Latest / Spiders Sound Off / Episode 6: Big Three, Bigger Dreams – Inside Richmond Women’s Hoops 2025

Transcript

Episode 6: Big Three, Bigger Dreams – Inside Richmond Women’s Hoops 2025 · Spiders Sound Off

0:02
Hi everybody. Welcome back to Spider.
0:05
Sound off. This is episode 6.
0:07
I'm Porter. And I'm Tom.
0:10
And we are Richmond Spider fans, season ticket holders, dishing
0:14
on all things Richmond hoops. And today, we're going to focus
0:17
on Richmond's women's basketball team.
0:20
I'm excited for today's episode, Tom.
0:22
I think it's going to be great. Now Porter, when you move back
0:25
to Richmond a year and a half ago and decided to get season
0:28
tickets and and join me with the men's team, I don't think you
0:32
expected to fall in love with the ladies program.
0:34
Absolutely, I have some available time.
0:36
And so I, I said, what the heck, let's get a, let's get a season
0:40
ticket to the ladies. They were, they were really good
0:42
The year before. I liked what Coach Russell was
0:44
doing. I had seen box scores and
0:46
occasional snippets of games, but hadn't really experienced
0:49
it. So I bought season tickets,
0:51
showed up by myself to the first game, sat pretty pretty close to
0:55
the floor when one of those padded seats down low which you
0:58
know, we don't sit in during the men's game, and was just blown
1:01
away right from the start. And as most of you probably
1:04
know, the season ended with our first ever NCAA Tournament win
1:09
for the women's program. I think it was our fifth time in
1:11
the NCAA Tournament, but our first win.
1:13
Ever. Not just a win, but a complete
1:16
dismantling of Georgia Tech. I mean we destroyed Georgia Tech
1:19
from the beginning of that game till the end and Georgia Tech
1:21
was a good ACC program. And we had other big wins last
1:24
year too, right Porter? Yeah, we did.
1:26
Just just to give you guys a few.
1:28
I mean, I went up to Henrico Sports Center to watch us play
1:30
can Columbia. Columbia was a top 50 team.
1:33
They were over 42 I think at the end of the year, played them on
1:36
a neutral court, beat them pretty, pretty handily.
1:39
I think it's like 8 or 9 points. But what we found out later was
1:42
Columbia, Gino Auriemma admitted, was the one team that
1:46
beat the national champions UConn in a secret scrimmage
1:49
before the season. So that was a that was a legit
1:52
win for it or. Not so.
1:54
Secret scrimmage? Not so.
1:55
Secret scrimmage after you admit it, right?
1:59
And we were in pretty much every game outside of, I guess
2:02
Tennessee. Yeah, blew us out.
2:04
Tennessee was the one game where it got away from us and we just,
2:07
we just didn't look like we were.
2:09
We were. There and then the UCLA game, we
2:11
had a a third quarter we'd like to redo if we could.
2:14
Yeah, we were tied at halftime with the overall number one team
2:17
in America, UCLA, Lauren Betts, their 6 foot, 7 centre playing
2:23
them toe to toe, had a bad third quarter.
2:25
But other than that, I mean, I thought we represented ourselves
2:28
extremely well. I the probably my favorite game
2:31
last year was Fairfield. Fairfield's one of those mid
2:34
conference teams that we, we played on their homecourt and
2:39
they, they were bringing back 91% of their scoring from the
2:42
year before where they were really, really good.
2:45
And we went up to Fairfield and absolutely dismantled them in
2:49
that game. I think we're up 32 to 7 at
2:51
halftime. And that was just the sign.
2:53
That was early in the season, and I was after seeing that I
2:56
was watching it on TVI was like, OK, we're going to be really,
2:58
really good this year. And we ended up 28 and seven.
3:01
So just put that in perspective. Almost thirty wins for our for
3:07
our women's team, yeah. It was pretty amazing.
3:09
I mean, it wasn't a perfect season by any means.
3:11
I mean, there was a couple areas where we where we, you know,
3:14
could improve on. I mean, I think if you if you
3:16
watched our team, like we run with that ball, it's very fast
3:21
up and down the court. And so watching those games,
3:25
there's plenty of times where you'd see a bad turnover.
3:27
So I think that's one area where it's a little bit kind of the
3:31
way we play. But we averaged over 14
3:34
turnovers a game. So I think the 14 plus turnover
3:37
the game is something we can improve on.
3:39
Also not the greatest rebounding team and we out rebounded our
3:42
opponents. You know, we're 33 to 34
3:44
rebounds a game. So I think that's a place where
3:46
I think we can hope where we improve on that this year.
3:49
And we talked to coach Rudise. That was kind of fun.
3:51
And she emphasized that was one thing.
3:53
She thinks we're going to be better at this this coming year
3:55
was the rebounding. So let's.
3:56
Talk about our conversation with coach.
