Latest / Spiders Sound Off / Sweeney Takes Over at VCU, Men Hit Rock Bottom vs Davidson | Spiders Sound Off Ep. 42

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Sweeney Takes Over at VCU, Men Hit Rock Bottom vs Davidson | Spiders Sound Off Ep. 42 · Spiders Sound Off

0:05
Everybody, welcome back to another episode of Spider Sound
0:08
Off. This is Tom.
0:09
Hey, this is Porter. Welcome, I was counting.
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It's our 42nd episode. 42 of these does that make 21 and a
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half 22 hours something like? That I don't know, but but the
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real question now is who's going to score more or or what number
0:23
will be higher episode or the score by our Spiders men's team.
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We're starting to get to that line where we might have to
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debate that. But before we get into the men's
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debacle against Davidson, the women beat VCU today, so we got
0:38
to start with something good to. Talk ESPNU, nationally
0:42
televised. I had people that weren't even
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Spider fans who listened to the pod telling me that they were
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watching the game today out of excitement and the lady showed
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up. I mean, they showed up.
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It's a tough place to play. VCU, VCU7 and two at home this
0:55
year. They knew you knew where they're
0:57
going to have a huge crowd and they did.
1:00
And we survived whatever energy the crowd gave the VCU team in
1:04
the first quarter. 5373 official attendance.
1:08
OK. It's a big number.
1:10
And, you know, ended up with a really nice second quarter and
1:14
then kind of held on throughout the second-half to get the West,
1:17
which was our seventh straight. Yeah, seventh against VCU, right
1:21
as well, I think. Nice.
1:23
So anyway, it was a kind of a rough game.
1:26
Like I think they decided they were going to get physical with
1:29
with Maggie and Rachel. A lot of checks.
1:32
A lot of foul shooting. Hockey being played out there
1:34
today, a lot of foul shots. Wasn't wasn't pretty, but you
1:37
know, Maggie made all of her foul shots, so that helps. 18-6
1:40
and one is a good line for a game.
1:42
That was Maggie's line in the first half.
1:44
Yeah, yeah. And then and then Ally, kind of.
1:46
Take off The Sweeney show in the second-half.
1:49
I would use the words ruthlessly efficient to describe Ali
1:53
Sweeney's second-half. Her season high 27 points, I
1:57
think she had. Yeah, that's right, 10 for 14
2:00
shooting. Not bad, just unbelievable
2:03
effort from her. In the second-half.
2:04
I had people text me, like you, you keep talking about Dugan,
2:06
but like, Sweeney is dominant and you know what?
2:08
She showed up and showed out. It was a fantastic game.
2:11
I was. Listening, did you listen to the
2:13
post game at all? So I listen, I was on, I was
2:14
listening to the radio and listen to them talk to coach.
2:16
It's it was pretty entertaining. Like he, he, he kept saying
2:22
like, well, we got to give credit to Ally, but you but then
2:25
at some point he was like it took her too long to get going.
2:28
He's like he said, he told her, I think it sounded like in
2:32
between the 1st and the second quarter, like this is your game,
2:34
Ally, because they were so aggressive and over covering
2:38
kind of over committing really to Rachel and Maggie.
2:41
It's like this place is this is your game.
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So he was like urging her like, come on, come on.
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And eventually, you know, she had.
2:46
Her people see why we called it the Big three-way back in the
2:48
summer, right? Yeah.
2:49
So see the Big Three. The Big Three won that game for
2:51
us. Today, the radio announcers call
2:53
it the Big Three, too, by the way.
2:54
Yeah, yeah, yeah. OK, so look, I mean, that was
2:56
Porter dancing. The big three were dominant
2:59
today. I mean, all three of them played
3:01
phenomenal games. My probably favorite player to
3:05
talk about, Alicia Newell. Her three-point shot was off
3:08
today, but her confidence was not.
3:09
She was one for 10 shooting. Yes, she was.
3:12
She was, you know, spirited in her attempts.
3:14
Which look hey 3. Assist one turnover, so I say.
3:17
This, I'll say this, like, if you believe, which, you know,
3:20
these girls should believe at this stage of the season that
3:22
they're good at everything, then, you know, take your shot.
3:25
Like, I don't have any problem with it, right?
3:27
So, yeah, she was just off today.
3:29
But like, you know, still it's Alicia Noel.
3:31
She's instant energy when she's on the floor.
3:33
So I was listening to it on the radio and, and I found it the, I
3:38
don't know if you watched it all the way to the end, but there
3:40
was like 19 seconds left and we were up by 12.
3:44
Like that is usually like game over.
3:47
They came in and fouled. US saw that.
3:49
Put us on the line. I think we made our foul shots.
3:52
They had the ball and we had a bunch of fouls to give.
3:56
Yeah. So we fouled them three times
3:58
down the court, which is, I don't know if this was coach,
4:01
like sending a message of like, if you're going to play to the
4:03
last whistle, like, I know how to do that, too.
