Latest / Spiders Sound Off / Episode 28: Interview with Jim Merritt plus Richmond Spiders Preview: Liberty Women’s Test, Southern Illinois Men’s Matchup.

Transcript

Episode 28: Interview with Jim Merritt plus Richmond Spiders Preview: Liberty Women’s Test, Southern Illinois Men’s Matchup. · Spiders Sound Off

• 0:05
  Hey Spider fans, welcome back to Spider.
• 0:08
  Sound off. This is Tom.
• 0:09
  And this is Porter. We are here midweek to record
• 0:12
  another podcast. It is finals week.
• 0:14
  We have no test today. I don't have a a test prepared
• 0:17
  for you. I thought about it, but as
• 0:18
  there's no, we don't have to take any finals this week,
• 0:20
  Porter. No finals for me.
• 0:22
  That's great. The students are taking finals,
• 0:24
  so there's no midweek games, but what we do have is a special
• 0:29
  guest today. We have Jim Merritt, AU of R
• 0:33
  graduate and now the Associate Athletics Director for
• 0:36
  Basketball Development, is going to be joining us in a bit.
• 0:39
  Excited to have Jim on the show, really excited to hear what he's
• 0:42
  up to. Hey, we want to welcome Jim
• 0:43
  Merritt today to Spider Sound Off.
• 0:46
  Jim is the Associate Athletics Director for Basketball
• 0:49
  Development and also a Spider alum.
• 0:52
  Jim, we thought maybe just to kick this things off, tell us
• 0:55
  about your your Spider story. What what let you go into
• 0:57
  Richmond back in the day and what your experience was like as
• 1:00
  an undergrad? Well, thanks for having me,
• 1:03
  first of all, glad to be with you guys.
• 1:05
  And so thanks for all you do for Spider basketball in general.
• 1:10
  But yeah, so backing up 1000 years, I grew up in Kansas City
• 1:16
  and then I actually did a one year prep school year after I
• 1:22
  graduated from high school at Lawrenceville in New Jersey.
• 1:25
  And that's how Richmond got on my radar.
• 1:28
  But I I ended up coming here and playing baseball for, you know,
• 1:32
  all four years. And, and so I, I was a poli sci
• 1:37
  English major and worked in the athletic department back in the
• 1:40
  day, but I was kind of here for some of those work, early glory
• 1:44
  years of Richmond basketball. And you know, guys, that's how
• 1:47
  it got in my blood. No, it gets in your blood,
• 1:49
  wasn't it? Yeah.
• 1:50
  During the 1980s, that was that was that was literally, you know
• 1:53
  what started it all? Dick Darren back in those.
• 1:56
  Days so that's great. So obviously you you start off
• 1:58
  as athlete and you worked at U of R and then left and and came
• 2:04
  back. What what brought you back?
• 2:05
  Well, so, yeah, so I, I did a couple of different iterations.
• 2:09
  I mean, I worked in marketing here at U of R in the early days
• 2:13
  and then left and worked for a direct mail company, had some
• 2:17
  side ESPN Radio partnership activities duties, etcetera.
• 2:23
  And then I came back to Richmond to do major gift fundraising for
• 2:27
  the entirety of the university in Maryland Hall.
• 2:31
  And then our daughter went to Pepperdine and my wife and I
• 2:36
  were on the parents council of Pepperdine.
• 2:38
  So I got recruited to go work at Pepperdine as vice chancellor
• 2:42
  for principal gifts. But one of the big things we
• 2:44
  worked on was athletics in general, but specifically a new
• 2:48
  building that they called the mountain that housed that will
• 2:52
  house their men's and women's basketball, volleyball, you
• 2:55
  know, playing arena practice facility and then student
• 2:59
  workout and so forth and so on. But so I was at it in Malibu for
• 3:02
  the last three years and just came back this fall to to this
• 3:08
  new role that that you guys mentioned.
• 3:10
  But yeah, happy to be back and looking forward to all that
• 3:13
  means for spider basketball. But but everything else it it
• 3:16
  encompasses in a, you know, holistic way.
• 3:19
  Well, we don't get a lot of snow in Richmond.
• 3:22
  We've had snow twice in the last two weeks.
• 3:25
  So welcome back to to Richmond Gym from Malibu.
• 3:29
  Yeah, that's a little different. I I met travel a lot while I was
• 3:33
  there with Pepperdine covered New York and Chicago and Denver,
• 3:38
  Kansas City. So I saw plenty of it and I was
• 3:40
  actually in Kansas City last week.
• 3:42
  So I've had three snowstorms and 10 days here lately.
• 3:45
  So it's all fine for a while. So maybe just tell us about your
• 3:49
  new role kind of what are the kind of what do you, what is the
• 3:51
  day-to-day like for you since which is about two months that
• 3:55
  you've been on? Yeah, essentially, yeah.
• 3:57
  I mean, kind of mid-september with a trip driving across the
• 4:00
  country in between. You know, once I started for a
• 4:03
  couple weeks and then packed it up and rolled across the
• 4:06
  country, which was mostly fun, honestly.
• 4:08
  But, yeah, I mean, you know, definitely charged with raising
• 4:14
  funds for men's and women's basketball in all, in all forms.
• 4:19
  But, you know, we definitely using men's and women's
• 4:22
  basketball holistically as kind of the tip of the spear to
• 4:26
  engage the, you know, broader university community.
• 4:29
  And that means in town and on the road, but, you know,
• 4:33
  primarily trying to raise as much money as possible for, you
• 4:37
  know, Chris Mooney and Aaron Russell's basketball programs
• 4:40
  and. Obviously there's been a whole
• 4:42
  lot of change in just college sports in the past five years
• 4:47
  where, you know, it used to be, you know, 100%, you know,
• 4:50
  scholarship and maybe a little stipend.