3:58
We have not been able to see any practices yet so a caveat to
4:01
everything we talk about. So this is all a based on our
4:04
conversation with the associate head coach.
4:07
And our experience watching and our.
4:08
Experience watching the team and video reviews of some of the
4:11
folks who haven't played for us yet.
4:13
But we did sit down, have a great conversation with Coach
4:16
She she was really fun to talk to.
4:19
She is a Hall of Fame player from Fordham.
4:23
Yeah, one of our games last year, we played at Fordham and I
4:26
was watching it on my computer and we actually lost the game,
4:29
which was a goes down as a bad loss for us.
4:32
But before the game started, there was about a 10 minute
4:35
segment where the Fordham announcers were just an absolute
4:38
awe of Coach Rudis. They just talked about her
4:40
career in a way that I I kind of got an appreciation.
4:44
She was Fordham's Pam Bryant. Yeah, she was a scoring point
4:47
guard, I think. I think her total points was
4:50
over 2400 over her four years. But she went from being a Hall
4:55
of Fame player to now almost 40 years of coaching experience, or
4:59
most of those years were at Delaware.
5:01
But thankfully for us, she caught on with Coach Russell up
5:06
at up at Bucknell 2. 1017 and. Then when he came, brought her
5:11
and that whole staff. But she was great to talk to.
5:14
She's got experience in scheduling, recruiting, kind of
5:17
lots of different topics. So as we start talking about the
5:20
team, we'll add in there some of the comments we got from.
5:23
Coach I we to get ready for our interview with her.
5:25
We, we watched some old interviews she'd given.
5:27
I mean, we talked a lot about winning.
5:29
I mean, this, this lady is, is a winner.
5:31
Just listening to her talk. I mean, I remember one interview
5:33
she was talking about, you know, they were talking about player
5:35
development and she was talking about when she was a player, she
5:38
would shoot 500 shots a day. And I think it got up to like
5:41
she had to make 500 a day before she could.
5:43
She would stop. And, and so, so when the game
5:45
came around, she was almost more surprised when a shot didn't go
5:49
in than when it did go in. So we're in good hands with with
5:52
Coach Roussel, Coach Rudis and the rest of the staff.
5:55
Now when you think to the team we've got coming back this year,
5:58
it's got to start with the three returning starters, Maggie,
6:02
Rachel and Ally and. It starts with Maggie Dugan.
6:06
Maggie is the Atlantic reigning Atlantic 10 Player of the Year
6:11
and is the best player, as I've said on a previous podcast in
6:14
the state of Virginia. Yeah, and she is fun to watch.
6:16
You put her in kind of the wing forward bucket, but she can
6:20
handle the ball, she can shoot the three.
6:22
She loves driving. When she's one-on-one, she will
6:25
drive. She also led the team with
6:28
assists last year And so when they try to guard her, she's
6:31
looking for someone cut into the basket.
6:33
So she's she's a multi dimensional talent for us.
6:37
Coach Reduce called the system. Read and react and you can see
6:41
the chemistry that exists between Maggie, Rachel and Ally.
6:45
Seems like Maggie anticipates when Rachel's going to make a
6:49
move to the basket and hits her in stride with passes time and
6:52
time again. It's just really fun to watch.
6:55
But I got AI got a story nobody's ever heard about about
6:58
Maggie, including Maggie. So I'm going to break it.
7:02
So I was I was in Vegas, as we talked about on a previous
7:05
podcast, we we go with a bunch of Richmond alum friends,
7:09
lifelong friends. And you know, every year new
7:12
people join us. They just want to go to Vegas to
7:14
watch basketball. And in this last year, we were
7:17
interested Richmond fans in the women's games, whereas most
7:20
people in Vegas at that time are watching the men's tournament.
7:23
We actually turned one of the big TV's on to to the Richmond
7:26
women's game. And it was the Georgia Tech
7:29
game. And I was I was sitting next to
7:31
a guy who was also interested in women's basketball.
7:34
And turns out this gentleman worked for AWWNB A-Team.
7:38
He was one of their one of the analytics leads for AWNBA team.
7:42
And, and I told him to keep an eye on Maggie Dugan, who's going
7:44
to be playing against Georgia Tech.
7:46
And he honestly had not heard of her.
7:48
He he looked her up. He had a dashboard that he had
7:50
built on his, on his PC Open and he pulled her up and it was the
7:56
best way I can describe the dashboard is it's like a series
7:58
of, of boxes and different skills and different things
8:00
that, you know, teams care about.
8:03
And the dashboard went completely green.
8:05
There were shades of green, some light green, some dark green,
8:07
but it was all green. And he just looked at it for a
8:09
second. It's like, holy cow, she's
8:10
really, really good. And then he put his chant into
8:13
his hand, like, like he was the thinking man for a little bit.
