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Episode 7: Welcome to the A-10… and You’re Banned · Spiders Sound Off

0:05
Hello everybody, Welcome back to episode 7 of Spider Sound Off
0:09
I'm Porter Shomo. Hey, and this is.
0:10
Tom and we're here to talk to you today about the move to the
0:14
Atlantic 10 and what it meant for Spider basketball and.
0:18
Before we get into that, Porter, I know you've got some more
0:21
listener feedback. Yes.
0:23
So I wanted to read a few things off just to make sure we're
0:26
we're telling the listeners that we hear you.
0:28
I had a question that I thought was a good one.
0:31
If the NCAA tournament had not been cancelled in 2020 would and
0:37
we had gone on to the tournament which we had a great team.
0:39
I think even Coach Mooney might have said it was the best team
0:41
he ever had and we had won a game or possibly even 2.
0:45
Would Jacob Gilliard have jumped Kevin Anderson in my rankings
0:51
for best all time point guard? And I went back and I looked at
0:56
it and I and I have to tell you, he very well might have had I
0:59
had I, you know, had more to talk about on a, on a postseason
1:03
success level for Jacob, he might have been the greatest
1:05
spider men's point guard of all time right now.
1:08
I had it just for my informal rankings.
1:10
I had Anderson 1. I had Kenny Atkinson 2.
1:14
Gilliard and Beckwith kind of tied at three and three, 3 1/2.
1:18
But I think if, if Gilliard had a little bit more of a
1:20
postseason story, meaning 2, two different seasons where he won
1:23
games, I think he might have jumped everybody and become
1:25
number 1. So it's very possible.
1:27
So thank you for that question. I also have a piece of feedback
1:31
from one of our fans in Virginia Beach, RFD 28, we'll call him He
1:35
AB absolutely loved the bonus episode.
1:38
So Tom, you actually have a little bit of a redemption tour
1:41
'cause he loved it. I have one fan.
1:44
One fan, you have one fan and then another question, we'll
1:48
call it from RC Cola out of New York was you know, Brian Jordan
1:54
was a All Star in the major leagues, which is true.
1:57
He was an All Star in 1999. He also had 284 home runs, 821
2:04
RBIs with six in the NLMVP voting in 1996 and has was an
2:09
alternate in the 1991 Pro Bowl team as a defensive back for
2:13
Atlanta. Is it is it fair to say he was
2:15
the behind Bo Jackson, the second greatest multi sport
2:18
athlete of all time, ahead of Deion Sanders, who wasn't as
2:21
decorated in baseball? And my answer is probably not.
2:26
I think Deion Sanders still holds that that distinction.
2:29
And because Deion had a pretty good baseball career and was,
2:33
you know, one of the legendary players of all time in the NFLI
2:36
mean. And to give you an example, I
2:37
mean, Deion in one year hit 273 and stole 56 bases, which you
2:41
know, you don't do unless you're a legit talent.
2:44
So he played in the in the majors for a long time, had a
2:47
good career, but he was he was one of the best NFL players of
2:51
all time. Brian was a better baseball
2:53
player than Dion, but wasn't quite in Dion's category as a
2:57
football player. So I'd still say it probably is
2:59
greatest multi sport athletes of all time.
3:01
You're looking at Bo Jackson, Deion Sanders, then Brian
3:05
Jordan, then Poroshomo Poroshomo, if you count Wiffle
3:08
ball and badminton were I'd be, you know, up there in terms of
3:12
the the great sports rankings for.
3:14
Sure, and an emerging pickle ball talent.
3:16
Working on my pickleball game. It's not really good yet, but
3:19
we're working on it for sure. And as far as feedback goes, I
3:21
want to thank again everybody who's who takes the time to send
3:24
us feedback. We really do appreciate it.
3:26
Good or bad, we can we can roll with the punches.
3:29
Just a quick reminder to everybody why Tom and I are
3:31
doing this podcast. And one of the first reasons is
3:34
I mean, to be a, a top level team, it takes a it takes a
3:38
village. And if you if you look at the
3:40
other programs that play basketball in the Atlantic 10,
3:43
the top programs tend to have a fan driven podcast.
