Yeah, they have zero, I mean
37:32
exactly 0 Division One wins this year.
37:34
I can. Can you?
37:35
I'll give you $1.00 if you can name a single team they've
37:39
beaten. That's not going to.
37:41
Happen. OK, here are the three teams.
37:42
I will tell you this, if come if come Sunday, they have a
37:46
Division One win. Yeah, we're, we're, we're
37:49
opening up the grade book. I don't want to be on that
37:52
podcast. Erskine is one of their wins.
37:55
I've never heard of Erskine N Greenville.
37:57
I don't. That's a auto dealership, not a
37:59
not a College in Southern Wesleyan.
38:02
Those are the three teams they've beaten.
38:04
Hey, don't go against Northern Wesleyan.
38:05
They're tough. The Northern Wesleyan is the
38:08
tougher game so we should win this game pretty handily.
38:10
I would say it'll be a double digit win chance for the team to
38:13
get right after that Elon loss. Yeah, they're not.
38:18
They're not going to be a huge threat.
38:19
Well, it's fun. We got a lot of basketball
38:21
coming up. We got for the culture
38:23
tournament. Make sure you get there, support
38:25
our women and and maybe just support some other games too.
38:28
I, I think you can get a ticket for the whole tournament or
38:30
individual games. So go check out for the culture
38:34
tournament, get some tickets there.
38:35
So it's nice. We've got a couple women's
38:37
games, we've got a men's game coming.
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So a lot of basketball this weekend.
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Looking forward to it and looking forward to celebrate and
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hopefully on Sunday with some good, some good spider news.
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That's right. So we'll see you back after this
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podcast. We'll do another one on Monday.
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I think that'll be somehow we're going to do our our Christmas
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episode with Christmas coming up and it might be the only episode
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next week. But until then, this is Tom.
39:01
And this is Porter. And this is spiders sounding
39:05
off. See you.