8:16
And he just stared at the screen, took his finger, circled
8:19
the whole dashboard and said, yeah, that's really, really
8:22
good. So I mean, this is a this is a
8:24
guy who's whose job it is to identify talent sitting there
8:28
looking at a dashboard with our player saying, this is really,
8:31
really good. So I I think we have a potential
8:34
WNBA player in our ranks with Maggie Dugan.
8:38
Like everyone else listening, I was not there so I'm going to
8:41
assume this is a it wasn't just some drunk person next.
8:44
No, I have, I have AI have a witness to the conversation and
8:46
I actually called the witness and said did I recount this
8:48
right And he he agreed. It wasn't someone at the craps
8:51
table. I don't have permission to.
8:53
I don't have the permission from the actually WNBA person
8:56
themselves to tell this story. So I'm not going to tell you the
8:58
team they work for or any of that stuff or why they were in
9:01
Vegas during March Madness. But I will tell you that, yeah,
9:05
that was a conversation that happened.
9:07
Now I know last episode we talked some about Rachel and
9:10
kind of her summer and a lot of the great things she got to do,
9:13
but what What do you like best about Rachel when you watched
9:16
her play? I mean, I think with Rachel, she
9:19
was first team All Atlantic 10. She was the 6th player of the
9:24
year the year before that, which leads me to the question, you
9:27
know, with Maggie and Rachel both being first team, All
9:30
Atlantic 10 players coming back. I think we did it last year with
9:35
Addie and Maggie, but I can't remember.
9:37
But it's it's maybe only the couple times in history that's
9:40
happened where we've had probably 2.
9:42
I'm sorry, two preseason A10 first teamers going.
9:45
I got to imagine both of them are going to be preseason A10
9:47
first team on the same team coming back.
9:50
But with Rachel, it's the three-point shot.
9:52
I mean, she is the best pure 3 point shooter I've seen in as a
9:55
Richmond Spider. She's she's not a three-point
9:58
shooter off the dribble like say Caitlin Clark would be.
10:02
She's more like if, if her feet are set, she's going to drain
10:05
it. And if she can drain it from
10:06
well beyond the three-point arc too, which is kind of which is
10:09
kind of cool. But if you give her a foot,
10:11
she's going to she's going to knock it down.
10:13
And that is such a thing that causes stress for the defense
10:17
because you have to stretch the defense constantly to defend
10:19
against that. Yeah, she had 82 threes last
10:22
year for you stat nerds out there, shot over 42% from three,
10:27
actually not the strongest on our team from a percentage
10:31
standpoint. And it takes us to Allie
10:32
Sweeney. She shot 44%.
10:34
Yeah, at one point in time, Allie was leading the nation in
10:36
three-point percentage. And I think they flashed that
10:39
stat maybe 5152%. And then I think she had like a
10:43
a game where it just she, she maybe that stat got into her
10:46
head for a second. But I mean, the thing about
10:48
Allie is, I mean, she's not really talked about much because
10:51
of the two, you know, most likely Hall of Famers for
10:55
Richmond when they when they hang up their their shoes.
10:58
But with Ali, she is actually coming into her own as a great
11:02
Richmond spider player. I mean, she had to be the the
11:07
floor general last year. This year I think she's going to
11:10
be called on to do a lot more. As a sophomore, started pretty
11:13
much every game, played 25 plus minutes game.
11:18
So she's coming in really experienced as a junior and
11:23
you'll be the second time leading this team.
11:26
And I think this year you'll see Ali step up and take a more
11:29
prominent scoring role. We lost, we lost a lot off this
11:32
last year's team. We'll talk about that here in a
11:34
second. But I think I think Ali's going
11:36
to be called on to score more and I think you'll see her step
11:39
up and do that quite capably, along with being one of the best
11:42
in the Atlantic tenant assist to turnover ratio.
11:44
So we call him the big three. They played in a three on three
11:47
tournament along with Samantha Du this summer.
11:50
They represented themselves very, very well.
11:52
But for all you folks thinking about season tickets, you got 2
11:55
Hall of Farmers if Maggie would worked, and it's a big if, but
11:59
if she were to win A10 player of the year again, she would only
12:03
become the second player in either men's or women's program
12:06
history to do that. We had to look it up.
12:08
Johnny Newman never did it. He he he came up against a guy
12:11
named David Robinson three times, but he did win it once.
12:14
But your your pick for best point guard won it.
12:18
Yeah. So she's, I think, the only one
12:20
we can find who's won two player of the year conference.
12:24
Awards So so you as a fan, if you, if you get tickets this
12:28
year and go and watch a game, are going to be treated to
12:32
watching 2 Hall of Farmers and probably, well, not probably
12:35
most likely somebody who's going to have their number hanging in
12:39
the rafters. And that's just a special treat
12:41
to have that kind of quality on the floor that you get to
12:44
witness. So get your tickets, guys.
12:46
It's it's going to be fun. Yeah.
12:48
And, and I think there's a testament to that.