4:05
And isn't this annoying to let the other coach know that was
4:09
annoying? He pulled Ally and Maggie out
4:10
with 10 seconds to play and you heard the we are, You are chance
4:13
through the ESPNU broadcast, which was fantastic.
4:16
Yeah, that was ally's only rest for the game.
4:18
So after playing what, 50 minutes in the overtime thriller
4:22
against Davidson, she went almost 40 minutes against rival
4:25
VCU. But yeah, I mean she she was she
4:29
was dynamite kind of the big three came we got 10 total from
4:32
Sam and Tiara. So that's I think if we can get
4:35
to A10 plus from those two while the other three are having good
4:38
games like that, that's going to continue to push us forward.
4:41
I mean the. The downside?
4:43
We had 17 turnovers. That's too many.
4:44
Obviously we travelled a lot. Seem like they, like I maybe the
4:49
VCU coach had said something to the refs about watch these
4:51
girls. They have to take a step because
4:53
it seemed like they were looking to call that on us, it felt
4:55
like. But at the end of the day, when
4:57
you win by double digits on the road against your archrival and
5:01
you do it in front of 5000 fans, you can't complain, right?
5:04
I mean, it's just it's, it was a highly efficient Rd. win 2 and O
5:09
this year against VCU. If the men can beat VCU at home,
5:12
that means we win the four games just set against VCU, which
5:14
still has me, would make me happy.
5:17
Yeah, it was a great, great. It was a great day.
5:19
Kind of helped cleanse the the bad taste from last night at the
5:24
Robin Center. Yeah.
5:26
I will say for I mean, we noticed we'll look at some of
5:28
our stats from this podcast and there are times where we end the
5:32
podcast talking about the women's team and we see kind of
5:35
a drop off, a slight drop off in kind of in viewers.
5:40
And if you're a listener or a viewer who has lots of
5:44
complaints about what's going on with the men's team, like you're
5:47
missing out on some great coaching, some great playing
5:51
from the women's team. Like I would take if again, and
5:54
I've heard others say, like, I'm done.
5:56
I'm not watching the men's team anymore.
5:57
That doesn't mean don't watch spiders basketball.
6:00
This women's team is great to watch.
6:02
They have a great coach. They their offense is exciting.
6:05
It's inside, outside and they've got some big games coming up the
6:10
rest of their schedules. We played George Mason twice.
6:12
Those are going to be straight up.
6:13
Dance Rhode Island at. Home, Rhode Island again.
6:16
You have two teams undefeated in the conference.
6:18
You have Saint Joe's, which is a top 75 team.
6:21
You have 4 at least four games against quad 2 opponents left
6:27
and Davidson, so that's five. So you get 5 games against Quad
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2 opponents left. It is a there is a going to be a
6:31
lot of great basketball played by the ladies down the stretch,
6:35
and it's also the last couple chances that you'll have to see
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Rachel and Ally in the Robin Center.
6:40
Maggie, sorry, Ally's ally's got one more.
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Year one more year. My fault.
6:43
Rachel and Maggie see the Ally game is still lingering in my
6:46
mind. 27 points. But anyway, so it's the last
6:49
chance to see Rachel and Maggie in the Robin Center 112 future
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Hall of Famers, one who's undoubtedly going to her number
6:56
is going to be retired in the Robin Center number 44.
6:59
But both are future Hall of Famers for the for the Spiders.
7:01
Both are first team All American, first teammate 10.
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All whatever you call it, right? First teammate 10.
7:07
Yeah. First teammate 10.
7:10
Yeah, so. Maggie was nominated for the mid
7:12
season like. All American.
7:14
Yeah, she was. So she's got a chance.
7:16
Speaking of All American too, just to put a little plug in
7:18
there, we have three incoming recruits that also made the.
7:22
McDonald's for. Yeah, they were nominated for
7:24
the McDonald's High School All American list.
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Erica Gribble, who is also ESPN Top 100, Lila Coogan and Kate
7:31
Schindler. Congratulations to our three
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recruits who who are all 810 or, I'm sorry, All American high
7:39
school nominees. Yeah.
7:40
So we have, I think we have 5 recruits coming in.
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So yes, the the other two are great too.
7:44
So we got a great. Class, you know that it's only
7:46
going to get, I mean, look, it's a program.
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It's a program and it's been built successfully and it is
7:52
super fun to watch. So get out there and support the
7:54
ladies. Definitely get out.
7:55
There and OK, so the women are at Saint Louis on Wednesday.
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It's an 8:00 PM game, so later than normal because it's, you
8:02
know, central time. It's on ESPN Plus.
8:04
Saint Louis is five and six in conference.
8:08
They've lost three in a row, so they're struggling a bit.
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I think I looked at Bartorovic after our game today and we're
8:16
kind of 9010. We actually dropped a little bit
8:18
in some of the efficiency stats from the VCU game, but we got a
8:21
90% chance to win, they say, 76 to 62.