3:46
And so we felt like Richmond, you know, needs to have one to
3:50
remind everybody who's, you know, maybe on the fence of even
3:52
coming to Richmond that we are serious about our basketball as
3:55
we are. So that's one reason we we
3:57
believe in elevating the women's program.
3:59
I mean, especially after last year, we have a historic team
4:02
coming into this year. We want people to know about
4:04
that. So we will spend a lot of time
4:05
talking about the ladies who play for our women's team, just
4:09
reminding folks, you know, how impressive that that program is.
4:12
We also want to build community. You know, fans really can can
4:16
help take the team in bigger, better directions when there's a
4:19
sense of community. That's why we plug things like
4:21
the message board. That's why we talked about
4:23
places you can go to learn more about the teams.
4:26
We're clearly not doing it for the money.
4:27
Right, Tom? Yeah.
4:29
Not yet. Maybe one day, but right now
4:32
that's not the motivation. It's not a financial motivation
4:34
as to why we're we're doing the podcast.
4:36
So your feedback does matter. I mean, I, I think from our
4:39
perspective, it's we're building a little bit of momentum, which
4:42
is exciting. I mean, it's, you know, we had
4:44
kind of internal goals for ourselves.
4:46
I think I think we're reaching those goals early.
4:49
And we're a global brand now, aren't we poorer?
4:51
Yeah, 6 different countries are now streaming spider sound off.
4:55
So for our international listeners, thank you so much.
4:59
I think, you know, our goal, you know, is, is to get that beyond
5:02
six in the coming years and see where we can take.
5:04
It now we debate whether we have fans in other countries or we
5:08
just have fans that had exotic vacations this summer.
5:12
We are doing well in the Caribbean.
5:14
But but, but either way, we appreciate it wherever you're
5:16
listening and we'd love to know where you're listening to.
5:19
So you can you can comment on your podcast platform or on our
5:23
socials. Just look for a spider sound
5:26
off. And some of our fans have sent
5:27
us some really good feedback on some episodes they'd like to
5:30
see. We're going to work on
5:32
incorporating some of that into future episodes and just try to
5:35
continue to give you guys some content that you might not get
5:39
elsewhere but you might find interesting.
5:41
OK, so let's talk about the Atlantic 10.
5:44
So many of you may have seen that the Atlantic 10 is
5:49
celebrating its 50th anniversary, which is almost as
5:52
old as us. So it's, it's interesting to see
5:55
some of that history of the A10. But I think it's clear to us
5:59
that the greatest thing that ever happened to the A10 was 25
6:03
years ago in the year 2000 when they invited Richmond.
6:08
So let's in our time machine, let's talk about the spring of
6:12
2000, where we are now in the new Millennium.
6:16
The Y2K bug turned out to be, well, pretty much.
6:20
Not much. Not much at all.
6:23
Bill Clinton was in the White House.
6:24
We are heading into a crazy presidential election with Bush
6:29
versus Gore I. Haven't seen too many of those.
6:31
The whole, yeah, that's right, the whole Florida hanging chads
6:34
drama. There's a lot going on in pop
6:36
culture. Gladiator was a big movie, and
6:39
still some people would say their favorite.
6:41
The TV show Survivor was just beginning and it's been on every
6:46
year since, multiple times. Some of Porter's favorite
6:50
artists like Britney Spears and ***NSYNC and Destiny's Child
6:54
were on the radio. Good enough, and Eminem was
6:58
still living on Eight Mile. And he had those on his Discman
7:01
that probably sat on his front seat.
7:04
And if you had a phone, it was probably a Nokia phone.
7:07
And your favorite game on the phone was Snake.
7:10
OK, I don't think I ever played snake the sports world.
7:12
Kobe and Shax Lakers were on their way to their first NBA
7:16
title together. Saint Louis Rams featured the
7:19
Greatest Show on Turf, and they had just beaten the Tennessee
7:21
Titans in the Super Bowl by a full yard.
7:25
And the Yankees were dominating baseball, which shows you how
7:27
long ago it was 'cause they were.
7:29
They were both back-to-back championships, and it's been a
7:32
long time since the Yankees have dominated anything, it seems.