• 4:53
  And then everything was like, you know, not allowed outside of
• 4:56
  that. And then the NIL came around and
• 4:58
  the collectives were born. And now I, I think just from the
• 5:03
  last month you announced these two new funds that have been
• 5:06
  created. Like tell us about those funds,
• 5:09
  like how, what's their purpose, kind of how are they structured
• 5:11
  just for the, the, the general fans?
• 5:14
  Tell us about these new funds you created.
• 5:17
  Yeah. I mean, backing up a little bit
• 5:18
  that, you know, the, the house settlement as you guys I'm sure
• 5:22
  are familiar with, you know, ushered in the era of direct
• 5:26
  revenue share payments to student athletes and the
• 5:31
  University of Richmond and, you know, and its affiliation to the
• 5:36
  A10 conference. Yeah.
• 5:38
  It was part of, of, of, of opting into that settlement and
• 5:42
  therefore, you know, participating in ongoing revenue
• 5:47
  share with our student athletes. So at the conference level and
• 5:51
  then the university level, the, the, you know, Board of
• 5:54
  trustees, the President's office, obvious athletics, all
• 5:58
  decided to to make that a priority and it and to
• 6:01
  participate and that that we would do, you know, direct
• 6:05
  payment revenue sharing with our men's and women's basketball
• 6:09
  student athletes. So, you know, that has been
• 6:12
  decided and it's been proclaimed, I guess is the right
• 6:17
  way to say it as a priority by the university leadership.
• 6:20
  And so we are, you know, forging full steam ahead with that.
• 6:26
  But you know, from a day-to-day standpoint, you know it it will
• 6:30
  fuel the Mens and woman's programs as they make roster
• 6:34
  decisions and recruiting and retention and, you know, long
• 6:38
  term visibility. And it's, it's not unlike
• 6:41
  discretionary giving from past years that funded travel,
• 6:45
  equipment, coaching experience, etcetera.
• 6:48
  You know, you, you talk to the to our coaches and in general.
• 6:52
  And, and this is the most important, you know, way to fund
• 6:56
  their programs for future success.
• 6:59
  So we are, you know, doing that in house with all of our
• 7:05
  partners in athletic fundraising, but also the
• 7:08
  entirety of the university from a fundraising standpoint,
• 7:12
  everybody's decided it's important and it's part of our
• 7:15
  overall engagement strategy with alumni, donors, etcetera.
• 7:19
  So it's yeah, we're raising money for men's, women backs,
• 7:22
  basketball board, definitely using it, as I said, as it's
• 7:25
  kind of a tip of the spear for engagement, for other
• 7:28
  fundraising and really just overall engagement strategies.
• 7:33
  Now just trying to think of how it all fits to where we were.
• 7:36
  So it is is there still Spider athletic fund or of the general
• 7:41
  funds for other sports or just to, you know, fund the athletic
• 7:46
  department? Like what has changed?
• 7:48
  Because I know that I think that used to be main fund that they
• 7:50
  would ties to alumni that was 100% sports.
• 7:54
  So there's. Yeah, there's a there's a couple
• 7:56
  of different elements. So there's the Spider Athletic
• 7:59
  Fund, essentially called the competitive excellence, and
• 8:02
  that's unrestricted to athletics in general.
• 8:06
  Then below, not below that. In addition to that, there are
• 8:10
  discretionary funds for every sport.
• 8:13
  So you can decide whatever sport you want to sports directly.
• 8:17
  You can give money to that to whether it's women's lacrosse or
• 8:21
  you know, men's baseball or whatever, you can do that and
• 8:25
  you can obviously multiply designate to all that stuff.
• 8:29
  That's one of the things that we're doing a lot of with our
• 8:31
  new basketball funds that we hope alums will multiply
• 8:35
  designate gifts to wherever they want to make an impact.
• 8:38
  And we hope this is one of them. So, but anyway.
• 8:42
  And then newly created are the men's and women's basketball
• 8:47
  student athlete development funds, which you know is the
• 8:50
  philanthropic, you know, account for the direct revenue share
• 8:55
  payments down the road with our Mens and woman's basketball
• 9:00
  student athletes. And maybe just to kind of state
• 9:02
  the obvious as a woman's fund. So if you give to that, like
• 9:05
  that's going to pay current or, you know, future players on the
• 9:09
  women's team and there's a men's fund and they're restricted for
• 9:12
  one team versus the other. Yeah, As a donor, you can decide
• 9:16
  that. We hope you'll support both, but
• 9:17
  you can do either. And it's not, it's not like one
• 9:20
  gift of one fund that gets, you know, distributed later.
• 9:24
  It's it's a donor choice of what you want to do either one.
• 9:29
  That's awesome. Yeah, yeah.
• 9:31
  And competing in the A10, how are we, how are we doing?
• 9:34
  I mean what are the other a 10 teams doing in this area?
• 9:37
  Are we ahead of them? Are we, are we similar?
• 9:40
  I mean, what's that look like from?
• 9:41
  The A10, so, so it's as John Hart says, it's kind of, it's
• 9:47
  iterative and we're flying the plane as we're building it.
• 9:51
  And everyone else in the conference is to, and I think
• 9:55
  they're trying to get to sooner than later.
• 9:57
  You know, I know they're hiring a new commissioner, you know, in
• 10:01
  the, in the next 6 months or so, I think they would love to get
• 10:05
  to the point where there's transparency on exactly what
• 10:08
  each team is or plans to do with this.
• 10:12
  So it's, it's, it's a, it's a fluid situation.
• 10:17
  So, you know, we're knee deep in in raising as much money as
• 10:21
  possible. Now the the university
• 10:24
  recognizes how valuable basketball is for a number of
• 10:29
  reasons that the, you know, the success that we've had over the
• 10:32
  years. You know, there's nothing like
• 10:34
  bringing the entirety of the university community together.