12:50
They all came back. I mean, I don't think the
12:52
women's game has evolved as much as the men's game in terms of
12:55
how many people are in the portal and how many people are
12:57
moving. But there's certainly a lot
12:59
going on. And the fact that all three came
13:01
back with coach shows their commitment to getting back to
13:05
the NCAS and and, and getting farther.
13:07
Now, we did lose a lot. Yeah, 49% of our minutes are
13:11
gone. Anna Camden, 6 foot three.
13:14
You know. Nice interior rotational player
13:17
for us is gone. Faith Austin, the backup point
13:20
guard when she got healthy last year to Ali is gone.
13:23
She averaged like close to 18 points a game for AP state the
13:27
year before. Hall of Famer Addy Budnick is
13:30
gone. Future Hall of Famer, I should
13:31
say. You know, she was her own legend
13:35
in Richmond women's basketball lore.
13:38
Alyssa Jimenez, who was a really a lockdown defender.
13:41
I mean, she, she got better and better as the season went on for
13:44
us. I, I went back and watched that
13:46
Texas game and she didn't play in that Texas game.
13:48
Booker, their forward, went off for 25 points.
13:52
I think she was hurt, I do think.
13:53
Yeah, I think she was hurt, but like that she would have been
13:56
the person probably guarding Booker if she were.
13:58
If you were playing that, that I think we're going to miss a lot.
14:00
Who's going to be our lockdown defender on this team?
14:02
And don't forget Katie Hill. Yeah, she's she averaged.
14:05
I mean, 25 minutes a game helps you everywhere on the court.
14:09
She was a critical. And the and the thing we asked
14:12
coach Reduce like so with Katie Hill, she's 6 feet.
14:15
Alyssa Jimenez was 6 feet, Budnick was over 6 feet, Camden
14:19
was over 6 feet. Steph Oderkirk, who's also gone
14:21
was over 6 feet. We asked they asked coach
14:24
Reduce. Are you intentionally recruiting
14:26
length at all the the forward and guard positions?
14:28
And what did she say? It was certainly something they
14:30
looked at. I mean, they wanted tall.
14:32
They couldn't always get tall, right?
14:34
They found that to be important on the defensive side as much as
14:39
on the offensive side, having tall players who could get in
14:42
the way of passes, who could guard.
14:45
And, and there's a lot of switching defense from what
14:47
Coach said, like they don't expect the point guard and the
14:50
center to do as much switching, but the other three players need
14:53
to be able to guard everybody else on the court.
14:55
So having tall players that are interchangeable from a height
14:58
perspective, that's an important part.
15:01
Sometimes our, our, our girls going to get beat.
15:04
And when you get beat and you go around somebody, it helps when
15:07
somebody else comes over who's also 6 feet or or higher, 511 or
15:11
higher, whatever that length number is, because it just, it
15:14
creates havoc. And I think that really played
15:15
itself out. If you watch, go back and watch
15:17
that Fairfield game, like our arms, our lady's arms are in the
15:20
passing lanes constantly tipping passes, creating creating
15:24
problems for smaller teams with their length.
15:27
Now when we talked to coach, the question was like who do you see
15:30
as the top returners to fill that gap?
15:34
So before we get into transfers and freshmen, which we will talk
15:36
about, who did she see? And three names came out and and
15:40
Porter, why don't you give us a little?
15:41
Yeah, she started with Alicia Newell.
15:43
I mean, Newell was the point guard before Faith Austin got
15:47
healthy. Alicia was a freshman playing
15:49
back up to Alley. And I mean, the first we started
15:53
the season 8 or 9 or 10 or something like that last year.
15:55
And Alicia played in all those games and she played a little
15:57
bit like a freshman at times, but like, you didn't feel like
16:00
we lost a ton when she came in. You know, compared to Ally,
16:04
she's a little, I think she's a little taller than Ally.
16:06
She has a little bit of a different style.
16:08
And coach said she had some things that she was going to
16:10
work on in the offseason and she looks really good coming back,
16:13
like she worked on them. And she's looking like she could
16:16
be a big contributor this year. Yeah, it was interesting.
16:18
So the two things that that it sounds like she's been working
16:22
on, one is her three-point shot. So I think that's when we didn't
16:25
really see last year. She wasn't expected to do that,
16:27
but that'll be exciting if she can have that.
16:30
And then the second part was just understanding the offense
16:33
and defense back, right? I think when I love the way
16:35
coach put it, where if you put like one person on the floor
16:38
with four people who know exactly what they're supposed to
16:41
do, that one person can almost, you know, fake it even if they
16:44
don't know because you got four people all going to the right
16:47
spot, right. But that didn't mean that she
16:49
was fully comfortable out there and knew everything she needed
16:52
to do. So just a year under the offense
16:54
and defense strategy, I think she knows where she needs to be
16:57
a lot more and will be kind of an important part of it be.