7:34
Yeah, that's right. Just maybe headlines in the in
7:38
the posts and everyone wanting to fire Boone is pretty much
7:41
what the Yankee talk is. And, and I'll also say that year
7:44
we were 22 and 7 under coach John Beeline.
7:47
We were one of the top programs in the CAA.
7:50
The Robins Center was full, and we were quietly wondering
7:54
whether the CAA could match our ambition.
7:57
And that's where our story starts.
7:58
The moment before Richard made the leap to the Atlantic 10,
8:02
that move changed spider history.
8:03
I don't think there's any debate of whether that was the right
8:06
move or not, but we want to talk a little bit about how how it
8:09
happened and some of the opinions during the time.
8:14
If you think of the CAA back then, it was a basketball focus
8:18
conference, but really A1 bid league.
8:21
I mean, Richmond and Navy, when David Robinson was there, both
8:25
got in, but that was kind of the that.
8:27
Large, right? Those those those were the 2.
8:29
Yeah, I think Richmond was the at large that year, if I can
8:31
correctly. But that that was the exception.
8:35
We already had the giant killer reputation from those wins prior
8:39
to Port and I being a school kind of our women's team made
8:42
the NCA for the first time in 1990.
8:44
They weren't as dominant or high profile as the men's team.
8:47
Remember in the early 90s it felt like James Madison was one
8:50
of our big rivals in the CAA with Lefty Drizell and some of
8:53
those teams. Yeah, that's right.
8:55
Yeah. If you look at the 10 years
8:57
before we got to this moment of deciding to go to the A10,
9:01
Richmond, Old Dominion, JMU were three premier programs that or
9:06
most of those one bid. Teams, can I take a second to
9:09
tell you a story about Jamie? Yeah, go right ahead.
9:11
So, so we, I think we might have mentioned it.
9:14
One of the early podcasts. I grew up in Harrisonburg, VA,
9:17
so I'm up from from the Shenandoah Valley and grew up
9:20
just minutes from James Madison's campus actually.
9:23
And so when we played Jamie my freshman year, we had a we got
9:30
what was it back then? A Midnight Madness ESPN
9:34
televised game. And so for conferences like the
9:37
CAA to get on TV, it was very difficult because there wasn't
9:41
this universal, like there's all these different TV contracts out
9:44
there. You had to actually play on like
9:45
ESPN to get it. And to get to get a game for
9:48
like Richmond Jamie, you had to wait till midnight to get on TV.
9:51
So we played in a legendary Midnight Madness game on
9:54
February 2nd of 1990. So I decided I was going to
9:58
going to take that weekend or whatever it was, what day of the
10:02
week it was to go back up to Harrisonburg, visit my folks.
10:04
So I go back up and do that, wait around till 11:00 PM, drive
10:08
over to the Convocation Center because I knew it was going to
10:10
be a sell out, which was Jamie's Arena back then.
10:13
Actually got some good tickets from a friend of the family.
10:15
So I was sitting really much pretty much courtside.
10:17
I seem to remember I was with somebody, I just can't remember
10:19
who it was, but I was pretty much right at the midcourt, low
10:23
seat, perfect seat for what was one of the loudest times I've
10:27
ever heard of CAA game. I mean, the Convocation Center
10:30
was packed to the gills with students and they had been, you
10:33
know, turning up the party notch quite a bit leading up to
10:36
midnight. And Jane, you came out like a
10:39
shotgun blast and absolutely ran over us from the opening whistle
10:46
to to the end of the game. I just seem to remember we were
10:50
down. And I'm going to try to go off
10:52
memory here because I didn't actually have this score, but I
10:54
think it was something like 40 to 13. 40 to 19.
10:58
OK, 40 it was so so it's 40 to 16 at this moment and I'm just
11:02
turning to the guy next to me saying this is embarrassing and
11:05
and we bring the ball down with a second or two to play and it
11:08
was either Atkinson or Wood, I can't remember.
11:10
No, sorry Atkinson or Blair that took a shot from half court and
11:14
it went in to make the score 40 to 19 and I just turned to my
11:18
buddy and said, well, at least there's that.
11:21
And then they went on to just roll a 77 to 43.
11:23
So we talk a lot about the great memories of the Spider Hoops.