• 10:37
  And that yet includes, you know, faculty, staff, alumni, parents,
• 10:42
  city of Richmond, etcetera. And and and success, you know,
• 10:46
  brings it together even more. And then, you know, the zenith
• 10:48
  is the, you know, NCAA bids and so forth.
• 10:51
  So we're so you know, that is the pot at the end of the
• 10:55
  rainbow trying to trying to be good enough to get into position
• 10:58
  to be in postseason play. You know, the the other thing
• 11:02
  about it is that, you know, just the actual metrics of brand
• 11:06
  exposure that you get from regular season, you know, TV
• 11:11
  appearances on ESPN and CBS college sports and USA,
• 11:16
  etcetera. And then that is again magnified
• 11:19
  by, you know, conference play and and, and again, the zenith
• 11:23
  of NCAA play. So you can't begin to buy that
• 11:26
  kind of brand exposure that comes with it.
• 11:28
  But then the the other part that kind of ties it all together.
• 11:31
  And, you know, one of the reasons I love doing this is
• 11:33
  that, you know, we are graduating, you know, good kids
• 11:37
  who are, are good students that are good people and they
• 11:39
  represent this place well. And, you know, to to get the
• 11:42
  kids that can do all that and be successful, you know, on the
• 11:45
  court that this is what it's going to take going forward.
• 11:50
  And so everyone has bought in to that.
• 11:53
  So that that's like a why of we're doing this.
• 11:56
  But it it all is tied together with like, you know, you know,
• 12:01
  Chris and Aaron are obviously great people and they attract
• 12:05
  great kids that can balance all that and have success as well.
• 12:10
  So you mention our coaches like what is that interaction model
• 12:15
  of? Like like, yeah, I mean they're
• 12:17
  definitely involved with what we do and just planning and
• 12:20
  thinking about it and interacting with donors.
• 12:23
  And you know, we, we do have kind of a more of a like a
• 12:27
  partner partnership slash investment type vibe to the
• 12:33
  people that are supporting this as opposed to pay for play.
• 12:36
  You know, they're already, they're beyond that.
• 12:38
  They're like, they want this to be successful.
• 12:40
  It's not some kind of pay for access type thing.
• 12:43
  In most cases. It there's like genuine
• 12:46
  relationships. You know, one of the things that
• 12:48
  we've done with the men's basketball Development Fund and
• 12:53
  it was started by the outside collective guys.
• 12:55
  They have like a monthly call with Chris and they, they will,
• 12:59
  they will put a couple players on.
• 13:01
  It's not unlike this where it's like an interview with them and,
• 13:04
  and it's, it's actually entertaining and the people on
• 13:08
  the call make fun of each other. It's like it's kind of a cool
• 13:11
  little ecosystem. There's a text exchange where
• 13:13
  the all the quick directors are on.
• 13:16
  It's informative and and entertaining and almost the you
• 13:19
  know, there's a cool social, you know, community aspect to it
• 13:23
  too. Hey.
• 13:25
  You mentioned the collective. It's one of these questions I
• 13:27
  have about this, this transition period we're in because like you
• 13:30
  said, looks like you know, that the settlement just happened
• 13:33
  just I guess July 1 was the effective data VAT, like does
• 13:38
  the does the collective still exist?
• 13:41
  Is it changing its structure or is that like not needed anymore
• 13:44
  because of these new funds? So it, it doesn't really exist
• 13:48
  anymore. I mean, in the past that yeah,
• 13:50
  they were actually raising money and dealing with the their
• 13:53
  coaching Staffs and, and you know, get in and dealing with
• 13:57
  the student athletes and their representation to, to do all
• 14:00
  the, you know, mechanics and administration and a etcetera.
• 14:04
  So that doesn't really exist anymore.
• 14:06
  It's all in house that, you know, we do have, you know, a
• 14:11
  consultant who Chris Schumann, who you guys may know.
• 14:15
  He, he worked with our collective last year, but he
• 14:18
  also does this with BC and SMU and Saint Mary's.
• 14:23
  And he is, you know, advising the university and all things
• 14:27
  compliance and all things NIL. And he's, you know, he's working
• 14:31
  with our coaching Staffs and the players and their representation
• 14:36
  to to, you know, forge those business relationships going
• 14:40
  forward. I guess there's a way to say it,
• 14:41
  but they he was involved last year, but they don't have
• 14:45
  anything to do with the actual fundraising going forward.
• 14:49
  So. Yeah, there's a whole nother
• 14:51
  side to this. Not, not the topic today, but
• 14:53
  it's like fascinating that now, you know, players have agents
• 14:57
  and there's negotiations as a whole side to this business
• 15:00
  that, you know, didn't exist five years ago.
• 15:03
  I'm, I'm curious. So it's like thinking of the so
• 15:05
  the collective, which instantly, let's say, ended in June 30.
• 15:10
  If you want to just look at fiscal years like so he's like
• 15:13
  the in some ways that the current rosters like funded by
• 15:16
  the collective because they had the money before and now like
• 15:20
  you're on the future. Like in sense the funds you're
• 15:23
  raising is for like the upcoming portal, the players in high
• 15:27
  school that were commute that were recruiting for like next
• 15:32
  year's team. How does that?
• 15:33
  How does that transition work? Short answer is yes.
• 15:36
  I mean, yeah, would like we're raising money for the future.
• 15:39
  Yeah, well, things we can get into is some of the kind of
• 15:43
  benefits to the individual donors and institution is the
• 15:47
  way we're doing it now. But yeah, to answer your
• 15:49
  question, you know, essentially that that money had been raised,
• 15:53
  you know, before June 30th to to quote, you know, fuel this
• 15:58
  year's situation and we're we're definitely trying to do multi
• 16:02
  year commitments from donors to give visibility in, you know,
• 16:08
  roster recruiting, retention, etcetera.