8:25
Yeah, if you're looking at a trap game, that's a trap game
8:26
because you got George Mason right behind him, I think.
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And so, you know, you're going on the road and you got a really
8:31
big foe right behind him. That's considered, I think a
8:33
trap game. But I don't think Saint Louis is
8:35
going to is going to is going to beat us.
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They've got a six foot 6 freshman, highly efficient.
8:42
Let's get her the portal. She's a good, she's a good
8:44
player you have to watch out for.
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They've got some other good players.
8:47
OK, so let me give you some stats that I thought was
8:49
interesting. So they are 300 and sixth in
8:53
three-point shooting percentage. That's not very good and they're
8:58
261 in three-point rate. So they actually don't take a
9:01
lot of threes and they're not good at it, which you know if
9:03
you're not good at threes, don't take.
9:05
I kind of get that our and our team have not allowed anyone in
9:11
A10 play to go double digit 3 pointers against this OK and
9:16
until today this is my great stat damn this VCU game.
9:20
But until the VCU game we had had double double digit 3
9:25
pointers on offensively every game in the A tenant.
9:28
Today was the first one. We only had eight, but we are
9:31
third in the nation in rate, 3 point rate and 15th in
9:36
three-point percentage and six in two point percentage.
9:39
So we're like elite offensively. We're playing a team that if you
9:42
look at their metrics, the good ones are defensive, but because
9:46
they can't hit the three or so far have shown they can't hit
9:49
the three. Like like that's the way you can
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if you're going to keep up with us, like you have to be shooting
9:54
3 pointers, right? So and what and Tiara Simon
9:58
going back to Saint Louis for the first time so.
10:01
Rebecca Rebecca Tillet's the coach, she coached at Longwood
10:04
for two years. She made the tournament one of
10:07
those two years at Longwood going 22 and 12.
10:10
Then she goes to Saint Louis, makes the tournament as a as a
10:14
13 seed in Saint Louis at first year.
10:16
It looks like even though she finished the season 17 and 18.
10:20
So they must have won the A10 tournament in 2023.
10:23
And then she's kind of been middle of the pack since then.
10:26
She had a good year in 24 and then a kind of a a bit of a fall
10:29
off in 25 and a further fall off in 26 in terms of Bartorvic
10:33
ranking. So she's definitely a capable
10:36
coach and she'll have the girls ready to play, But it's not a
10:40
game that I feel like we should lose.
10:42
But at the end of the day, too, like, you know, you're going to
10:44
be looking past that to the George Mason this weekend, next
10:46
weekend. And that's a big.
10:47
Yeah, but I don't think, I mean, this is where like, I think
10:50
Maggie being almost the assistant coach on the floor, if
10:55
if by chance we got off to a bad start against a team like Saint
10:59
Louis, like in between periods, she'll take over.
11:02
Well, Maggie's going to, yeah, tell, tell the players,
11:05
including herself that they need to pick it up.
11:07
What's been great, Of course, if I was thinking back to when we
11:11
interviewed Ali and coach after a game, was it 6 weeks ago and
11:16
that was the point in time in the season was like, we were
11:18
just weren't starting very good. Like we were blowing teams out
11:21
in the second-half. We weren't a good first half
11:23
team. We we've seen that change, which
11:25
is great. We can see in the first half
11:28
like whether it's the first quarter, the second quarter kind
11:30
of a dominating performance that gives us a big enough lead that
11:33
we don't have to, you know, come back in the second-half.
11:36
So I think good progress there. I, I did say we'd win DC by 20.
11:40
We did not. I said 14.
11:41
I think it looked like maybe I said Bartorvic was called.
11:44
Yeah, it it looked like we could we could get there at some
11:47
point. I mean, I think outside of a tie
11:48
early on, yeah, we are winning the entire.
11:50
Game the refs made a couple questionable calls on Maggie to
11:53
begin that third quarter took her out of the third quarter all
11:55
together and I think that really slowed down the momentum we were
11:58
having. I wasn't a it was a it was a it
12:01
was a physical game let's just say that.
12:03
And it was one of those games where which is just a you get
12:06
into these battles in the A10 that are just ugly battles, but
12:08
you got to win them and the ladies.
12:09
Did that. OK, we're going to talk about
12:11
ugly battles. We got to switch to that ugly,
12:14
ugly game at home against Davidson.
12:18
We lost 79 to 54. We have gone from three and two
12:23
in conference to three and seven in conference.
12:28
We had put 15 points in the first half, didn't wasn't able
12:32
to find a good source to figure out when does that ever happened
12:35
before or when's the last time. We only scored 15 in the first
12:39
half and it obviously didn't get better.
12:40
I mean, heck, I mean, Bill Dooley left the game with 11
12:45
minutes left. So that kind of tells you that
12:48
the fans weren't very happy with that performance and it was just
12:53
there, I mean. Technically, he just left where
12:55
you could see him. He could have gone downstairs to
12:57
to be in some sort of insider party that we weren't invited.