11:26
The Midnight Madness game at the Convocation Center, February
11:29
2nd, 1990 was one of my low points as a Spider fan.
11:31
On the women's side, we talked about Pam Bryant in a prior
11:34
episode 1990. We won the CEA title and
11:37
Stephanie Gately LED our team the next year.
11:42
That was right before Old Dominion dominated women's side.
11:45
They won the league from I think between 93 and 2000.
11:49
They won 8 consecutive championships and they used to
11:51
go deep in the NC. Yeah, it was always, it was ODU
11:54
and Tennessee were the two premier women's programs back
11:56
then, and they were, they were legit.
11:58
And then Connecticut was just coming on the scene.
12:01
And the one thing that is interesting too, is that our
12:03
football team, as you know, we just moved to the Patriot League
12:06
back then in the year 2000, we were in the Atlantic 10 Football
12:11
Conference. So they had absorbed the Yankee
12:14
Conference and the Atlantic 10 was now the Football Conference
12:19
we were in. You know, our athletic director,
12:21
Jim Miller then like he was a known known in the A10 as our
12:25
football team was a member. So and what else was going on in
12:29
the A10 that you're kind of why, why was Richmond ever even
12:32
considered? Is that Virginia Tech, which was
12:35
in the Big East for football, was in the Atlantic 10 for all
12:38
other sports starting in 95. And then when it got to 1999,
12:44
Big East invited them to join for all sports.
12:48
And so that left an opening in the A10 and in that southern
12:52
region where Virginia Tech helped the A10 grow.
12:55
And we were a basketball school. We were looking for an
12:58
opportunity to have more probability of making the NCAA
13:02
tournament. The A10 had a much better track
13:04
record of getting at large bids to the Atlantic to the NCAA
13:08
tournament. They had schools like Dayton,
13:11
Xavier, Temple in the conference.
13:13
Massachusetts was was a big player back then.
13:16
So we wanted to find a way to capital, capitalize on our on
13:20
our men's basketball success and to some degree the ladies
13:24
success that we had in the early 90s.
13:25
And I think that factored into why we moved from the CAA to the
13:29
Atlantic 10. So it's May of 2000, we get
13:31
invited and accept the invite to join the Atlantic 10 and Porter.
13:36
From what I recall, the CAA was super excited about that,
13:39
weren't they? They didn't take it well, Tom.
13:41
They didn't take it well. In fact, in the bylaws of the
13:44
CAA was this little clause that said if you announce you're
13:46
leaving, you are banned from playing in the postseason
13:52
conference tournament that year. So coming into the 2000, 2001
13:56
year, our kids and coach knew that we were going to have to
14:01
earn an at large bid in order to play in March in the NCAA
14:04
tournament. And that bylaw just punished the
14:07
kids and Coach Beeline like those are the folks who were
14:10
punished. You can argue whether the the
14:13
bylaw is a good bylaw or not. I understand why the CEA doesn't
14:16
want to have another conference team represent them in the
14:20
tournament and. Then, and to be fair, they did
14:22
apply it consistently when other teams have left the CEA.
14:24
That's right. ODUJMUVCU all got that same sort
14:28
of band, but if you are just punishing kids who you know, you
14:31
have a season where you can't even go to the tournament to
14:34
prove you're the best team. You just are sitting and
14:36
watching from home. And you remember, like we had
14:38
talked about that it was very difficult to earn that large in
14:42
the CEA. I think it was back in the 80's
14:44
the last time it had happened. So pretty much going into the
14:46
season, we knew we had to win. We had to somehow win the
14:49
majority of our games in order to have any sort of shot.
14:52
Back then, the key metric the committee used was RPI versus
14:58
the Nets today. And RPI looked at who you
15:01
played, where you played them. They also looked at like, you
15:03
know, how hot were you coming into the NCAA tournament?
15:06
But to get in that large bid, you you pretty much needed to be
15:09
in the top 50 of the RPI that year.
15:12
V Line and crew finished 21 and six.
15:15
They were 43 in the RPI. They had a win against
15:18
Mississippi State on the road. So by some calculations, that
15:24
was a team that if ever deserved in that large bid, that team
15:27
deserved it. Looking at the results, one of
15:29
the things that surprised me is in two of our last four games in
15:32
the CA were against VCU and we won both of them.
