Latest / Spiders Sound Off / Episode 34: Spiders Bounce Back with Road Wins | A-10 Breakdown & NY Doubleheader

Transcript

Episode 34: Spiders Bounce Back with Road Wins | A-10 Breakdown & NY Doubleheader · Spiders Sound Off

• 0:06
  Hey everybody, welcome back to Spiders.
• 0:09
  Sound off. This is Tom.
• 0:10
  And this is Porter. And we are here to talk about a
• 0:14
  couple wins this time, which is better than the last one where
• 0:17
  we had a couple losses to talk about.
• 0:18
  I'm in a New York State of mind. Yeah, it is New York
• 0:22
  doubleheader week. We'll get to the games and the
• 0:24
  previews. I know you want to going on the
• 0:26
  harass me to start this. Well, I wanted to just remind
• 0:29
  everybody coming in. So we're a fan base podcast, a
• 0:32
  couple of Richmond Spider fans interacting with each other,
• 0:35
  talking basketball. We'll offer hot takes on
• 0:38
  everything from playing time to concessions to crowd control.
• 0:42
  Even, you know, sometimes whether or not the, the sound
• 0:45
  quality is good on the ride home.
• 0:47
  But the, the things that we're proud of are the predictions
• 0:50
  that we hit. We're, I think I've done the
• 0:52
  math. We're right exactly 50% of the
• 0:54
  time. So that's pretty good, right?
• 0:55
  Statistics. Yeah, 50% of the time we give
• 0:58
  you a hot take that sticks. In basketball or baseball, I.
• 1:00
  Want to go back to my 2 best predictions so far, if I could.
• 1:03
  My #1 prediction after watching practice in August was talking
• 1:07
  about Alicia Newell and that she had taken a huge leap forward
• 1:10
  and was going to become a absolute menace on defense for
• 1:13
  the Spiders. I think that has been validated.
• 1:15
  We'll talk about her here in just a second at the game up in
• 1:19
  New York, up in New York against Saint Bonaventure.
• 1:21
  My second best take, I don't know if it was just heard as
• 1:23
  well as my first one because we did our our men's scout episode
• 1:27
  way back in episode 3 and 4, but we did another visit to it in
• 1:32
  episode 15, the second-half of 15.
• 1:34
  And I said Aiden Argarbright had taken a huge step forward over
• 1:37
  the summer. And I actually gave the hot take
• 1:38
  before he ever played a game, any sort of game for us that he
• 1:42
  would be an all a 10 caliber player for us, maybe as early as
• 1:45
  next year. That's my second best hot take.
• 1:47
  Super proud of those. I think, I think you Tom might
• 1:50
  be might be getting the name Nostrat Nostratamus after your
• 1:54
  Loyola prediction. Even if they lose by two points
• 1:56
  it still hurts the A10 power ratings because they lost to so
• 1:59
  many bad teams in their non con. What was your What's your
• 2:02
  favorite prediction? Do you have one so far for the
• 2:04
  year? Well, first, it's a little
• 2:07
  preview of the game that we just saw, I guess.
• 2:09
  But I was thinking back to that practice.
• 2:11
  I think it, I think it was the second practice we saw where we
• 2:14
  also noticed there was a certain freshman who is getting the
• 2:17
  business from Coach Mooney multiple times and that freshman
• 2:21
  was Will Harper, the third and he he had a great day today.
• 2:25
  So that was. Awesome.
• 2:27
  How much is? How much is he?
• 2:29
  He's made a huge step forward and honestly, I'll tell you
• 2:31
  this, he's he's, he's a new weapon for us.
• 2:35
  I mean, he did some things in that game that I, I was blown
• 2:37
  away by. So I think you're seeing a new
• 2:39
  weapon emerge for, for the coaching staff, which is
• 2:41
  fantastic. Can I give you a little bit of a
• 2:43
  hard time before we get? Started.
• 2:44
  Yeah, sure. So one of your not so hot takes
• 2:46
  I think was last week. I got texted from multiple
• 2:49
  people during this game. I won't tell you their names,
• 2:52
  but they are listeners. That said, I think Mike Walls
• 2:55
  listen to Tom in his last episode and I think he took
• 2:58
  issue with it because you said he was not an elite 3 point
• 3:01
  shooter and that his, you know, his New Year's resolution.
• 3:05
  Poor guy gets a New Year's resolution to shoot 40% and you
• 3:09
  call him out on it and he goes out and he goes 4 for four to
• 3:11
  start the game. As such a career record and
• 3:13
  three pointers and made in the game.
• 3:15
  I went back and looked it up. He was 47% from three last year.
• 3:19
  So Mike, you know, we're going to give you the props.
• 3:22
  I don't know if we motivated you at all, but you you It's Mike
• 3:26
  Walls 1 Spider sound off 0. First of all, if Mike Walls uses
• 3:29
  us as motivation, I think we've got some other problems.
• 3:33
  But yes, he he was elite today, that's for sure.
• 3:36
  He looked great out there. Now I will also mention that
• 3:39
  when he was like 4 for five from three in the first half, he had
• 3:42
  one rebound. Yeah, that look, I mean the
• 3:46
  can't do it. All I get it, he was really the
• 3:48
  only one leading the way in the first half.