12:59
Yeah, it's true, but he but you don't know.
13:01
Where it went, but at the end of the day, I mean, look at the end
13:03
of the day, it was a it was a ugly game, right?
13:06
It was a it was the worst half of spider basketball I think
13:10
I've seen since, you know, maybe 2005 or 6.
13:14
It was just bad. Yeah, it's hard to say.
13:16
Bad, bad. It was awful.
13:18
I do say, and you heard me joke about this, so I, I, I like a
13:21
Premier League soccer team called Tottenham and the fans
13:25
over the years have called him Doctor Tottenham.
13:28
Because when like you need some momentum or you're, you're not
13:31
feeling great about yourself, you go play Tottenham and then
13:34
you feel better. I feel like we've turned into
13:36
that over the last five games. Time with Doctor Richmond.
13:38
You come see the doctor. Teams are getting their
13:40
three-point shot. I mean, Blum from them had a
13:43
season high against us, so he was unconscious, couldn't miss.
13:47
I think we did. We're right now, we're a
13:48
confidence booster forever. We play.
13:51
That's a problem. So let's talk about like, I'll
13:53
give you 2 positives, 6100 plus people turned out, you know,
13:57
that's a huge crowd for a Saturday night with ice all over
13:59
the place and the spider uniforms were legitly, they were
14:02
fire. Like they were awesome.
14:04
Those are the two positives I came up with, right?
14:07
Still not many students so. There was more students than
14:10
there had been in. It was under 100.
14:11
It was. I have pictures.
14:13
I haven't done the math, but it was a bigger crowd than I'm used
14:15
to seeing in sections 11 and 12. You know, here's the deal,
14:19
right? Like, Tom and I are fans
14:22
masquerading as journalists. We do this fan opinion podcast.
14:26
I have, you know, principles that I go by.
14:29
You have your own principles, My, my core principles.
14:33
I've I've said them repeatedly. Why are we talking about
14:35
principles? We got to talk about the men's
14:37
game. Well, that's what I'm going to
14:38
do. I I've got to, I want to talk
14:39
about the because it guides my conversation.
14:41
OK, so let me get through my little thing before you
14:43
interrupt me, you know, go ahead.
14:45
You know, it's this happens, you know, like I got it like.
14:48
You rattled me, delaying the inevitable.
14:50
Go ahead. So here's the deal #1 like we
14:52
believe, I believe we need to raise the profile of the women's
14:55
program because of what's going on over there, right?
14:56
We do that. We talk about the women's team.
14:58
You guys heard us. You guys have talked to us about
15:00
that. We get it right.
15:02
I personally am nudging the athletic department to try to
15:05
adopt analytics at scale, not only just in how you coach, but
15:09
how you recruit, how much you pay a player, how you recruit
15:12
alumni to donate. All of it can be driven through
15:15
analytics. I, I believe that's a, that's a
15:16
key way for our basketball program to take a step forward.
15:21
The only other two principles I have about the podcast are to be
15:23
authentic and honest, right? To try to tell people what I see
15:27
and do good. I don't, I don't want to tear
15:29
down the program that I love. I don't want to hurt the program
15:31
I love, right? These are these are things that
15:32
I, I, I set out when I start to come up with what I'm going to
15:36
say it each episode. You and I don't talk almost ever
15:39
before the episodes other than to say, you got the scout here,
15:42
I got the scout here. But that doesn't mean I don't
15:44
think a lot before I come out to the studio about what I'm going
15:47
to say and how I'm going to say it.
15:49
And how do I, you know, tell what's going on by staying true
15:53
to those principles, right? For those of you guys who don't
15:56
know, I mean, we have a lot of people following us on a lot of
15:58
different platforms. Recruits follow us.
16:00
They're parents of the players that follow us.
16:03
There are, you know, team, they're actually kids on the
16:05
team that follow us. You know, so I, I want to stay
16:08
true to the fact that that that, you know, I'm trying to help the
16:11
program in all ways that I can. You know, I do get a lot of
16:15
inputs. Some of those inputs come in the
16:17
form of like people's opinions that are texting me to me during
16:20
the game. I get a lot of feedback from my
16:22
friends who are spider fans during the game, some of it
16:24
funny as can be, some of the wildly inappropriate, but like,
16:27
I get a lot of feedback. You know, I, I post it on the
16:30
message board. I, I put my, my handle out there
16:33
so everybody knows who I am. I'm you are fan too.
16:35
If you're ever on the message board, that's who I am.
16:37
Everybody knows what I say on the message board.
16:40
It is what it is, right? You know, So as I, as I, as I
16:45
tell you this time, I'm telling you this because there, there's
16:47
like this, there's this a lot of people who really, really like
16:50
the way Mooney has done things for 2121 years.
16:53
There's also people who are genuinely upset, right?