15:35
So we ended the season kind of on a roll with wins against VCU,
15:40
American George Mason, VCU on the road.
15:44
So we're kind of at a high, but the RPI just wasn't good enough.
15:48
Well, it was good enough, but we got passed over.
15:49
So, you know, the NCAA decided it was there was somebody better
15:53
probably, you know, a team from the SEC or something like that
15:56
that went on and took that spot in the NCAA Tournament.
16:01
But we went on to the NIT and played West Virginia.
16:03
Yeah, What's great about the NIT, and at least it was, was
16:07
that if you were a top team going into NIT, you got some
16:10
home games. So we got a home game against
16:13
West Virginia in the Robbins Center.
16:15
March 16th, 2001. Games a game Porter and I were
16:18
both at and we blew them out. Yeah, I mean, I think the team
16:22
was frustrated. They've been off for 17 days
16:25
because they didn't play in the CIA tournament.
16:27
They got passed over. The fans showed out in force to
16:29
support the team and we took that out on West Virginia and
16:34
destroyed them. 7956 and a score that probably was closer than
16:37
the game was. And just to remind you of kind
16:39
of who was on the team back then and some of the stars from that
16:41
game by Kente Smith had a season high 24 points to lead us in
16:46
that game. Greg Stevenson, who was our best
16:48
player all year, almost averaged 20 points per game, had 18 and.
16:51
18 Greg Stevenson, one of the great transfers in the
16:54
University of Richmond. And also don't forget Eric
16:56
Zwayer was a big man for us then.
16:59
He scored 12. And Scott Ungerer, who does the
17:02
color commentary now for the men's games, added eleven
17:05
points. Great point guard.
17:06
We won eleven of our last 12 games up to that point.
17:09
So it was a big, big, strong stretch.
17:13
Unfortunately, what was next was a road game at Dayton.
17:17
Yeah. And as you guys now know,
17:20
playing in Dayton is a tough place to play.
17:22
It's one of the hardest venues to win it in the country and and
17:25
Dayton turned out for us in that second round, beat us pretty
17:28
easily, 71 to 56. We played a pretty good first
17:32
half and then they pulled away in the second-half.
17:34
Yeah, Greg Stevenson had a great game.
17:37
I think that was the last game of his career, 21 points last
17:41
game for us. So he did his best, but just
17:44
Dayton was better and I think playing at Dayton doesn't help.
17:48
We thought we'd kind of wrap up a little bit A10 history
17:51
comparing where that conference was then versus now.
17:54
We mentioned earlier they had 12 team Virginia Tech left.
17:57
We joined to replace that. A lot of those teams you guys
18:02
know well. So Duquesne, George Washington,
18:06
Rhode Island, Saint Bonaventure, Saint Joe's, LaSalle, Dayton,
18:10
Fordham, those are all teams that we still play today.
18:13
Also, U Mass, who through last year was in the Atlantic 10, but
18:18
they have now left us, but they were one of the charter members
18:21
that was still there then. And then two teams, the other
18:25
two teams that were there that have since left and are one,
18:28
Xavier left for the Big East. And then Temple, who's left and
18:32
left and left again, I think for a bunch of different conferences
18:36
because they're A-Team where they're following football
18:39
around. But Xavier and Temple were super
18:42
teams in the A10. Coach Cheney's a a legend and
18:47
those press conferences or or something to to be seen.
18:53
Yeah, we've added since that. We've added Saint Louis after
18:57
Richmond joined, we've added VCU, we've added George Mason,
19:01
we've added Butler, we've added Charlotte, Loyola Chicago, great
19:05
new addition to the A10. And Butler and Charlotte are the
19:08
they like came and left, right? So Butler, Butler, when they
19:12
came, it was super exciting because they were doing big
19:14
things in the NCAA tournament and they were here I think for
19:17
two years. And Charlotte's another team
19:21
like Temple that has been following football around.
19:24
So, you know, Butler is now in the Big East.
19:27
So they're still basketball school.