• 3:50
  Rebounding for us in the first half was a problem in general.
• 3:53
  I mean, we were dominated on the boards.
• 3:55
  I'm glad that didn't come back and cost us the game.
• 3:57
  It was a really nice win today against against Fordham, a venue
• 4:01
  where I think 33% of it was filled with Spider fans from my
• 4:05
  voices inside the arena. So that's really good that we
• 4:08
  can go on the road to New York and have that many Spider fans
• 4:11
  show up and show out for the Spiders.
• 4:13
  One other thing too, I want to like we're trying to make a
• 4:15
  little bitty minor imprint on all things, you know, spiders
• 4:19
  ecosystem as we root for our favorite teams.
• 4:22
  On the Saint Bonaventure's broadcast yesterday, I spent a
• 4:26
  lot of time just listening to the announcers pre, pre and post
• 4:29
  game and they kept referring to the big three, the big three
• 4:32
  between this is the women's game, this is the women's team,
• 4:35
  right? Ali, Rachel and Maggie, we call
• 4:36
  them the big three-way back in episode 6 when we did our first
• 4:40
  like women's preview, we called the name of that episode.
• 4:42
  You can go back and look it up as the big three bigger dreams.
• 4:46
  And I don't know if anybody had named them the Big Three before
• 4:48
  that episode. So I think we've introduced a
• 4:50
  little bit of of juice into the into the energy ecosystem around
• 4:55
  Spider Ball. Like you call that juice.
• 4:57
  So yeah, let's talk a little bit more about the great wind today
• 5:00
  at Fordham. I I, I made some notes while I
• 5:03
  was actually listening to Bob. Oh, you.
• 5:06
  Were listening to Bob. Yeah, they they were great.
• 5:08
  They did I I really like it was. On them I was on the USA.
• 5:10
  I'm glad they weren't the USA broadcast when we are up five
• 5:14
  and a half. The note I put is wrote down was
• 5:16
  fool's gold because like walls like, you know, went 4 for five,
• 5:20
  which is not about 4-3 pointers in a game is his record.
• 5:23
  So that's not like, hey, he's not going to go 8 for 10 for the
• 5:27
  game. The rest of the team was
• 5:29
  shooting 35%. As you said, we are getting
• 5:31
  crushed on the boards 25 to 14. So I just looked at that and
• 5:35
  said and we had 11 fouls. So we are trying to play more
• 5:40
  aggressive defense, but it was creating a lot of fouls.
• 5:42
  And I know we can debate the refs.
• 5:44
  I mean, we might have got. I will tell.
• 5:45
  You I had an issue with the refs in this game.
• 5:47
  I thought the foul differential was dramatic.
• 5:50
  Even at the end of the first half when we had the ball,
• 5:53
  Fordham only had like 4 fouls caught on them.
• 5:55
  They were trying to foul us to get us to the six so that they
• 5:58
  could run out the clock without us being able to take a shot.
• 6:00
  They were trying to foul. The refs weren't even calling
• 6:02
  it. Mooney had to burn a time out
• 6:04
  because we got trapped in the corner.
• 6:05
  I mean, it was a really, I thought, I don't usually say
• 6:08
  officiating is bad unless I believe it.
• 6:10
  I did not like the officiating in this game.
• 6:12
  I thought it was not. It was not super super even and
• 6:15
  so. Then we get to halftime, you
• 6:17
  know, we're winning, so we're up five.
• 6:19
  You could feel good, but I wasn't feeling very good
• 6:21
  listening to it. And then the second-half just
• 6:23
  started as with a whimper And I and I, you know, I just think in
• 6:27
  general the rest of the team in the first half, just no one got
• 6:30
  in the flow. I mean, Wall certainly did, but
• 6:32
  I think the rest of the offense just couldn't get into the flow.
• 6:34
  That other team is big. I think they had 369 guys
• 6:37
  playing, did a lot of zone. But you know in the second-half,
• 6:41
  you know Will Johnston came to play Will.
• 6:44
  Johnston showed up and showed out.
• 6:45
  You know, I we talked about his intensity in the post game from
• 6:48
  the last thing I said, if that can will us to win, then we'll
• 6:50
  see it right. And he you know what, he willed
• 6:52
  us to a win. He really carried us in the
• 6:54
  second-half. Couple highlights from that
• 6:57
  first half. I wanted to talk to you about,
• 6:59
  you know, it was the first appearance of Will Harper, like
• 7:01
  in a meaningful set of minutes where like we were in the middle
• 7:03
  of a game that mattered and he was playing a lot and he was
• 7:06
  playing really well. So like, hats off the wheel.
• 7:08
  We haven't talked to you about talked a lot about you on the
• 7:10
  show, but loved what I saw from you today and.
• 7:13
  Just a note, so Tanner did have a thigh bruise.
• 7:16
  Yeah. So he was out for the game.
• 7:18
  So that kind of Will Harper got an opportunity and he's he
• 7:21
  stepped up. So we will see more.