16:55
And genuinely angry. And I try to, to try to tell you
16:59
guys the story that I see as I navigate through this little
17:03
podcast that we have. And sometimes I'm probably too
17:06
optimistic, like I think I've been the last five or six games
17:09
where I said, Hey, we got the right ingredients.
17:11
We just need the right recipe. It's hard for me to say that
17:14
after the beatdown we took yesterday.
17:16
I mean, it was like the ingredients just didn't show up.
17:18
I didn't think that with the the kids came with the effort
17:21
necessary. And I credit the Mooney for what
17:25
he said in the post game. It wasn't super detailed, but it
17:28
it, you know, it was honest and it was transparent, he said.
17:30
I'm disappointed in our entire game today.
17:33
The effort, the energy level which had not, which had been
17:35
strengths of this team was nowhere to be found.
17:37
Coaches did not have our team prepared, players did not play
17:40
with as much energy as we needed them to.
17:42
Davidson played great, but we allowed Davidson to play great.
17:45
He took, he took accountability for the result, which I, which I
17:50
do love. I mean the.
17:50
Guys, But this is what I like, OK?
17:52
I want to get into some real stats here.
17:55
I appreciate what you're saying and I actually appreciate, I
17:57
think over the last whatever, 40 plus episodes.
18:01
I think if we went back 30 episodes and we were doing the
18:03
Davidson game before we recorded, you would have been
18:06
like, hey, Tom, I don't want you to talk about this or I don't
18:09
want you to be. And I think you've realized
18:10
like, I mean, you're in trying to be authentic.
18:13
Like we can't and you just can't control what I say anyway.
18:16
I can't even. Try to say anyway, but I just
18:18
wanted to share with the folks. So you wonder why, like I, you
18:20
know, I do things. It's like, honestly, I'm trying
18:22
to do good, but at the same time I've got to be honest and and I
18:25
have to be authentic and it's hard sometimes to navigate OK
18:28
that that. Bounce we got it.
18:29
So the Davidson game is was terrible, but I think it's just
18:34
evidence of what this season has been like.
18:36
So let let me just give you some stats.
18:38
So we've talked about how we're a good three-point shooting team
18:40
and we still still second in the A10 in three-point percentage,
18:44
but we are 11th in three-point rate.
18:48
OK. So that tells me like 1, you can
18:51
either say we're not shooting enough or we only shoot the ones
18:54
that we know we're really going to make, OK?
18:56
I will say this about the Davidson game.
18:58
I didn't think we were open very much.
19:00
It's like they figured out a way to make it so that we weren't
19:02
open. OK.
19:03
And field goal in two point, field goal percentage, we're
19:06
14th. So we're last in the A10 in two
19:09
point field goal percentage. So we don't take enough threes.
19:13
So we take more twos than we probably should and we stink at
19:17
shooting twos. We're also 10th in a 10 in
19:20
assist rate. So the ball like we like our
19:24
basically I'm declaring our offense is broken.
19:27
And I don't know if like we do this kind of modified Princeton
19:30
offense. It's not really like the
19:31
traditional Princeton offense because that used to be like
19:33
slow. The ball we remember like the
19:35
early Mooney years was a different shot clock.
19:37
It was all like very deliberate and slow.
19:39
I mean, he's evolved a lot. He wants us to play fast.
19:42
But I think we would both agree. You look at the data, we take
19:47
too many and 1 is too many two point jumpers.
19:52
It's it's our average distance is further than most teams in
19:55
the. Country and they and they need
19:56
to be coached out of these players and it's not happening.
19:59
I don't know if that's the players, how much is like it's,
20:02
you know, you can't control, it's not a you don't have a
20:04
joystick to control the players and you're the coach.
20:06
I. Think it's partially, you know,
20:08
like the type of players that you have and it's also part of
20:10
the partly that what the system presents as open shots.
20:13
I had a so I think one of the reasons I was so optimistic and
20:16
why I believed that we could, we could really make a run in the
20:20
A10 tournament was that, you know, we beat Belmont at
20:24
Belmont. And so I've been thinking about
20:25
that win a lot. That's too much.
20:26
That's a quad one win, right? So, but like Belmont placed the
20:30
pack line defense. You know, it's, it's a really,
20:32
it's the UVA place. It's a very difficult defense to
20:35
to beat. And the reason it is, I think,
20:37
is that pack line defense is set up to stop the modern game.
20:41
It really makes it hard for you to get shots right around the
20:42
basket. And we don't play that way,
20:45
right? We don't we don't take our shots
20:47
right around the basket. So we're the perfect team to
20:48
beat that defense, right, because of the way we play is
20:50
very different. But there's got to be, I think,
20:53
another wrinkle that we add to the way we play that gives us,
20:57
gives us another way to kind of score that gives us, you know,
21:00
higher. Probability well, and I told I
21:02
told you late in the game to kind of look for this, it was
21:04
kind of too late. But if you look at the kind of
21:07
the NBA or you look at the top college basketball teams, like
21:11
modern basketball lives on the pick and roll.