• 16:12
  And then, you know, as I said, some of the benefits to the
• 16:15
  donor that it can count as a, you know, ongoing campaign gift,
• 16:19
  which we are not too far away from for the university accounts
• 16:22
  towards your, you know, reunion fundraising goals.
• 16:26
  If you're on a, on a class reunion and then you know, some
• 16:29
  other advantages, it's, it's fully tax deductible where it
• 16:32
  wasn't last year. And you can also give security.
• 16:35
  So if you guys are sitting on Microsoft or NVIDIA stock, you
• 16:39
  know, we can save you 25% of capital gains as well as its
• 16:44
  deductibility. So literally, I kind of jokingly
• 16:46
  say, but it's basically true. It's writing a check that are
• 16:50
  giving money this year with securities is a 60% better deal
• 16:54
  than it was last year. So that's, that's good.
• 16:58
  So anyway, but but but for the institution and for the new
• 17:02
  coaches, you know, having some visibility on, on like, you
• 17:05
  know, written pledges over somewhere between two and four
• 17:09
  years gives them some flexibility to figure out what's
• 17:13
  what's coming. It's not unlike, you know, when
• 17:14
  we borrow money to build a building, we have, you know,
• 17:18
  these five year gift agreements and they can plan based on
• 17:22
  what's coming in or what's on paper is committed to to do
• 17:26
  that. And it's not not dissimilar from
• 17:29
  building a roster on over the long term.
• 17:32
  Yeah. Has there been any big surprises
• 17:35
  as you come in? I mean, obviously you've been
• 17:36
  fundraising for a while now, but anything with the new structure,
• 17:40
  the rules, it's been any, anything that's been
• 17:44
  surprisingly good or challenging.
• 17:47
  I I would say like people are responding to this, you know,
• 17:52
  positively and, and understanding that, that, that,
• 17:56
  you know, this is the new world order.
• 17:58
  And, and, you know, with the, that the university and the all
• 18:01
  these other schools have been happy to, to share revenue with
• 18:05
  the student athletes, you know, who, you know, you can argue are
• 18:09
  primarily responsible for generating it on the big picture
• 18:12
  of big stage. And so that that, you know, that
• 18:14
  that is a, you know, agreeable proposition.
• 18:18
  But definitely, you know, now that it's in the house and the,
• 18:22
  and it's almost like decided law at the national and NCAA and
• 18:27
  conference level. And we have opted in and the
• 18:31
  university leadership is fully behind this.
• 18:34
  They're like, all right, you know, OK, cool, great.
• 18:36
  Yeah. So, so there's definitely some
• 18:39
  education on a big scale, you know, way we've done, you know,
• 18:45
  radio spots and, you know, direct emails and media releases
• 18:50
  and all that kind of stuff to try to mass educate, if that's
• 18:54
  the right way to say it. But you know, 1 by 1 meetings
• 18:57
  and interacting with people, they're, they're, you know,
• 19:00
  mostly supportive. And and so we have, but we're
• 19:04
  certainly early days. I mean, there's, there's a lot
• 19:07
  of people that kind of address individually about, you know,
• 19:11
  will you support this as part of your ongoing or new, you know,
• 19:16
  commitment to the University of Richmond in general and
• 19:20
  specifically athletics? Yeah, I guess there's a trick of
• 19:22
  this, like in the grand scheme of things, it's in the long
• 19:25
  term, it's not the right answer if just money's moving around
• 19:28
  Richmond, right? This is like you want to add
• 19:31
  more funds and obviously, you know, focused on basketball and
• 19:35
  that's what our podcast is. But yeah, it doesn't to the
• 19:38
  university a great favor if it's just taken $10 from 1 fund and
• 19:42
  putting in another. It's certainly nice to you.
• 19:45
  Yeah, so we're definitely not the the idea is not to
• 19:48
  cannibalize, but to to be a creative.
• 19:51
  It's certainly nice to see both teams doing well this year.
• 19:54
  I mean that that makes it, you know, you can, you can sell the
• 19:56
  vision because the the teams are doing so well, you know.
• 19:59
  Yeah. No, that's definitely helpful.
• 20:02
  And you know, I bet, you know, there's a direct correlation on
• 20:05
  what the rosters look like with this too.
• 20:08
  You know, they they they're happy to have who they have you
• 20:15
  know now and and down down the road you know will be continue
• 20:19
  to be important. Jim, if you could send one
• 20:22
  message to the listeners of Spider Sound Off Spider fans all
• 20:26
  over the US and some international about the future
• 20:28
  of the program and what you're doing to help it, what would
• 20:30
  what would it be? Well, I mean, I would say we'd
• 20:33
  love to have everybody involved in this.
• 20:36
  And, you know, the purpose of this is certainly to fuel men's
• 20:40
  and women's basketball, but it's definitely to to take advantage
• 20:45
  of men's and women's basketball for, like I said, a big picture
• 20:49
  alumni and community engagement. I mean, one of the things we're
• 20:52
  doing is, you know, we've, we've, we've, we've taken some
• 20:57
  of our, you know, important donors on the road to the Texas
• 21:00
  game, you know, in Austin. But as part of that, we
• 21:06
  partnered with the alumni office and ran a full pregame alumni
• 21:09
  event for everybody in Texas or anybody that travelled and, and
• 21:13
  used this, you know, opportunity to engage our Austin, you know,
• 21:19
  population and anybody in Texas or anywhere else who would
• 21:21
  travel similarly. We did that in Nashville with
• 21:26
  the Belmont game and ended up running into a bunch of former,
• 21:30
  you know, Spider student athletes that that, that now
• 21:33
  expressed interest in getting involved in this or something
• 21:35
  else. And then, you know, the, the,
• 21:39
  the, the, the New York trip is coming to Fordham.