17:00
Interesting. We didn't ask Coach if they're
17:01
going to if she's going to run some sets with both Alicia and
17:04
Ali on the floor at the same time.
17:05
But that could be an interesting, if Alicia's 3 point
17:07
shooting is really improved, you could see some of that this year
17:11
because you know that that would be, you know, definitely a
17:14
wrinkle I haven't thought of, right?
17:15
And another name she brought up, which was interesting to me
17:17
because we didn't see much of her last year, was Peyton
17:19
Richard. She's a six foot wings.
17:22
She played some last year. She had big game against Gardner
17:25
Webb. Is that right?
17:26
I. Think it was Gardner Webb.
17:27
She had 10 points in the game last year.
17:29
She's got a really nice looking shot.
17:31
And I think you've got two or three players in front of you
17:35
that are, like we said, we've talked about future Hall of
17:37
Farmers. You know you're learning from
17:39
them, but you're also, you're also challenged by them to get
17:45
to get minutes since you know, you're you're probably capable
17:48
of starting for a lot of teams across, you know, different
17:51
programs throughout the country. So so she's definitely someone
17:55
that we'll get to see a lot more of this year.
17:56
Coach has been really happy with what she's been able to do this
17:59
summer. And then the last of that group
18:01
was. Samantha Dewey, Yeah.
18:03
Samantha Dewey, we did see her more towards the end of last
18:06
year. It seems she started getting
18:07
kind of more rotation. She was at Illinois transferred,
18:11
so last year was her first year U of R, so she had a lot to
18:13
learn as well. She was part of that three on
18:16
three tournament this summer. Right.
18:17
Yeah, She played with with Rachel Alley and Maggie.
18:20
She played in that three on three tournament.
18:22
They acquitted themselves very, very well.
18:24
They lost to the eventual champion of that tournament, but
18:26
they're playing some of the best 3, three person teams on some of
18:29
the best college teams around. So very competitive, which tells
18:33
us the the core of our team is right up there with the top
18:36
teams. Now going beyond those players,
18:38
we have a couple other returners.
18:39
We have a red shirt freshman. We don't really know a lot about
18:42
Annika Manthey, so she's a six foot 3.
18:45
So I, you know, there's an opportunity certainly on our
18:48
team to help fill in some of that center power forward spot.
18:52
Yeah, the front court rotation is going to be really
18:54
interesting. And then Jada Green's another
18:56
returner. She's red shirt senior.
18:58
She missed her first two years from injury.
19:00
She was part of the Maggie Rachel recruiting class, but she
19:03
was hurt, missed her first two years, played a little bit last
19:05
year. So it'll be interesting,
19:07
interesting to see kind of what she can do now getting past the
19:11
returners. One of the things that coach
19:14
mentioned is that, you know, she's expecting to be a better
19:16
rebounding team. And I think that starts with the
19:19
transfers. Yeah, We got 2 pretty
19:22
interesting transfers in the transfer portal this year.
19:25
We got Skyla Travis came out of Louisiana and who's 6 foot 3.
19:32
She she plays a physical inside presence.
19:35
I joked with coach Redis, it would have, it would have been
19:37
fun to have a a strong six foot three player to try to keep
19:41
Lauren Betts off the low block. And coach Redis corrected me and
19:44
said you're you're not going to keep Lauren Betts off the low
19:46
block. She's the best player in the
19:48
country, which was a fair, a fairpoint, But like we need
19:52
that. We need that person inside that
19:53
can really scrap and get the rebounds.
19:56
Skyla, she, she didn't play a ton of minutes compared to her
20:01
talent level down in Louisiana. I thought looking at some of the
20:05
the game box scores and watch a little video, she was, she LED
20:09
that team in BPM, which we talked about is an advanced stat
20:12
for efficiency. She had 13 points and 15
20:16
rebounds in the last game Louisiana played last year,
20:19
which is the tournament lost to Marshall.
20:21
She did that in 21 minutes. So 13 points, 15 rebounds in 21
20:24
minutes. So she she's a player, I think
20:27
she's probably more of your your true 5 in this offense where
20:32
she's just going to bang around the inside, making sure that we
20:35
clean up the glass. But then there's another
20:38
transfer that we got out of Saint Louis.
20:40
Tiara Simon. Yeah, and Coach Radice was
20:44
definitely excited about what Tiara Simon can do.
20:48
So she's 6/1. So she's a forward.
20:50
She she can do a lot. She scored a bunch against us.
20:54
I remember at that game I turned to the guy sitting next to me.
20:56
Maybe it was you at that game, And I said I forgot her number.
20:59
But I said that number is a problem for us, so we can't stop
21:02
her. She was a starter.
21:03
She almost averaged a double double.
21:04
She was almost, she was at 8.8 points and 8.9 rebounds.
21:08
So close to that double double. Also averaged a block per game.