21:15
We have no idea how to put how to do that.
21:17
And what I noticed yesterday is that when our center comes out
21:22
to pick the guard at the top of the key, the two defenders
21:25
follow the guard so he can't shoot.
21:28
So that pick does nothing for that guard.
21:30
The big man rolls off and is wide open and the guard doesn't
21:35
look for him. The guards double covered and
21:37
goes to the corner and like, like and and I and I and that's
21:40
not new this year. Like I don't know if the
21:43
obviously they're rolling off and whether it was walls or was
21:48
Robinson, they're putting their hands up and they're like, I'm
21:50
wide open, get me the ball. And they did not get the ball
21:53
out of the probably 10 times they ran that yesterday.
21:56
And like that's a part of somehow it's being worked on.
22:01
But like we have, you look at the game, we have no idea how to
22:05
run the pick and roll and whether that's Princeton offense
22:08
or not Princeton offense, I don't know.
22:10
But like those guys are wide open because when teams are like
22:14
Davidson did what a lot of teams have done, they have their
22:16
centre like sitting under the basket a lot of the game too.
22:19
So I, you know, the teams have figured out our offense.
22:23
I mean have you seen a back door all season?
22:24
Maybe 1? Here's the thing.
22:26
Like, at the end of the day, you and I are podcasters and, and
22:29
like, I'd love the fact that you're doing really good
22:31
basketball analysis here. I'm not the guy to fix what's
22:33
going on and you aren't either. Like, at the end of the day,
22:35
neither of us know how to fix it.
22:37
We're just observing what we see.
22:40
And it is frustrating. And we're both frustrated
22:42
because like, we, we want to win.
22:43
And I think the coaches want to win, the players want to win.
22:45
I get it. We were, we were, I thought,
22:49
making progress, you know, especially with wins against
22:52
Belmont and Southern Illinois and a good win against William
22:55
and Mary. And then we hit this wall.
22:57
And I can't explain the wall because, like, we're O and we're
23:00
O and five in our last five games.
23:01
And the average margin of victory over those five games is
23:03
15 points. I mean, we're getting crushed,
23:06
right? Other than the Rhode Island
23:07
game, which was close, we're getting crushed.
23:09
Well, I mean, this is like, I mean, you, you tell the story of
23:11
how we got there. Like in some ways it's not
23:13
surprising, you know, putting whether you like what's
23:15
happening, you know, with our team in terms of players or
23:18
coaches or whatever is that we played Saint Louis at Saint
23:21
Louis, the best team. I mean, they're a top 20 team
23:23
now and got annihilated. Then we came home and it was
23:27
like, lick your wounds, you're home, you're playing Rhode
23:29
Island and we're winning the almost the entire game.
23:32
And they hit a last second shot and it's like a Backbreaker.
23:35
And we just have not recovered from that.
23:38
And what worries me is that Mooney, this is not the first
23:41
post game where Mooney talked about lack of energy.
23:44
And so I like, I worry. And this is maybe a different
23:48
sport term than college basketball, but I worry he's
23:50
lost the locker room. I don't think that's the case,
23:53
honestly. I think you're just making an
23:55
assumption based on what you just saw in that last game.
23:57
I mean, that's the way that's that's going to step too far in
23:59
my opinion. Well, yeah, of course I don't
24:00
know it, but when it's energy and effort.
24:02
Here's Yeah, yeah. And and let me just one other
24:05
thing, like when we interviewed coach, he talked about and you
24:08
know, there's some kind of frustration.
24:09
This wasn't like talking about specific players, but how
24:12
players today talk about transferring in the portal and
24:14
money like all year round. And it wasn't the days of where
24:18
like if you mentioned transfers, he mentioned like Kendall
24:20
Anthony sounds like he has some story where some player talked
24:23
about like, I'm going to transfer and Kendall Anthony
24:25
like threatened him and said like, no, you're not like this
24:27
is, you know, this is the Richmond way and nothing.
24:30
You're jumping, you're jumping to an assumption there.
24:32
But I will say this, but I I I. Get my point is like today, the
24:35
port, like I mean said, the port is always open.
24:37
So different game when your team starts losing and losing and
24:40
losing, like it's very hard to keep your players focused on
24:44
like what matters is now versus what are you going to do next
24:48
year when your team is, you know, now five in a row, like
24:52
it's hard to it's it's hard to get that team.
24:55
Back, I mean, I at the end of the day, you know, the analytics
25:00
said early on that we weren't going to make the Insula
25:02
tournament. And I think our high probability
25:04
was like 4%. And I, I thought they were
25:06
wrong. I thought like we were, we were
25:08
making progress, but the analytics were kind of right
25:11
about the team. We just, we just aren't, we just
25:13
aren't an NCAA caliber team. That being that being said, I
25:16
can live without having an NCAA caliber team as long as, you
25:19
know, we're building for something that gives me real
25:21
excitement next year. And we do have some really
25:24
exciting younger pieces on this team, you know, in the form of
25:28
Aiden Argebrite. So we hope he's OK Had a bad
25:30
ankle injury it looked like at the end of that game.