• 7:23
  Yeah, we'll go see. A lot more.
• 7:24
  Will Harper. He played.
• 7:25
  He played really well and good. Defensively, so I think that
• 7:28
  when they were doing like offense, defence, like I think
• 7:29
  he's just really aggressive. He's he's got some height to
• 7:33
  him. So I I'm excited to see.
• 7:36
  And there's also like, obviously we, we've had a couple bad games
• 7:39
  recently. So you bring in a guy who's
• 7:42
  working his butt off in practice, you get him on the
• 7:44
  court being super aggressive like that creates energy for the
• 7:48
  rest of the team. So it's it's it's I think it's
• 7:51
  something I hope we get to see more.
• 7:53
  He was in. The game under 2 with under 2 to
• 7:55
  play in a game that was still very much up for doubt.
• 7:57
  So that shows you the confidence that the coaches now have and
• 7:59
  will Harper. So I I love that for him.
• 8:01
  I think it's it's a great it's a great weapon to look at as we've
• 8:07
  got as we go forward. Another note, congratulations to
• 8:11
  coach Mooney. This I heard this on the
• 8:12
  broadcast. I just literally drove out to
• 8:14
  the Henriko studio after watching the watching the game
• 8:17
  on USA. Mooney with this win moved to
• 8:19
  number three all time on A10 coaching win list.
• 8:24
  So Congrats to Mooney for that. A couple of Nuggets in that
• 8:27
  second-half. So Will Johnston carried us, but
• 8:28
  Lopez had a runner at the 852 mark with shot expired with a
• 8:32
  shot clock expiring. That I thought was a was a
• 8:35
  really, really key moment. Gave us some momentum.
• 8:37
  It was back and forth at that point in time.
• 8:39
  Then the next time down the court, I think it was Daughtry
• 8:42
  went right at the hoop, got fouled.
• 8:44
  Nobody called it. He looked directly at the
• 8:46
  official and threw his arms up like what do I have to do?
• 8:49
  I thought that was like another example of where we just were
• 8:51
  missing things from the officials that we could have
• 8:53
  could have used. I think of the officials had
• 8:54
  called it a little bit more even.
• 8:55
  We win that game by 18 points. Daughtry and Walls at the five O
• 8:59
  9 mark. This won't show up in the box
• 9:00
  score. There was an offensive rebound.
• 9:03
  Walls went for it first grabbed it, came to loose of his hands.
• 9:06
  Daughtry batted it back into play as he went out of bounds
• 9:09
  and Will Johnston got it hit a quick two.
• 9:13
  That was another huge play at the five O 9 minute mark.
• 9:15
  And then, you know, let me just talk about two moves at the end
• 9:18
  of the game. Walls a spin move at the 250
• 9:20
  spot where he literally was right under the basket.
• 9:22
  What we've been asking him to do with the coaching staff I think
• 9:26
  wants him to do would be a little more aggressive,
• 9:27
  beautiful spin, move to his left for a layup over a big over
• 9:31
  there, big centre that. Wasn't the fade away?
• 9:33
  It was like he got close and and the.
• 9:35
  USA announcer was who was a retired A-Team coach actually
• 9:38
  said, oh man, I didn't even know he had an inside game like that,
• 9:42
  like he was he, he was caught off guard with it.
• 9:44
  It was a great move by Mike. Thank you for that move.
• 9:46
  That really was awesome to see. I, I, I'm going to give you
• 9:49
  props for it because it's a great bucket.
• 9:51
  And then the 158 Mark Daughtry straight to the hoop, like, you
• 9:54
  know, get in front of me at your own peril, 'cause I will run
• 9:57
  over you and it's going to hurt. Like with a left-handed layup.
• 10:00
  158 to go. Those were the kind of plays I
• 10:03
  think that you know, showed the energy, the just the overall
• 10:09
  efficiency that we've been looking for and we got a very
• 10:12
  good win on the against Fordham on the road.
• 10:14
  They're not a great, great team, but that it's tough to win on
• 10:17
  the road in the A10 and that's what we just did.
• 10:18
  So I'll give I'll. Give the team credit.
• 10:20
  You know one thing I hope we don't see again as much credit I
• 10:23
  give to Will Johnson for a great game as he led the team with six
• 10:26
  rebounds. So I'm hoping we don't see Will
• 10:28
  Johnson lead the team in rebounding again.
• 10:30
  We'll take it where we get it right now.
• 10:31
  He had 6 assists and no turnovers too had.
• 10:34
  A hell of a game, man. Hell of a game for Will Johnson,
• 10:36
  that. Was that was that was great so
• 10:37
  heard from Bob Black we mentioned in the last podcast
• 10:39
  about this the Fordham coach Meg Payo having a lot of Richmond
• 10:43
  connections he officiated Dan Jarrow's wedding what so the.
• 10:50
  Fordham coach officiated. Yeah, because.
• 10:51
  They were because they were both coaches at Campbell together.
• 10:54
  Holy cow. So that that's, that's pretty
• 10:56
  neat. Also, you know, LL Cool J was at
• 10:59
  the game. LL Cool.