21:12
So defense is going to be great. She'll be a great addition to
21:16
that. She can also shoot the three.
21:19
So that's something that Coach mentioned.
21:22
So it's, it's, it'll be really exciting to see what she's able
21:25
to do when it comes to filling in outside of the Big Three.
21:29
Yeah, I think, you know, she's a good inside and outside player,
21:31
which fits in with that, that Maggie Rachel mentality of being
21:37
able to move anywhere, take any shot, read and react.
21:40
I think with her, it's going to be getting comfortable in the
21:43
system. I think Simon has a chance of
21:45
doing that if she can get comfortable in the system.
21:48
OK, well let's transition to the freshman.
21:50
We have 4 freshmen who were kind of heavily recruited that all
21:54
committed and they're all here. One of the things before we get
21:58
into their names, I, I love the the image in my head from Coach
22:01
Rudy's is that when you have a bunch of new players on the cork
22:06
learning our system, she said early on it's like bumper cars.
22:11
So they're all trying to be where they're supposed to be,
22:13
but they're running into each other.
22:15
I think what she she called it like 5 out.
22:17
So when they're getting a rebound, like all five are kind
22:19
of running down the court. And when you have our big three,
22:23
they know exactly where to be and they're leading this team
22:26
and teaching the freshman and the transfers with the coaches,
22:29
this new system. But if you can imagine like a
22:31
first practice where there's been some installation of, hey,
22:34
this is how you do things. And then the freshman are
22:36
starting to run into players. But I've had a good summer.
22:39
I don't think they're bumper cars anymore, but I think that
22:41
was some of what really practice.
22:43
Look like, and in fairness, Coach Reduce did not call
22:45
attention to any one of the freshmen.
22:47
She I think one of the things we want to do for getting too deep,
22:51
although I know you probably will have a hot take here, here
22:53
and there, is to get over and watch a practice so we can give
22:56
you guys a first hand report of what we see.
22:58
Like, OK, this person is is ready right now or maybe this
23:01
person is a little ways off, but let's go through the freshman,
23:03
who they are and where they came from.
23:04
I'm going to start with my my favorite, which is Shanika
23:08
Campbell. She's 6 foot 2 forward from the
23:12
Bronx. I think all of these ladies have
23:14
recruiting videos out there. They're putting out videos
23:17
whether they're trying to get on a different AAU team or for
23:21
college recruiting purposes. Her video is super impressive.
23:24
She is the type of player who is, you know, blocking shots,
23:28
then dribbling the ball down the court and then making layups or
23:32
shooting a 20 foot jumper. And her and and her shot looks,
23:35
looks great. I think she's going to be a
23:38
great player for us at some point.
23:40
Yeah, I like the way she moved off the ball when I watched a
23:43
little bit of that videotape. She moves really well when she
23:45
doesn't have the ball in her hands.
23:47
She's quick, quicker than somebody that size should be.
23:49
I thought her mid range shot looks really good.
23:51
Interesting to see if that can extend beyond the three-point
23:53
art. She's, she's certainly an
23:55
impressive player, Big, big time rebounder, defensive player who
23:58
who can also score. I think she's kind of like our
24:00
our Bryson on the women's team, Someone with super potential.
24:04
I can imagine that practice at some point she could give Maggie
24:08
fits just because of her size and her shot blocking ability.
24:13
Now Porter, since you are clearly better than me at
24:17
pronouncing names, I want you to talk about Ava and and pronounce
24:21
Ava's last name. Ava Persechetti.
24:23
Persechetti. That's that's that's pretty
24:25
good. Yeah, I don't.
24:26
Know if that's right? Every now and again, you know,
24:28
it's just, it's like, that's how you debate, Tom.
24:30
That's how you debate. Yeah, so she's A59 shooting
24:33
guard. Out of Pennsylvania.
24:36
Big time score like she broke her all her school's all time
24:39
scoring record with over 2400 points by the end of her senior
24:43
year. Yeah, we, we kind of talked to
24:45
Coach Rudis about like you got 2 guards, 2 forwards and she kind
24:48
of corrected us and she said no, we kind of think of it as one
24:50
guard, 3 forwards. So I'm guessing they see
24:52
Perchetti Perchetti as a forward.
24:55
Yeah, kind of a wing, a wing player in that system.
25:00
And then two other freshmen, one local rain, right?
25:03
She's from Midlothian. I went to Manchester High School
25:06
and LED that team to a championship.
25:09
She's another wing player for us.
25:12
I got to imagine we're going to have some rain, right?
25:14
Family and friends watching games in the Robin Center.
25:16
Being that she's local, if the coaching staff went after her,
25:20
you know she's they got a lot of eyes that could watch her play
25:23
game. So I'm pretty sure they like
25:25
what they saw. And then the last freshman is
25:27
Anisha Scott. She's a point guard from
25:30
Minnesota. We know we've got two really
25:32
good point guards already in our rotation.