• 21:44
  That's a huge, the alumni population where they'll be an
• 21:47
  event before the game and, and many supporters will go to the
• 21:51
  game and, and, and, you know, travel for it as well.
• 21:55
  And then obviously, you know, the A10 tournaments and we have
• 21:59
  similar planned events in Chicago and Washington and
• 22:04
  Philadelphia. So obviously, hopefully we'll
• 22:06
  we'll generate more, you know, interest and donors from all
• 22:09
  that. But but it is about big picture
• 22:11
  engagement for the entirety of the university.
• 22:13
  I mean, this is that's what we're we're trying to do.
• 22:16
  And you know, we get we did deal with people all the time that
• 22:19
  are that are, you know, we want to make a commitment to the
• 22:23
  whole university and and like I said, multiply designate.
• 22:27
  Maybe we got people are doing scholarships and supporting the
• 22:30
  Business School and the general annual annual fund and
• 22:33
  contributing to men's and women's basketball student
• 22:37
  athlete, you know, development funds all in one, you know, deal
• 22:41
  or relationship. So that's the idea.
• 22:44
  That's awesome. Yeah, that's great.
• 22:45
  Well, personally, I want to thank you for what you're doing.
• 22:48
  I know it's, it's, you know, raising money is tough work and,
• 22:50
  and you know, it's not, it's not an easy thing to do.
• 22:52
  So thank you because it's supporting the programs that we
• 22:55
  love. And you know, you got 2 great
• 22:57
  ambassadors and Coach Mooney and Coach Roussel.
• 22:59
  So I mean, you know, anything we can do to support their success,
• 23:02
  we're, we're all in. We're, we're for it.
• 23:03
  So thanks so much for for doing what you do.
• 23:06
  And thank you so much for coming on to Spider Sound off to tell
• 23:09
  everybody to tell everybody about how they can how they can
• 23:11
  help. Yeah, no, thank you guys for
• 23:13
  having me and enjoyed talking about this is all it says.
• 23:16
  It's always interesting to see what people's perspectives are
• 23:20
  on it, you know, now as opposed to the past and where it's
• 23:23
  going. And, you know, trying, trying to
• 23:25
  train our hone our message to people and, and, you know, give
• 23:30
  them options about how to support the university, of which
• 23:33
  this is obviously one. And that has been, you know,
• 23:36
  fully vetted by the by the institutional leadership.
• 23:40
  So anyway, thank you guys for all you do for Richmond men's
• 23:44
  and women's basketball. Thanks, Jim.
• 23:46
  Thanks, Jim. Yeah, we appreciate it.
• 23:49
  We learned a lot in that session, you know.
• 23:50
  Just a really great guy and, you know, really insightful into the
• 23:54
  program and how we can help. It so really.
• 23:55
  Yeah, that's right. And a lot of things to look
• 23:57
  forward to in the future and build and continuing to build
• 24:00
  both of those programs. Absolutely.
• 24:01
  OK. We got some games this weekend.
• 24:03
  We want to go in too. We do.
• 24:04
  We have two games on Saturday, one on the road, one at home.
• 24:08
  Yes. And in between the games is
• 24:10
  Spider Brews. Spider Brew, do you have your
• 24:12
  tickets? I actually bought 1 ticket to
• 24:14
  spider 1 ticket yes. That's all one person needs.
• 24:17
  It's all one person needs is to come to spider bruise with 1
• 24:19
  ticket. So that's right.
• 24:20
  So spider bruise is in between. We will start, and maybe a good
• 24:25
  place to start the first game is the Women Play at Liberty Plus
• 24:29
  game Saturday, 2:00 PM on ESPN Plus.
• 24:34
  Let me tell you a little bit about Liberty.
• 24:35
  Yeah, stalking a Porter before the pot.
• 24:38
  They scare me. So they're six and two.
• 24:41
  They're in Conference USA. If folks don't remember how all
• 24:44
  these teams have bounced around. They won the conference last
• 24:47
  year. Right now, they're 96 in both
• 24:49
  Bartovic and net. Yes, they're.
• 24:51
  Top 100. They just beat George Mason.
• 24:53
  Yeah, they've won four in a row, including just beating George
• 24:56
  Mason. And I saw the highlights of that
• 24:57
  game, like they hit a three-point basket to tie it,
• 25:02
  and then George Mason had a chance to win it.
• 25:03
  And they stole the ball from George Mason and then on their
• 25:07
  way down the court, got fouled, taking a shot, missed the first
• 25:10
  free throw, made the second to win by one point.
• 25:13
  Wow. What an inning, what an ending.
• 25:15
  We wanted the A10 to win that one, but at least we get we get
• 25:18
  to play them so we can maybe write the ship for.
• 25:20
  The A10, Yeah. So they've won four in a row.
• 25:21
  Their two losses are to Duke at home.
• 25:24
  OK, Duke's a top program and they lost at JMU.
• 25:28
  Jamie's good. Earlier this season really good.
• 25:30
  So they're they're beatable for sure.
• 25:32
  A little bit about the program. So they had a long time coach
• 25:37
  retire this summer. His name was Carrie Green.
• 25:42
  He was at Liberty. Kind of a legend.
• 25:43
  Yeah, that's right there. For 26 years, had 26 seasons.
• 25:50
  He won 15 regular season conference titles and 16
• 25:53
  tournaments. Wow.
• 25:55
  I first saw that he won 31 conference titles.
• 25:57
  Like, how do you do that in 26 years?
• 25:59
  Well, that's how we did it. He's coached them just the NCAA
• 26:03
  Tournament 15 times. Yeah.
• 26:05
  And they went to the Sweet 16 in 2005.
• 26:08
  Oh, wow. So like, you could look at their
• 26:11
  program and say they're where we are.
• 26:13
  I mean, and they've gone in the tournament.