• 11:00
  J in the house and you get a win in front of LL Cool J, There's
• 11:03
  just something special with that and.
• 11:04
  Bob Black again had the insight that I guess his bodyguard is
• 11:08
  somehow related to Jaden Daughtry.
• 11:10
  Really. So LL Cool J was there with his
• 11:14
  bodyguard he wanted to see. I don't know if it's a nephew or
• 11:17
  what that relationship is, I think.
• 11:18
  For my voices inside the arena, they said that Daughtry had a
• 11:21
  cheering section that was like 30 deep there and that he's
• 11:24
  there was a Queens connection. Either he's from Queens or he
• 11:27
  played in the Queens at some point in time.
• 11:29
  So that's awesome, man, That's awesome.
• 11:30
  And they had. It was nice too.
• 11:32
  They had AJ Lopez's dad on at halftime.
• 11:34
  Oh, OK. They had Will Guype first, who
• 11:36
  gave a little bit because he had the scout.
• 11:38
  So they kind of he he was kind of the halftime.
• 11:40
  Nice job. Guype on that scout talking.
• 11:42
  About the team and a little bit of kind of they knew they were
• 11:44
  going to get out rebounded by these giants that this team had,
• 11:48
  but they still needed to get more aggressive.
• 11:49
  But then it was great to hear a JS dad talk about.
• 11:52
  I mean, he was very he was happy because we were winning.
• 11:54
  But there was a bit of like you, he had coached AJ.
• 11:56
  That didn't sound like AJ ever had like that professional coach
• 11:59
  that some youth had, like his dad was his coach and his dad
• 12:02
  was like, I need to see AJ going more to the rim.
• 12:05
  So now it was. It's fun to hear a parent kind
• 12:07
  of coach, coach up his parent. AJ playing for ball 3 levels.
• 12:10
  So great game for the men. They I think they're staying in
• 12:12
  New York going up to think Bonaventure.
• 12:15
  That'll be another very tough game.
• 12:16
  We don't typically do well at Saint Bonaventure, but to your
• 12:19
  point last episode, if we want to be a top half team, you got
• 12:21
  to win these games against these other medium of the road, you
• 12:24
  know, middle of the road A10 teams.
• 12:26
  Yeah, I'm. Guessing they'll find more to do
• 12:27
  in New York City the next couple of days than they would if they
• 12:30
  went to Olean, right? Olean right now, but, but that
• 12:34
  game is coming. Before we talk about preview on
• 12:37
  that, you want to talk about the women's big results at Saint
• 12:40
  Bonaventure. So let me say this.
• 12:42
  On Saturday, so. For the women's game, first of
• 12:45
  all, I love ESPN Plus. Thank you a 10 for having ESPN
• 12:48
  Plus as your partner. I get to watch high quality
• 12:50
  games with high quality broadcasts.
• 12:52
  So I just love ESPN Plus. It's got to be a recruiting
• 12:55
  advantage too. If you're looking to come to
• 12:56
  Richmond or your or your commit to Richmond, your parents get to
• 13:00
  watch ESPN Plus. It's just such a nice thing to
• 13:02
  have. I get mine through Hulu.
• 13:04
  I think there's other ways, but it's it's fantastic.
• 13:08
  We started the game with a little bit of a hangover from
• 13:10
  the game against Rhode Island. We had three straight turnovers
• 13:13
  to start the game and but that was the low point it got.
• 13:16
  It got quickly better from there.
• 13:18
  Let's start with the five. We've talked a little bit about
• 13:20
  the five. We haven't fully seen its best
• 13:22
  game. We saw the best game this this
• 13:25
  year out of the five, Dewey and Simon specifically, and I'll add
• 13:28
  a little Shaniqua Campbell here in a second doing.
• 13:30
  Simon went eight for 10 in the game, 4 from 5 from 3 point
• 13:34
  land. They lit it up well.
• 13:35
  Dewey from the start like that was great to see.
• 13:38
  Yeah, 22 points total. 24 if you had Shanika Campbell 5 rebounds,
• 13:42
  3 assists. If we get that production out of
• 13:44
  the five every game, we won't lose again.
• 13:47
  I. Think if we get half of that, if
• 13:49
  we can average 10 points for the five, I think that's I think.
• 13:51
  We're getting close to 10, I'd say.
• 13:53
  I want more. I want like 15 out of that.
• 13:55
  Yeah, I. Don't think our average is close
• 13:56
  to 10. I think you're surprised how low
• 13:58
  their average. Is that's a good drill for us
• 13:59
  next time to come up with what do we average from those two
• 14:02
  during the course of the season? But we will win a lot of games
• 14:04
  with those guys playing like that.
• 14:05
  We had a huge advantage inside and and credit to the coaches
• 14:08
  for scouting and seeing that cause like we had, we had a lot
• 14:11
  of a lot of advantage there. So I.
• 14:13
  Don't know if you noticed it. This is a little, you know,
• 14:14
  maybe pat on the back for myself, but in our last pod, I
• 14:18
  mentioned how it was just surprising that Ali wasn't
• 14:22
  didn't have a great game and played all 40 minutes and she
• 14:25
  got subbed in the first quarter and I thought, Ali.