25:32
We're hoping he's OK. You know, I really like Jaden
25:35
Daughtry. He's a junior.
25:36
I I love David Thomas. I mean, I like you still got,
25:39
you still got Tyne and Tanner. You've got other juniors coming
25:41
back, you got some red shirts that are in the system.
25:44
Jalen Robinson's a stud. Like, I mean, there's people
25:46
here that like, like last year, you know, we had eight Division
25:49
One wins. It didn't feel like we were we
25:51
were had a lot of hope and then we had a decent portal, it
25:53
looked like. And I thought the hope is
25:55
rebuilt. I think that, you know, there's
25:58
a lot of things and I think Mooney said this in his post
26:00
game, everything is on the table when you have a loss like this,
26:02
right. And so they're going to look at
26:03
everything in the program to figure out what they could they
26:05
do better. That includes like, you know,
26:07
Richmond, the university needs to make sure that we're we're
26:11
helping to spend the money necessary to be competitive.
26:15
We have the highest endowment in the Atlantic 10, at least
26:16
according to Google Gemini that I can see.
26:18
We got to make sure we're spending money to to get the
26:21
players that are going to help the coach win the games.
26:24
You know, the fans 6100 turned out yesterday.
26:27
That's a huge crowd. I mean, the crowd was ready for
26:29
a for a really good performance. We just didn't we just didn't
26:32
give it to him. And I know the players, I mean,
26:34
they care. I'm sure they care.
26:35
I know like they're they're loyal to each other, they're
26:38
loyal to the coach. I don't think he's lost the
26:39
locker room. I just think we have lost belief
26:42
in ourselves and I thought we had turned the corner with the
26:44
second-half of the VCU. Game.
26:45
Yeah, me too. And that's why I'm surprised
26:47
about what happened. And I actually thought, if
26:49
anything, we're going to blow Davidson out in the first half
26:51
and we're going to have to hang on because maybe we, you know,
26:53
we stutter. But like, we just got rolled in
26:55
that first half and I have no idea what happened.
26:56
OK. So I'm going to, I want to end
26:58
this with, I'm going to, you know, quiz you on something and
27:00
it's not really a quiz, it's more an opinion, OK.
27:02
Last year, a season nobody was really proud of, we won five
27:07
games in conference, yes. So that's 5 and 13.
27:11
This year we are three and seven, yes, we have eight games
27:15
left. And before you get to the
27:17
answer, just, you know, last year you needed seven wins not
27:20
to be in the bottom 4. The year before was a bunch of
27:23
teams had six wins. So it was kind of a tiebreaker
27:26
where they had it or not. And so there's a little bit of
27:30
Dewey win more than last year's team, which was 5.
27:34
I'll I'll go through the schedule in a second and or do
27:36
we get out of the bottom 4? So we were at Rhode Island,
27:40
George Mason at home, VCU at home at Davidson, two games or
27:45
will be favored as of now, St. Bonnie's at home and then at
27:48
Loyola Chicago and then Dayton at home and then at Duquesne.
27:55
So, so we've got eight games left.
27:56
Again, Bonnie's and Loyola, the two would be favored.
27:59
And if you go with just the spreads, we're going to end up
28:01
with just five wins, I think, Bartorovic says.
28:04
We'll have 6 because they always give you, you know, they don't
28:06
assume the spreads guarantee everything.
28:09
But where do you think we end up as a final conference record?
28:15
I don't know, man, because I'm, I don't know how bad ankle
28:17
Argebrite's ankle is. I everything that I've thought
28:21
about like we're going to get right and move in the right
28:23
direction has proven so far not to come true.
28:25
So I have no idea and I I'm hesitant even to make a
28:28
prediction. I mean, I think we have.
28:30
This is the guy who does like baseball Rotisserie in January
28:34
when he doesn't know anything about, heck, where half the
28:37
players are going to be. I.
28:38
Know, I know I do a lot of data analysis about baseball.
28:42
Here's the thing, like, you know, we have a week off and you
28:45
know, there's got to be some soul searching done with the
28:48
team we need, we need like the team captains to come forward
28:51
and really ignite the fire in the team.
28:54
You know, the coaches have to look at everything, figure out
28:55
what we can do better and you know, we got it.
28:58
We're maybe a game delayed from getting on that run.
29:00
I don't have a lot of optimism that that's an easy fix anymore.
29:04
I thought it was because I just thought we would.
29:07
We'd come and beat Davidson at home.
29:08
But I mean, look, I'm going to all the games.
29:11
I'm going to continue to go to all the games.
29:13
I'm a supporter of the program. I want to see these guys when I
29:16
want to see this, this coaching staff win.