• 26:14
  They've gone farther. We just had our first win just
• 26:17
  within the last year. And they've been to the Sweet
• 26:19
  16. So that's.
• 26:20
  A great program. I debated driving out to
• 26:22
  Lynchburg to support the ladies and watching that in person.
• 26:24
  I don't think I'm going to get out there this weekend, but I
• 26:26
  debated it in my mind anyway for for a hot minute.
• 26:29
  So they are. Their new coach is a long time
• 26:30
  assistant. So there's not this big change
• 26:32
  in philosophy. It's let's keep doing what we
• 26:35
  were doing. His name is Alexis Sherrard and
• 26:39
  so he's the assistant coach. This is his first year, so we
• 26:43
  can hope maybe he's going to learn some tough lessons playing
• 26:46
  Richmond a little more about Liberty.
• 26:48
  So and and this is their fundamental approach.
• 26:51
  Last year they were top 10 nationally in rebound margin.
• 26:54
  So this is a team and a philosophy that they hit the
• 26:56
  glass. They out rebounded their
• 26:59
  opponents last year, out rebounded them by 9 per game.
• 27:02
  And I wouldn't like, I think we're we're good at rebounding,
• 27:04
  but that's not like a huge strength of our team.
• 27:07
  So we've got a team that's really tries to use that to
• 27:09
  their advantage. And they're shooting the three a
• 27:11
  lot more the last few years than they used to.
• 27:12
  So I think they used to be like all inside power.
• 27:15
  They're now shooting a lot of threes as well.
• 27:17
  They did win Conference USA last year.
• 27:19
  This a few players to look out for SO59 sophomore Avery Mills.
• 27:26
  I know you like that BPM stat 11.4 BPM.
• 27:30
  That's good. She's averaging almost 17
• 27:32
  points, 5 1/2 rebounds, 2.4 assists, Had 24 against George
• 27:37
  Mason. So she's coming off a big game.
• 27:39
  They have a 63 sophomore, Emmy Stout.
• 27:41
  They're a young team, so I look across their big minutes.
• 27:45
  Players are best players. Emmy Stout's a sophomore, 7.6
• 27:48
  BPM. Wow.
• 27:49
  She averages 16.6 and seven rebounds.
• 27:51
  She had 22 against George Mason. Wow. 6 foot 3. 6 foot 3 and they
• 27:57
  have a red shirt. Freshman center Iffy Nawobi,
• 28:00
  who's 62, and she had 12 rebounds against George Mason.
• 28:03
  Man, they've got size. So they've got some size and
• 28:06
  they can shoot. Avery's a definitely an outside
• 28:08
  shooter as well. So that's again, I looked at
• 28:11
  this team, they scare me. Now where's their weakness?
• 28:14
  They averaged 19 turnovers per game.
• 28:16
  So they they give up the rock to the other team.
• 28:19
  They had 30 in one game, 30 turnovers.
• 28:21
  Actually they won that game, but they had 30 turnovers in the
• 28:24
  game. So like that's how we need to
• 28:26
  beat them. We need to force turnovers.
• 28:28
  We need to get them playing sloppy so we can get easy
• 28:32
  baskets. We've seen our team do that
• 28:33
  before, but I think that's the challenge we're on the.
• 28:36
  Road. Well, I hope so.
• 28:39
  It's not, that's not when we've seen a lot of, we saw a little
• 28:41
  bit when we were trying to come back from Fairfield.
• 28:43
  They tried doing some of that. But that I wouldn't say that
• 28:45
  press has been our specialty. So we'll see if they've worked
• 28:48
  on worked on some new wrinkles, learning from the Fairfield game
• 28:52
  to make sure on the road that you don't want to get behind on
• 28:57
  the road. And we we can't keep coming out
• 28:59
  slow, especially on the road. I wouldn't say we're experienced
• 29:02
  Rd. team yet. I mean, the season's only 1/4
• 29:04
  in, but it's obviously not our first Rd. game.
• 29:07
  So we're, we're a little bit used to it.
• 29:09
  So hopefully we get our best. I, I, I'm pretty sure the coach
• 29:12
  is going to have them ready after that.
• 29:13
  Yeah, I don't, I can't, I can't recall, you know, Russell, with
• 29:17
  back-to-back losses. I don't know when the last time
• 29:18
  that happened was. So look for us to be prepared
• 29:21
  and look for us to to take a a hot minute to let some
• 29:25
  frustration out after that Fairfield game.
• 29:26
  So Yep. And that's again, 2:00 at ESPN
• 29:29
  Plus, then Porter and I, we'll get to watch some of that and
• 29:33
  then we'll hit spider brews, which is, I think it's $15.
• 29:38
  And they, when it's, you know, winter time, it's kind of in the
• 29:43
  gym, the old carpet gym, which is much nicer than it used to
• 29:47
  be. And it's $15.
• 29:49
  They have a whole bunch of local brewery beer on tap and a little
• 29:53
  bit of food. So looking forward to that.
• 29:55
  That'll be great. And then we're going to go into
• 29:56
  that to the a little liquored up to a a home game came for the
• 30:02
  men later that afternoon. We're working that night.
• 30:04
  I don't know how liquored up we'll get.
• 30:06
  Maybe maybe just one beer for me.
• 30:07
  That's, that's, that's my, that's my limit.
• 30:09
  So, and we got Southern Illinois folks in Southern Illinois is
• 30:13
  it's going to be a test. It's no pushover.
• 30:16
  So let's start with where it is. It's in Carbondale, IL.
• 30:19
  They're out of the Missouri Valley Conference, Carbondale,
• 30:22
  IL in southern the southern part of Illinois.
• 30:24
  So it's actually 332 miles from Chicago.
• 30:27
  It's closer to Nashville, TN. It's 200 miles.