• 14:28
  Played a really good so Ali. Played great.
• 14:30
  She still led the team with 31 minutes, but 31 is not 40 right
• 14:33
  now. Again, this is a game that we
• 14:35
  had in hand. When you got to the end of the
• 14:37
  third quarter, it was hard to believe we would blow that lead.
• 14:41
  But anyway, so Coach certainly gave Ali some more rest, which I
• 14:45
  think is great. It is a long season.
• 14:46
  We don't we don't want her playing 40 minutes every game.
• 14:49
  But the like you said, the first half was too close.
• 14:51
  Like we look like the better team.
• 14:53
  Yeah, they had some good shooters that we just weren't
• 14:55
  defending very well. We gave.
• 14:56
  It in the scout Parker and Drake are both really good players for
• 14:59
  them and they lit us up and we couldn't really stop them.
• 15:02
  They had a lot. Let me say this they had a lot
• 15:04
  of tough turn around jumpers that were well defended and they
• 15:07
  still made them. So those two players are good
• 15:10
  players for same Bonaventure. They've got a much improved team
• 15:13
  from the last two years up there.
• 15:15
  So I think they're going to they're going to be a team that
• 15:17
  can upset some people in the Atlantic 10 Newell, Let's talk
• 15:21
  about Newell for a second. 7.7 rebounds, 6 assists, 5 steals,
• 15:26
  one of her steals. I just made a mental note to say
• 15:28
  this. She steals the ball from the
• 15:31
  girl in the back court. They both go to the ground.
• 15:33
  Newell has to be careful now. She's got the ball in her hands
• 15:35
  not to walk, so she's looking to pass right away because the
• 15:38
  other girl can just tie her up right, So and she sees Maggie
• 15:42
  running towards her. Now a quick pass means she's
• 15:44
  going to trap Maggie with a backcourt violation.
• 15:46
  She pauses for a second, let's Maggie cross, then hits her.
• 15:49
  Maggie takes it in for the bucket.
• 15:51
  That's the kind of Head Z leadership, defensive intensity
• 15:54
  Newell gives us game in and game out.
• 15:56
  So I want to give her credit for that.
• 15:57
  Really, really good to see. Yeah.
• 15:59
  I mean, different than the men's game, we just saw like that we
• 16:03
  got out in the second-half like that's what we just dominated.
• 16:05
  So we outscored the 22 to 9 in the third quarter and that game
• 16:10
  went from a a lead, but not a very comfortable lead to that
• 16:14
  game was pretty much over and the.
• 16:15
  Coaches were doing like 2 separate line shifts in the 3rd
• 16:18
  and they were both effective. I give them credit.
• 16:20
  The coaches decided something in the third world like these five
• 16:23
  are going to play together, these five are going to play
• 16:24
  together and I thought those line shifts were both really
• 16:26
  effective it. Was good to see Rainwright come
• 16:28
  in. Had some layups.
• 16:29
  Yeah, really aggressive drive into the baskets.
• 16:31
  We hadn't seen that in a couple games, Richard.
• 16:33
  And Campbell both get in the score, the scoreboard, the score
• 16:35
  book this week, which is great. And then Anisha Scott had a
• 16:38
  three at the end of the game that just went all the way
• 16:39
  around, did everything but go in but go in.
• 16:41
  And so give her credit, you know, for that.
• 16:43
  So she comes in and almost, almost lights up for a good
• 16:46
  three-point shots. Yeah, so.
• 16:47
  It's a good win. We talked about this.
• 16:50
  I said New York doubleheader week to begin with because the
• 16:53
  the men are going to Saint Bonaventure.
• 16:56
  The women's have a home game against Fordham.
• 16:59
  So I'm guessing that's a coincidence.
• 17:01
  I don't think they do a lot of collaborating across the men's
• 17:04
  and the women's schedules, but we've got we're just playing New
• 17:08
  York team. So Are you ready to do a little
• 17:10
  preview? Let's do the.
• 17:11
  Scout. Yeah, give it hit.
• 17:12
  Hit us with the men's. Scout.
• 17:13
  OK. Let's talk about the men's team.
• 17:14
  So we're playing at Saint Bonaventure, which is no matter
• 17:17
  how good our team is, if you look in past seasons like that's
• 17:21
  a hard place to win. It's a small gym.
• 17:23
  It's you got a bus there. Like you're not flying in and
• 17:27
  just like taking a little bus ride to, to their gym.
• 17:29
  They're probably bussing from New York.
• 17:31
  I think maybe there's some advantage that we've got
• 17:33
  back-to-back. So we're not bussing from some
• 17:37
  some other place, but but anyway, tough.
• 17:39
  They got a great coach, Mark Schmidt, one of the best in the
• 17:42
  league. He's been in the league for a
• 17:43
  while. We've talked a lot about Woj,
• 17:44
  their GM, who's the old ESPN personality and scout who's
• 17:50
  helped that team. They are just so you know, can
• 17:51
  that ranking their one O 3, their Bartorvic is a 115.
• 17:56
  So they're right. They're not a middle.