25:35
Again, we haven't seen her play, but it'll be interesting to see
25:38
if Anisha can get critical minutes this season to help her
25:42
development to be future. Point guard for us, yeah, it's
25:45
going to be really interesting for sure.
25:46
I mean, I think we're we lost a lot of depth last year.
25:50
So like we said, 49% of our minutes are gone.
25:52
We have the big three, but last year the strength of that team I
25:56
thought was the depth, right. We had a rotation that you felt
25:59
confident going 9 or 10 deep. Who are the players after the
26:03
big three for us this year that are going to step up and become
26:08
really, really talented players? That's going to help define the
26:11
season for us. I think depth is is is going to
26:15
be good. I just don't know if it'll be as
26:16
good as last year. But on the high end, the
26:18
confidence of the top three and the leadership that they embody
26:22
should should carry us quite far.
26:25
So let's wrap this thing up and make some crazy predictions.
26:28
Again, we haven't seen practice. We've seen videos, obviously
26:31
we've seen the players from last year, but to your point, Porter,
26:34
there's a there are two openings who's getting lots of minutes.
26:38
We had five players last year who got over 25 minutes per
26:40
game. So we've lost a couple of them
26:43
and and there's different ways you can slice minutes, but
26:46
what's the group of players? We don't need to predict who
26:49
those two starters are going to be, but what are the group of
26:51
players that you think are potentially going to be able to
26:55
be that key 20 plus minute? I mean, I think for me, you
26:59
know, if Simon can learn the, the movement and flow of the
27:04
offense, she should be an impact player because she fits so well
27:08
the the the type of player that that we recruit and that we go
27:13
after. I'm so I think she could be a
27:14
big time contributor this year. I think the rotation inside will
27:17
be very interesting to watch this year.
27:19
I mean, Skyler Travis is a very strong big player for us.
27:23
Samantha Dewey is also a physical player inside.
27:26
So and Samantha has a year on them in our.
27:29
System correct, so I think. There's it's also, and we talked
27:31
about this on the men's side. It wouldn't surprise me if
27:34
Samantha is a a critical part earlier in the season as these
27:38
newer players learn and then they can start sharing that
27:41
position more. Yeah, kind of, I mean.
27:44
I think that if we we get, we're going to have to, I mean, Addy
27:48
Budnick is not replaceable, right?
27:50
She's just too good. But if we can, if we can bring
27:54
it to close, not not going to quite get there, but if we can
27:57
bring it to close, you know, and you see incremental moves
28:01
forward out of alley, which I think we will at the point guard
28:03
position and Rachel and and Maggie go out and do their all
28:06
A10 first team things again, it could be a very, very good
28:10
season. Adding to that, we talked about
28:12
Alicia and Peyton earlier. There's an opportunity and a
28:14
question in our heads. Can Alicia and Ali play together
28:18
in the back court and put significant minutes together?
28:21
We know they could, but is that, does that end up being core?
28:23
Part of our success is having, you know, 2 point guards out
28:27
there and maybe Ali becomes a little more of a shooting guard
28:30
when Alicia is out there to to fill in the points that we need.
28:35
I think against smaller teams we could go with that.
28:38
I think against the larger teams because we we've got some some
28:40
pretty big games scheduled this year.
28:42
I mean, we don't have a ton of scheduling news to break, but we
28:45
play Texas again and they're they're going to be a top ten
28:48
team in America. We play them at Texas.
28:50
You're going to want the length on around the perimeter for
28:52
those types of games. So I would imagine that you
28:53
won't see that there, but you might see it against some of the
28:55
smaller teams that we schedule early on.
28:57
And that's where Peyton becomes really interesting.
28:59
So we haven't seen her much, but coach brought her name up.
29:02
We didn't we didn't reach for it.
29:04
She brought up. Peyton has been someone who's
29:06
she can seek filling in those. Getting more confident.
29:09
Those missed minutes that could. Be interesting.
29:11
And then off the bench, I think this is where Porter referenced
29:14
earlier. I may have some hot takes.
29:16
We're going to need more than a couple starters doing 25
29:18
minutes. And we know out of that group,
29:20
we just mentioned Alicia's Samantha, Peyton and Simon that
29:24
we're going to have two starters and let's say 2 folks off the
29:27
bench. But we need a deeper bench than
29:29
that. I do love Shanika as being
29:32
someone with that potential. Again, haven't seen her at
29:35
practice, just seen old videos but I think she can be a
29:39
difference maker for our team if she can develop over this year.
29:42
I think defensively she'll be a menace and and she won't shy on
29:46
the offensive side. And if you're right and she
29:48
becomes a major contributor and you and you called that without
29:52
any input from anybody other than watching high school
29:54
recruiting videos, I think you might get a call from the
29:57
coaching staff for future recruiting endeavors.
30:00
Tom. So.