29:19
But I also, you know, recognize college basketball is hard and
29:21
it's changing and, you know, it's it's a very different time
29:25
than it was 10 years ago. Right.
29:27
So if we end up in the bottom 4, it'll be 3 out of four years
29:32
we're in the bottom 4 of the 810.
29:34
Yeah, it's not good. Now of course the other year we
29:36
are first right and that was going on the 8:10 that was the
29:39
Jordan King, Jordan King and kind of magic season.
29:43
But three, you know, we bottom 4 is it's just hard to accept that
29:47
that's where we're going to end up after such a promising start.
29:50
And this room, like I said, they got a week and coach said like
29:52
this is they're going to spend they got a few days just to look
29:55
at themselves. They don't have to worry about
29:57
the scout. They don't have to worry about
29:59
Rhode Island at all. Yeah, you can focus on
30:01
themselves, kind of see how this team rallies and practice.
30:04
Hopefully they rally hard in practice.
30:07
That doesn't mean you win the games, but he better, you know,
30:09
I know coach is going to be pushing for a lot of effort in
30:12
practice this week. Yeah, they'll focus on Rhode
30:14
Island later in the week and travel out there for I think
30:18
it's Saturday. I mean, the thing about
30:20
performance is, you know, and, and especially in basketball,
30:23
you, you know, each game presents a new opportunity to to
30:26
change momentum, right? And it at this level where
30:30
everybody is good. You've heard the coach say that
30:32
a lot of times in this game, everybody's good, right?
30:34
Everybody can play. You know, a lot of it just comes
30:36
down to, you know, belief in yourself, trust in the process,
30:39
trust in the system that you're being coached to play and going
30:42
out and, and doing what you have to do.
30:44
And we had a little bit of that early on.
30:46
I mean, we had some of that momentum and then we've now lost
30:49
it. And so we got to get it back.
30:51
And, you know, there's not going to be easy, but we have to get
30:53
it back. And it's going to be incumbent
30:54
upon the players on the team, I think, to do it.
30:56
Now, just to add, not something one of our mutual friends
31:01
brought to my attention, is this your second season of U of R
31:05
basketball since you moved to Richmond?
31:07
I came back right at the time that the team was winning the
31:12
A10 Championship at the end in February of what was that, 23 or
31:17
24? I can't remember the exact year.
31:19
Yeah, 24. Yeah.
31:20
So I'm, I'm this is I'm I'm I will be back for two years.
31:23
This. OK, so you've been here for two
31:25
full seasons and just a little bit of the season.
31:27
I know where this is gonna go. So just so everyone knows, our
31:30
team is, I think. You're gonna say I went from the
31:32
A10 Championship before I came to Richmond to like 2 bad.
31:35
Yes, we're eight problem. We're 8 and 20 in the A10 since
31:38
Porters moved to Richmond cast hasn't really helped.
31:42
You know so I you know I'm to blame as well.
31:43
I you know I I haven't been able to rub off anything in terms of
31:47
winning with with this Richmond team.
31:49
But yes, if you're, if you're, you're, you're looking for
31:53
someone to blame and you're not, you're, you don't want to blame
31:55
the players or the coach. Like I'm more than happy if you
31:57
want to blame Porter. I was at the Robinson when
32:00
Mooney cut. Down the Nets for winning the
32:01
A10 championship. So I feel like I had a little
32:04
bit of a little bit of good mojo going right and then look like
32:07
Jordan what happened? Jordan King got hurt and we we
32:10
didn't make the we had a bad run in the a 10 tournament and get
32:13
bounced out of the NIT. See, I was here for that.
32:17
Is it me? Am I the jinx?
32:19
I mean, you know, they call me the Black Widow for a reason,
32:21
right? I I jinx a lot of a lot of
32:23
positions that people don't want me to jinx.
32:24
So I don't know. Well anyway, I think we'll
32:27
probably. Wrap it up here, we've had
32:28
enough of a pity party. And let's not forget this
32:32
women's team is is doing some great things, haven't lost since
32:36
their first game of, of the A10 against Rhode Island.
32:39
They've got a game on Wednesday at Saint Louis at 8:00 PM.
32:43
So that's the only game during the week.
32:46
So we will chat after that and hopefully, you know, hear about
32:50
some great practices on the men's side leading up to the
32:53
Rhode Island game. And then where do the women go
32:55
next? The women have, oh, they've got
32:57
George Mason at home on the 7th. So yeah, I just got a big game.
33:01
The last five we actually. Outplayed the opponent
33:04
thoroughly was Rhode Island and we just missed some foul shots
33:06
down the stretch. That might be the game to get
33:08
right. Like if we can go, if we can
33:09
just hit the redo button second time we play Rhode Island, get
33:12
that win and and get us going on a streak.
33:14
You never know. So OK, well, until next time.
33:17
This is Tom and this is Porter and this is.
33:19
Spider. Sounding off, see ya that.
33:23
Was enthusiastic women and men spiders?