• 17:57
  In the team that's a, that's a top third team.
• 17:59
  Pre season they're 8th in the A10.
• 18:02
  They lost their O and one they lost to VCU earlier this week.
• 18:06
  They are having a week off. So they've come early weekend by
• 18:09
  so they did not have a game this weekend.
• 18:11
  And Bartovic gives them because they're at home, a 67% chance to
• 18:14
  win. Wow.
• 18:16
  OK, so this is a tough game. What's what's interesting?
• 18:18
  So everything you read about this team kind of talks about
• 18:21
  Frank Mitchell, who's there, who's 68 senior.
• 18:26
  You talk about a daughter being a grown ass man.
• 18:29
  Yeah, Frank Mitchell is a grown ass man.
• 18:31
  He transferred from Minnesota. He's not on any of the preseason
• 18:33
  810 teams, really. So I look at how dominating he's
• 18:36
  been this year and he didn't even make the list, 'cause, you
• 18:39
  know, there's so many transfers coming in, like guessing who's
• 18:41
  going to be a top player is is makes it more and more
• 18:45
  difficult. He's scored 17 points a game,
• 18:47
  averages over 11 rebounds per game.
• 18:49
  Wow. So he's a beast.
• 18:51
  He's got over 54% field goal percentage and he's also a great
• 18:55
  shot blocker. So he's a he's a traditional
• 18:59
  inside you better. Be able to block the three He's
• 19:02
  not. He's not going to shoot a lot of
• 19:03
  threes. They do have a three-point
• 19:05
  shooter that they got from Gardner Webb, Darrell Simmons.
• 19:09
  Now the the good news, he's a 511 guard.
• 19:12
  So he's a Richmond Spider size guard versus one of these like
• 19:15
  6-4 guards who can shoot. So he's a little guard.
• 19:18
  So you know, we've got a lot of little guards, so that's that's
• 19:22
  better for us defensively. But he's a good scorer, shoots
• 19:26
  over 40% from 3. So he's got a three-point guy.
• 19:29
  They got a couple other good players.
• 19:30
  The one player I want to focus and maybe some of you have seen
• 19:33
  stuff on him, his name is Joe Gravac.
• 19:36
  I may be saying that wrong. He's a sophomore, averages 1.8
• 19:40
  blocks per game. But there's a really nice story
• 19:44
  about him. First of all, he looks like the
• 19:46
  70s Bill Walton. He's got big orange hair and an
• 19:50
  orange beard. Somewhere between like Carrot
• 19:53
  Top and Bill Walton, maybe? Like a little bit like Fletch
• 19:56
  when he dreamed he was on the Lakers.
• 19:59
  That's right. But anyway, so this kid, and
• 20:01
  there's a there's a really good article if you look for it, but
• 20:05
  he went from living out of his car, he had some family issues
• 20:08
  to his homeless living out of his car to then he was playing
• 20:12
  whatever money he had. He would go and play basketball
• 20:15
  with his buddies. There was some sort of event
• 20:18
  where he got identified by junior college.
• 20:21
  Went to a junior college, Woj had somebody reference.
• 20:25
  Hey, you should check out this guy.
• 20:27
  Woj go sees him out in California.
• 20:29
  He's he Woj is the only one in that gym who's scouting.
• 20:32
  He's like, where are all the other scouts?
• 20:34
  There's no California colleges, There's nothing.
• 20:36
  Woj connects with the guy. They have a great builds that
• 20:39
  relationship. He's a sophomore.
• 20:41
  He's already getting kind of MBA talk 'cause he's a big guy and
• 20:45
  he's skilled. He's still just is still fairly
• 20:49
  new to the game in terms of having like good coaching and a
• 20:51
  good system around him. So he's going to say he's not
• 20:55
  going to be the guy that scores 20 against us, but he'll be a
• 20:57
  fun watch and there's a fun story.
• 20:59
  Just a couple other notes. I don't know how controversial
• 21:02
  this is, but I think they have the ugliest colors in all of
• 21:05
  college sports. I don't even know what it's
• 21:07
  like, Not even like a nice brown.
• 21:09
  It's it's like a gross Brown that if you want to debate that,
• 21:13
  please give me some other other teams.
• 21:16
  But anyway, if you look at this team in general, they're a shot
• 21:20
  blocking team. They're great at rebounding.
• 21:23
  They don't shoot a lot of threes.
• 21:25
  They shoot it OK, but they're not going to be just dominant,
• 21:27
  like just winging it from three. Like some like, you know,
• 21:30
  William and Mary was, for example.
• 21:32
  We're going to need to be good at rebounding.
• 21:35
  Just we don't need to be great offensive rebounding, but we're
• 21:37
  going to need to reel after especially after this Fordham
• 21:39
  game. Like if we this Saint
• 21:42
  Bonaventure team is better than Fordham, if we let them beat us
• 21:45
  that bad on on rebounds again, like it's going to be hard to to
• 21:50
  pull that out. They're a good shooting team
• 21:54
  overall because they do shoot a lot of twos.
• 21:57
  So like we just got a it's it's it's a tough game for us.