• 30:30
  So their name, kind of. Works Yes, it is southern
• 30:33
  Illinois is and so but you know, you never realize how how long
• 30:35
  that state is until you look at it on a map.
• 30:38
  The Saluki is a ancient breed of dog.
• 30:41
  It's actually one of the world's oldest dog breeds was an ancient
• 30:43
  Egyptian hunting dog dating back 6000 years, known for its
• 30:48
  incredible speed over 42 mph, so.
• 30:51
  And they had a lot of those in southern Illinois.
• 30:53
  I'm. Guessing they're they call it
• 30:55
  little Egypt that didn't actually drill on that link to
• 30:57
  see why they call it little Egypt, but that's that's a
• 30:59
  little bit why they got to say Saluki.
• 31:02
  Some of the famous alumni from Southern Illinois, Illinois Jim
• 31:05
  Belushi, the actor and comedian, Jenny McCarthy, actress, model
• 31:08
  and television host, and Melissa McCarthy, one of my favorite
• 31:11
  female comedians who's just a wonderful writer, producer and
• 31:14
  actress. And she just hosted SNL.
• 31:15
  She just hosted SNL, so how about that?
• 31:17
  Melissa McCarthy. So the men's basketball team is
• 31:20
  coach coached by a guy named Scott Nagy.
• 31:23
  Nagy is 591 and 351 over his career.
• 31:27
  Very experienced coach, 627 winning percentage ranks #17 and
• 31:32
  wins amongst active Division One head coaches.
• 31:35
  He started his coaching career at South Dakota State where he
• 31:38
  was the head coach for 21 years. He LED South Dakota State's
• 31:43
  transition from being non D1 to D1, so he stayed all the way
• 31:47
  through that. The last six years he was at
• 31:50
  South Dakota State, he made three NCAA tournaments so he he
• 31:53
  can coach. He parlayed that job to the
• 31:56
  Wright State job out of the horizon where he spent eight
• 31:58
  years. Every one of those years he had
• 32:00
  a winning record. Two of those years he made NCAA
• 32:03
  tournament appearances and this is his second year at Southern
• 32:06
  Illinois. So good coach, good coach, good
• 32:08
  program. A little bit about their team.
• 32:10
  They play 9 guys, double digit minutes, so a lot like us.
• 32:13
  They're going to run a deep rotation.
• 32:16
  The leading scorer is a guy named House who's a six foot
• 32:19
  guard. He's comes hails from
• 32:20
  Louisville, KY. They play some good basketball
• 32:22
  there out here. I would think house would have
• 32:24
  to be an inside guy so their house is their outside.
• 32:27
  Guy, he might round house us from the outside, you know, you
• 32:29
  got to be careful. So it's a yeah.
• 32:32
  He leads him with 14 points. They've got two Big Brothers
• 32:36
  inside. They are they they actually
• 32:39
  started their, their US journey in Minnesota.
• 32:43
  They're called the Oligby brothers.
• 32:44
  The older brother, Prince Oligby, is 6 foot seven, 235
• 32:48
  lbs. He played at Mini Ha Ha Academy
• 32:51
  in Minnesota, where he was teammates with Chet Holmgren and
• 32:54
  Jalen Suggs. He had offers from just about
• 32:56
  every major in the country. Like, I mean, it seemed like
• 32:59
  his. I just, I gave you a snapshot.
• 33:00
  But just a few of the places he had offers, Arkansas, Florida,
• 33:03
  Illinois, Iowa, Tennessee, UCLA. He was, you know, considered a
• 33:07
  major, major regret. I think he started, from what I
• 33:11
  can tell, at Boston College his first year, then went to Seton
• 33:14
  Hall. And then this is his third year.
• 33:16
  He's now at Southern Illinois. His younger brother joined him
• 33:18
  there. His younger brother is 69, so
• 33:20
  bigger than the older brother. His name is Rollins.
• 33:24
  He's a force inside as well. Combined, they play a little bit
• 33:27
  like we rotate Walls and Beagle. They combine for about 4243
• 33:31
  minutes a game, averaging about 11 rebounds per game as a
• 33:34
  combination duo. Some fast facts about Southern
• 33:38
  Illinois this year. Very interesting style.
• 33:41
  What's? Their record.
• 33:43
  The record right now, so we we're actually recording this
• 33:45
  they have a game tomorrow night so we're recording this on
• 33:48
  Tuesday before they play that game tomorrow night.
• 33:50
  So they've got five wins and four losses, so pretty good
• 33:54
  record, but. That's mediocre record.
• 33:57
  Yeah, but they play some tough games.
• 33:58
  I'll give you, I'll give you that in just a second.
• 34:00
  Let me tell you about their style.
• 34:01
  So from what I can tell just looking at their their page,
• 34:05
  they they prefer to move the ball inside.
• 34:08
  So they are only getting 17% of their points from three-point
• 34:11
  land. They do not have a high
• 34:13
  percentage out there. They're only shooting 27%.
• 34:15
  So they're going to try to move the ball inside.
• 34:19
  They are second to last in the country in the amount of points
• 34:21
  they get from behind the three-point arc.
• 34:23
  They are also second in the country in the amount of points
• 34:25
  they get from inside the the three-point arc.
• 34:27
  So they're going to try to pound it inside on us.
• 34:30
  It's going to be a, it's going to be a game where you know, you
• 34:32
  need the fives to show up. You need, you need Daughtry, you
• 34:35
  know, to have a big game. We're going to need to keep
• 34:37
  those, those big boys off the blocks.
• 34:39
  It's going to be, it's going to be a good game.
• 34:41
  Now, overall games they plays, they played Memphis, they played
• 34:44
  Nevada, they played some good teams, took Nevada to overtime
• 34:47
  on the road. They beat High Point last week
• 34:50
  and that's a big win. High Point is #8089 and Ken
• 34:53
  Palm, they beat it. They beat them at High Point,
• 34:56
  which is a really tough place to play.