30:01
Now we do know, I mean, there's going to be a lot of surprises.
30:03
So even if we had seen a practice, I mean, if you heard
30:06
our men's episode, we're still making guesses from one
30:08
practice. We haven't even seen a practice
30:10
yet. We will later and and give some
30:12
updates from that. It's fun where you've got three
30:14
players that you really can count on and they'll hopefully
30:17
be better than last year, but three players you can count on
30:20
and then there's some surprises that's going to happen, which is
30:24
always fun and we'll know a lot more a month into the season,
30:27
but right now it's 3 superstars and then let's see what happens.
30:33
We asked Coach Rudis about what the big three bring off the
30:37
court that hasn't been described and she said I'd give her some
30:40
some quotes now. Their work ethic is outstanding.
30:43
They're very, very competitive. They're in the gym.
30:46
They're good leaders. They lead by example.
30:49
It rubs off on the newer players.
30:52
So when you have the kind of talent that we have at the top
30:56
end of the team and everybody else sees that and they see the
31:00
leadership, it creates a chemistry.
31:03
And chemistry is a word that I think we probably should talk
31:05
just for a second about. It starts with chemistry because
31:08
you know you can have the best player in the world, but if the
31:09
chemistry's off then the team won't won't live up to its
31:12
potential. And I did like a coach said that
31:15
the success we had last year doesn't change the goal.
31:17
They had the goal to go to the NCAA tournament and win in the
31:20
NCAA tournament last year. So that's great to hear.
31:22
They're shooting for goals that are big, and so a year ago we've
31:26
never had an NCAA tournament win, but that was the goal.
31:29
That's the goal. Now win the conference, get to
31:32
the NCAA's and win in the NCAA. Yes, you went toe to toe with
31:36
Texas, who was a top five team in the country, lost by 11.
31:39
Again, we were out without one of our best defenders in that
31:41
game. You were tied or leading three
31:44
of the four quarters against the best team in the country, UCLA,
31:48
right. One bad quarter where the where
31:49
the three-point shot went cold. If you remember us, we missed
31:52
every 3 point shot or if seemingly we took that quarter
31:54
and. Their team, which is not good
31:55
from three, made all of. Yes, they lit up for that
31:58
quarter. So you went toe to toe with two
31:59
of the best in the country. You know you, I think it was
32:02
Alabama. We had them on the ropes with
32:03
two minutes to play. Should have won that game.
32:06
We played the best teams in the country last year.
32:08
We beat Georgia Tech by 26 points.
32:10
Maggie went up for 30 and 15 or something ridiculous like that.
32:14
This team knows it can play the best teams in America right now,
32:18
and I think that confidence is what makes it so exciting now.
32:21
Again, chemistry. Three people don't make a team.
32:23
You got to get the whole team working together.
32:25
But if we do that and the fans turn out, I'll keep beating that
32:29
horse, guys. We just have to turn out and
32:31
support them. Let's make the Robinsoner loud
32:33
as can be. When those folks come in and
32:36
play us that give those girls the advantage they deserve, that
32:39
they've earned. You get a chance to watch 2 Hall
32:41
of Farmers and potentially what could be be one of the maybe the
32:45
best player to ever wear a Richmond uniform in her senior
32:49
season. And if you're in Richmond,
32:50
you're in for an additional treat, too.
32:52
We did learn while Coach Reddies doesn't do scheduling as part of
32:55
her role these days, we do have a Henrico holiday tournament.
32:58
Yeah, Which? Up Henrico.
33:00
Up at the same facility where the A10 tournament was.
33:04
Yeah, and I've, I've gone to, I went to the bunch of games up
33:06
there last year. It's a great venue for
33:08
basketball. It's 15 minutes to get to by car
33:10
and it's just a great venue to get to and watch and watch our
33:13
ladies. Play, so it'll be exciting to
33:14
learn more about the schedule over the next month or two.
33:18
But anyway, I appreciate all you guys listening to us again.
33:21
If you got into this point of the podcast, you're certainly a
33:24
dedicated spider and we appreciate it.
33:26
Please tell your friends like subscribe, do all of that stuff.
33:31
Share. Yeah, share us.
33:32
Especially so if you have friends in Richmond that have
33:35
daughters that could come out and watch games.
33:37
Send this podcast to them so they can hear about this team.
33:40
I'll say one last thing before we wrap this up.
33:42
Maggie and Rachel, after each game they usually get
33:45
interviewed by the press. They sit in the stands waiting
33:48
for those interviews and they sign autographs for young girls.
33:51
Talk about a way to to meet a future legend and have your
33:55
daughter inspired. Like your girls out to watch
33:57
this team bring your friends out.
33:58
This team deserves it. Well, thanks everybody for
34:00
joining us. This is Tom saying see you
34:02
later. See you folks.
34:02
Can you come on your? Computer or in your.
34:06
Dreams Spider sound off Spider sound off.