• 22:00
  It's going to be a tough place. A team that's great at
• 22:02
  rebounding. That's a good 2.2.
• 22:04
  Yeah, I didn't realize. They were like one O 3 in the
• 22:06
  net or or was that Ken Palm? That's actually better than I
• 22:09
  would realize. So they're that's a tough game
• 22:11
  on the road their. Losses are North Carolina, Ohio,
• 22:15
  and VCU so those are those 3 losses so and I don't know if
• 22:19
  they played the entire state of Ohio if it was just University
• 22:22
  of Ohio. VCU looked good yesterday too.
• 22:25
  They're going to be tough this year, yeah.
• 22:26
  Yeah, we'll, we'll talk about actually before we get to the
• 22:29
  the women, let me give a little A10 notes on the men's side.
• 22:32
  This is a big week for A10 basketball, not just for the
• 22:35
  Spiders. So on Tuesday it's George
• 22:38
  Washington at Dayton. So we just saw how good George
• 22:41
  Washington is. You're at Dayton, that's a hard
• 22:44
  place to play. And then on Wednesday at Saint
• 22:46
  Louis at VCU, those are two. So you got the two right now
• 22:50
  kind of highest ranked teams, the A10.
• 22:52
  Two huge games. Saint Louis on the road.
• 22:55
  So that's not like a must win for them.
• 22:56
  Like they can lose that and still have a good net.
• 22:58
  But that's, you know, you could basically have the top two teams
• 23:01
  in the A10 fighting and arguably maybe the top four teams are all
• 23:05
  against each other this week. So big week for the A10 on the
• 23:09
  men's side. Absolutely.
• 23:10
  So moving to the women's team for a second, we got Fordham
• 23:13
  this week, coached by Bridget Mitchell.
• 23:16
  She's been there three years. She was two years at
• 23:18
  Northeastern before that. Last year they were 15 and 15,
• 23:22
  this year she's 8 and six. They've really Fordham is a
• 23:27
  story of really two really highly efficient players, 1
• 23:30
  dominant player and I'm going to talk about her for a second, so
• 23:33
  Alexis Black. So we used in previous episodes
• 23:37
  the PRPG. The player value statistic on
• 23:40
  Bartorvic for overall effectiveness looks across all
• 23:45
  categories. Member Maggie was #1 in the
• 23:46
  nation, Maggie is still very much number one in the Atlantic
• 23:49
  10, and she's roughly almost 50% ahead of the next player.
• 23:53
  So she is having a dominant, dominant season.
• 23:57
  But Alexis Black is third in the A10 with a, with a, with a
• 24:00
  player rating of 5.1 or PRPG rating of 5.1.
• 24:05
  She's going to be a handful, so we're going to have to stop her.
• 24:08
  She's 5A5 foot 9 junior. So she has another year after
• 24:11
  this and she averages about 19 points a game.
• 24:15
  She's going to be a tough, tough assignment.
• 24:17
  I'm imagining Newell will probably draw her first, but you
• 24:20
  might see some different assignments on her.
• 24:21
  By the way, Rachel now top five in the A10 and PRPG.
• 24:24
  So she is all A10 first team and she's playing like it with her
• 24:28
  rating right now is the 5th ranked player in the A10 by that
• 24:32
  one metric alley #13 overall. So and Alicia Newell moving up
• 24:36
  the rankings quickly. So this is a game Bartorvic sees
• 24:39
  US winning by 25 points. So it should be a pretty good
• 24:43
  spot to watch a lot of players play.
• 24:46
  We've slipped down. I want to say we're like 4849 in
• 24:49
  the net right now, still in the top 50, but we're only we only
• 24:54
  have one win right now against quad one or quad two teams
• 24:56
  against 4 losses. So we have to really dominate
• 24:59
  these quad four games. And then we've got to, we're
• 25:02
  going to have to get another win or two to really get back into
• 25:05
  the, you know, feeling really good about the 8.
• 25:07
  The at large. Good news is you've got four
• 25:10
  teams right there in the A10 with that in rankings, with
• 25:13
  rankings that can help us. I mean, George Mason, Rhode
• 25:15
  Island, we get again, Saint Joe's looks really, really good
• 25:18
  and Davidson's top 50. So and we get Davidson twice, we
• 25:22
  get George Mason twice. So we'll have shots at that.
• 25:24
  But we have got to, we got to take care of these teams and
• 25:26
  we've got to play well against those, those a 10 teams that
• 25:29
  could give us this quad 1 and win one and two wins to make
• 25:32
  sure that we're feeling really good right now.
• 25:34
  It's still top 50, right where we want to be, but we still have
• 25:37
  work to do. Hey, and just a note on the the
• 25:40
  ladies team. We haven't really talked about
• 25:42
  this year the the school has been promoting this code red yes
• 25:46
  and I think we're we're big fans of it.
• 25:47
  So let's talk about it here We play home.
• 25:49
  This is the women's team VCU on Saturday the 18th of January and
• 25:54
  the. 12th or the 18th? I thought it was the 12th.
• 25:57
  That's a good. Question, why you why do you
• 25:59
  have the schedule memorized? I don't, but for some reason
• 26:02
  12th was in the. 12th is a Monday.