19:29
But Charlotte left and they've been chasing their their
19:31
football team and hoping for football to drive revenue,
19:35
probably since they left this Basketball Focus Conference in
19:38
2013. So to add a little meet, a
19:40
little controversy to the end of this episode, Tom, let's talk
19:43
about what's happened recently in the Atlantic 10 to the last
19:46
three years. I think we were A1 bid league.
19:47
Is that what you said? Yeah, that's right.
19:49
I mean, I think what what's evolved over time and really
19:53
just in the last few years is that the the big conferences
19:56
became those mega conferences that they are taking more and
20:00
more spots. Although I know there's
20:02
different opinions on this. The NCAA has decided not yet to
20:04
expand the tournament, so they're still debating that.
20:06
So it won't be any bigger in 2026, but it we are in a place
20:12
now where the A10 needs to to get 2 teams in like.
20:18
You're always hoping the best team loses in the tournament, so
20:21
VCU last year was our top team and I think if they'd lost in
20:24
the final, we were probably getting two teams in, but they
20:26
won and we just didn't have a second team that was in that,
20:30
you know, top 4045 net area to kind of get that I do.
20:35
Think, though, that the potential for that to change
20:38
back in our favor is there, and here's why.
20:40
So, you know, we were in this weird phase where we switched to
20:43
the net. Big schools realized how to game
20:45
the net by speeding up on quad four teams, you know, early in
20:49
the season by large margins of points and then just building up
20:53
their actual resume by playing in conference.
20:55
So it became harder and harder for a good team in the Atlantic
20:59
10 to get a game, you know, on our homecourt where we could
21:02
play somebody of of national quality and get that marquee
21:06
win. But now that they've they've
21:08
actually reached an agreement on on nil caps and things like that
21:13
or on. NIL caps.
21:14
NIL, caps, etcetera. Then I think I think you know
21:18
the basketball driven schools can share potentially more money
21:21
for their basketball programs than the big conference teams
21:24
will be able to commit to it given that they have to also
21:28
commit to huge football teams. So I think it could switch back
21:31
where the A10 becomes a premier conference for basketball with
21:36
three or four teams a year getting in again.
21:39
I think like most conferences, even in football, you're going
21:41
to see in the SEC, you're not going to see every team spend
21:44
the same amount on football. And I think we'll see that in
21:46
the A10. I think it'll be important for
21:49
Richmond to be kind of in that top third of how much you're
21:52
willing to spend on players. And there there will be a
21:54
difference between the top spending team and the lowest
21:57
spending team. How much is that is to to be
21:59
determined and maybe we never know.
22:02
Some of this will be public when you have public institutions,
22:05
but a lot of it won't be. But I do think the the top half
22:09
of the A10, if they're spending that 4 to $5,000,000 in today's,
22:13
today's money kind of compared to that 20 and a half million
22:16
we've talked before, you'll be in a place where you can
22:19
outspend the football conferences.
22:21
And that's, you know, the Big East is also excited about that
22:24
too. So, you know, the Big East,
22:26
which is really focused on basketball, they're also in a
22:29
place where they don't have, most of them don't have football
22:33
teams that they need to worry about spending money on.
22:36
And I mean, we, we, we did this A10 move.
22:38
I mean, it was, it was to it was to get at large bids to the NCAA
22:44
tournament. We already have the distinction
22:47
of being the only program in history to win an NCAA
22:49
Tournament game as a 12A13A14 and A-15 seed.
22:53
I think our goal is to start getting invited in as a an 8A7A6
22:58
like the ladies did last year when we played Georgia Tech.
23:01
I think it was a great move going to the A10.
23:03
We've gotten in the NCAA tournament more because we're in
23:07
the A10. I think there are challenges in
23:09
the college basketball landscape going forward.
23:13
But I think to to wrap all of this together kind of just a
23:17
shout out to the A10 and you're welcome.
23:22
There's your hot take. So anyway, we're going to try to
23:25
wrap this episode up now, and we'll be back with you in
23:30
another week about an exciting game of the past.
23:33
Yeah, it has a potential to be our best episode yet, so stay
23:37
tuned and thanks for listening. Hey, so this is Tom, this is
23:41
sport spiders sounding off. We will try.
23:44
To be funny and entertain. Maybe you'll learn something or
23:52
just complain.