• 34:58
  And just to give you some context, High Point has a like
• 35:01
  opponent with us. High Point beat Fuhrman by 26
• 35:04
  points at Fuhrman or no, sorry, on a neutral court.
• 35:07
  So 26 points earlier in the year.
• 35:09
  So High Point can play, Southern Illinois can play.
• 35:12
  We are favored to win the game. The statistical services say
• 35:15
  we're about 70% likely. We don't want these guys to get
• 35:19
  hot from three. That was our fear.
• 35:20
  Looking at the Furman games, like, you know, they've been
• 35:22
  underperforming there. Let's keep them underperforming.
• 35:24
  The good news is that's not. It's not that they're shooting
• 35:27
  30 a game and they're just shooting poorly.
• 35:29
  That's just not their. Strategy, that's not what they
• 35:31
  do right yeah, they just they like to they like to work from
• 35:33
  the inside out. So it's going to be a it's going
• 35:35
  to be a good game. We're going to need a lot of
• 35:36
  fans there, folks, So make sure you get your tickets to the
• 35:39
  game, come out support the team. Like we said, this team is 8 and
• 35:41
  one. They're fighting like crazy to
• 35:44
  to get national respect and they're starting to get on a lot
• 35:47
  of radars. We're starting to creep into
• 35:48
  those best mid major lists I've seen this week.
• 35:51
  So you know, let's come out sports team.
• 35:54
  I think it's gonna be a great game.
• 35:55
  It should be a close game. It's not gonna I mean, if if
• 35:58
  it's a 20 point blowout by us, that would be a surprise.
• 36:00
  But, you know, I think it's gonna be a really good game.
• 36:02
  Hey, and Speaking of the men's game was interesting this week.
• 36:06
  Two different newsletters in the Richmond Spiders men's team is
• 36:10
  some sort of like team to watch. Like we're we're just starting
• 36:12
  to get some national press, Another eight and one one of
• 36:15
  them is a newsletter called Bracket Busters.
• 36:20
  They had us in their heat check. One of the things they liked is
• 36:24
  that our, so our Ken Palm is a little over 100.
• 36:27
  We were 104 in adjusted offensive efficiency and 104 in
• 36:32
  defensive adjusted efficiency. So they said it was kind of like
• 36:35
  you don't often see that where a team is doing is like, you know,
• 36:38
  right there for both. A lot of teams are, you know,
• 36:40
  top 50 in one and you know, 250 in the other.
• 36:43
  Does bracket Busters follow us on insta?
• 36:45
  I. Think they do, actually.
• 36:47
  I also mentioned kind of how and we've talked about it here, we
• 36:50
  have the deepest bench, not just what we see when we're at the
• 36:53
  game, but statistically first in Division One with over 48% of
• 36:59
  the minutes coming from the bench.
• 37:01
  So that's all leading to where we are.
• 37:03
  Bracket Busters follow us all. Nice work.
• 37:06
  Thanks for the heads up guys, and thanks for the the, the, the
• 37:09
  love. We love it.
• 37:10
  We believe. We believe in this team too.
• 37:11
  And there is a another one. It was like basket
• 37:14
  underreview.com. We are one of the teams of the
• 37:17
  week. OK, so that was that was
• 37:20
  exciting to see just you know, these are things that I've
• 37:22
  subscribed to because they do talk about mid majors more than
• 37:25
  just the top teams. But it's really the first time
• 37:27
  I've seen our men's team mentioned and mentioned 2 times
• 37:31
  this week. So that's always exciting to see
• 37:32
  others talking about our team. Let's just hope that there's
• 37:36
  more to talk about next week after a nice win on Saturday I.
• 37:41
  I think we win this game. I think we win it, but in a
• 37:44
  close game, I'm going to say eight points for us.
• 37:46
  But I think it's going to be a it's going to be like the ODU
• 37:48
  game. This team's going to give us a
• 37:49
  test inside. We're going to have to respond.
• 37:51
  Yeah, hopefully we, you know, if we can hit our threes, that's a
• 37:54
  nice neutralizer to a team that's just pushing in and they
• 37:58
  can shoot 50% from 2. But if we can hit a bunch of
• 38:00
  threes, all of a sudden you can offset a lot of that.
• 38:02
  So we will see how we got to make our free throws.
• 38:04
  We we were great. I think 2 of the last three
• 38:06
  games we haven't been very good from a free throw.
• 38:08
  So that's, I think that's a strength of ours, but.
• 38:11
  One downside, I think the students will probably be on
• 38:12
  their winter break, so we probably won't have a huge
• 38:14
  student crowd just because they'll be go off campus as much
• 38:16
  I. Guess yeah, it is finals week.
• 38:18
  I don't know if this is the end of finals week or they drip a
• 38:20
  little to next week. I'm guessing you're right,
• 38:22
  they're over. So probably the student section.
• 38:26
  Well, the count may be 0, but that's not much lower than it's
• 38:29
  been. Unfortunately, we're.
• 38:30
  Going to get those students to turn out folks they this team
• 38:33
  has has earned, earned the ability to have, you know, the
• 38:36
  the students come out and support them.
• 38:38
  We will get that turned on by the end of the year.
• 38:39
  We're going to keep working on it.
• 38:40
  We got some ideas. Well we will be back with you
• 38:43
  after these weekend games to for our normal Monday release to
• 38:46
  talk about the results of this weekend.
• 38:48
  Hopefully the women's have a have a great trip and win in
• 38:51
  Liberty and spider bruise doesn't make us too hungover to
• 38:55
  do a pod on Sunday. Absolutely.
• 38:58
  Well, until next time, this is Tom.
• 38:59
  And this is Porter. And this is spider sounding off.
• 39:03
  See you.