• 26:04
  OK. It is not the 12th.
• 26:05
  It's not the 12th. Apologies.
• 26:07
  So anyway, that's, you know, when Porter tries to correct me,
• 26:10
  that's usually what happens. So anyway, code red, they're
• 26:14
  trying to get 5000 fans at that game.
• 26:17
  Yes. OK, so this is the women's team.
• 26:19
  Wear your red. Knock your.
• 26:21
  Blues. Yeah, wear your red, but tell
• 26:24
  your friends. Get people out there.
• 26:27
  Let's support our women's team and try to, you know, get 5000
• 26:31
  fans there. Heck, let's sell the place out,
• 26:33
  I mean. We only have how many, not many
• 26:34
  chances to watch Maggie and Rachel play at home again for
• 26:37
  the rest of their career. So just you should be at every
• 26:39
  game no matter what. I mean, that's my personal
• 26:41
  opinion. You should be at every game no
• 26:42
  matter what. These girls will will entertain
• 26:45
  you with their with just how good they are on the basketball
• 26:47
  court. Yeah, so again, Code Red, this
• 26:49
  is a game. We got the women's teams playing
• 26:51
  BCU at home and we got a. Replica jersey day coming up on
• 26:53
  the men's side, which I'm really excited about because season
• 26:55
  ticket holders get a replica jersey and the students, the
• 26:58
  first number of students. Yeah, 500 students I think get
• 27:00
  replica. Jerseys, yeah, so.
• 27:02
  When the students will be back, they're actually they're off
• 27:05
  next week still and so I think they get back on the 12th, so
• 27:10
  hopefully we'll get the student attendance stats starting again.
• 27:14
  I. Think you know when they get
• 27:15
  back? And and hopefully we get those
• 27:18
  two sections filled. Up.
• 27:20
  Yeah, absolutely. OK, so we, we always listen to
• 27:25
  feedback from our listeners. I think we appreciate it.
• 27:29
  If you got ideas or things you'd like us to talk about, let us
• 27:32
  know. And we accept criticism as well.
• 27:35
  Yeah, we do. We've got some criticism that at
• 27:39
  the ending, but heck, probably in my intro as well.
• 27:42
  I don't always say the name of our podcast correctly.
• 27:45
  That's true. So we're going to try some.
• 27:48
  Spiders sound off last week. I think we're.
• 27:50
  Going to. Yeah, that's right.
• 27:51
  So we're going to try some alternate endings here.
• 27:54
  And, you know, you guys can let us know which is your favorite.
• 27:59
  We'll test these out ourselves and we'll listen when we're
• 28:03
  done. OK, so we're going to 1st just
• 28:05
  do our, let's say our traditional after 33 episodes.
• 28:09
  I don't know if we did it all 33, but we did it a lot and
• 28:13
  we'll do our typical ending. So like thanks everybody for
• 28:15
  listening. This is Tom.
• 28:17
  This is. Porter.
• 28:18
  And this is spiders sounding off.
• 28:21
  See you. OK, let that sit for a second.
• 28:25
  Let that one just soak in. OK.
• 28:27
  So that's the one we've been doing.
• 28:28
  I thought I've drafted a few different ones here.
• 28:30
  So Porter's going to have to do his improv skills here.
• 28:34
  But we I thought we'd do like a respectable ending, a very
• 28:37
  professional, like newsworthy ending.
• 28:40
  So pretend we're just talking. All right.
• 28:42
  Well, that's all we're going to have for us today.
• 28:45
  We appreciate you listening and for being part of our
• 28:48
  conversation. And that's the way it is.
• 28:52
  January 4th, 2026 OK, so that's that's the respectable ending.
• 28:59
  Hope you like that one. We'll try one.
• 29:02
  This one's a little more, a little more creative.
• 29:06
  And yes, we're kind of ripping off a certain movie from the
• 29:10
  early 90s, but. Popular cartoon as well.
• 29:13
  We'll call this the scooby-doo ending.
• 29:16
  You all ready to do the scooby-doo ending?
• 29:17
  Wait, wait, wait. First we have to do that.
• 29:23
  What row? Zoinks, what is it now?
• 29:27
  It was spiders sound off the whole time.
• 29:29
  And we would have gotten away with it if it weren't for those
• 29:31
  meddling listeners. Yes, that's true.
• 29:35
  OK, so that well, that's that one.
• 29:37
  Let me stick. It's probably what the fan
• 29:39
  they're going to like the most. Then what do we do?
• 29:41
  But anyway, we'll go with kind of one, which is, you know,
• 29:44
  maybe somewhere in the middle of our original one that got
• 29:47
  criticism because I called it the wrong thing too often and
• 29:50
  the respectable ending. So anyway, guys, thanks for
• 29:53
  joining us. Thanks for listening.
• 29:54
  We appreciate all you who are still here after 30 minutes and.
• 29:57
  If you enjoyed the episode, please share it with a fellow
• 29:59
  spider, give us a like or subscribe.
• 30:02
  This has been spiders sound. Go spiders.