Latest / Spiders Sound Off / Episode 29: Richmond Basketball Is Rolling: Liberty Road Win + Southern Illinois OT Drama.

Transcript

Episode 29: Richmond Basketball Is Rolling: Liberty Road Win + Southern Illinois OT Drama. · Spiders Sound Off

0:06
Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of Spider Sound
0:09
Off. This is Tom.
0:10
And this is Porter. And we are very excited to be
0:15
talking about two wins. Whoa, what a great weekend, man.
0:18
I tell you, it's there's always something about a pod.
0:20
After two wins for both programs, it just feels better.
0:23
Yeah, that's right. I remember the Thanksgiving
0:25
episode, you said you were thankful that both of our teams
0:28
are winning and that at some point I'm sure we'll have to do
0:33
a pod after a really upsetting loss.
0:36
I mean the Fairfield pod, you know, that was, that was a
0:38
little, that was a little rough, but we did have a men's victory
0:41
to talk about. It but it.
0:43
Was tough, but today we get to talk about two wins and the
0:47
women's started off the week, right?
0:49
Yeah, start with Liberty at Liberty.
0:51
At Liberty. That was a game, you know, I
0:53
talked about before I was scared and our defence basically made
0:58
Liberty use other players, players that I didn't really
1:01
scout because the their best two players really didn't do much.
1:06
Great plan from the coaching staff to get ready for Liberty.
1:10
Also great uniforms. Let me shout out I you know, I
1:12
didn't like the Grays last time. Love the Blues.
1:15
I love the blue coaches. It was.
1:17
A blue top, grey bottoms. Yeah, I know.
1:19
I like that. I liked it.
1:20
I mean it combo, it looked good. And then the late and then the
1:23
the women's team wore blue, which was which was also really
1:26
good. It got it.
1:26
They both drove my Blues away. So, you know, it was a it was a
1:30
nice. Effort.
1:31
So I liked, you know, the women came out and they shot 50% in
1:34
the first quarter. So they've been coming out slow
1:37
at times. That wasn't the case in that
1:39
game. So we we came out fast and
1:44
pretty much had control most of that game.
1:46
Yeah, I mean, the Liberty team's a good team.
1:48
They've lost 11 times since they built that arena in 2020.
1:51
Two of those 11 times have been to the Spiders.
1:54
Now they don't lose their very often.
1:56
They're a very tough team to beat at at home.
1:59
Duke beat them there this year by 14.
2:01
We beat them now by 15. So it was a it was a great
2:05
bounce back effort. You know, Coach Rousseau and the
2:08
rest of the coaching staff, they're, they're not the kind of
2:10
coaching staff that, you know, it's going to have have a let
2:13
down after a, after a bad beating like we took with
2:16
Fairfield. And I just, I felt confident
2:19
they would be ready for this game.
2:20
And the, and the ladies came out and played really, really well.
2:23
I thought one of our it was a complete effort from start to
2:26
finish. Yeah, I really like Allie's
2:28
game. She looks super confident out
2:30
there hitting her threes when she was open.
2:34
You're talking about the arena. One thing I noted, I saw it like
2:37
the attendance was like 1005 or something like that.
2:40
And it made me think like, well, how's our home attendance been
2:43
this year? So I had to do some math and
2:47
right now we're averaging 1495 S, almost 1500 and we haven't
2:51
had our education day yet. So I was trying to do year over
2:56
year comparisons and it wasn't really fair because we had about
2:58
3000 at last year's education Day.
3:00
Stay tuned for today's Scout. Yeah, so that that screamer,
3:04
that screamo day is coming. But yeah, it's it was, I
3:08
thought, you know, the attendance didn't look really
3:11
strong and it just made me think.
3:12
And it's good to know that, you know, while Liberty may have a
3:15
great homecourt advantage, at least they feel like it, like
3:19
we've got, you know, 50% more fans and we've been winning at
3:23
home as well. Yeah, we're tough at home as
3:25
well. Go back to that November 2022
3:28
game. Maggie and Rachel were both
3:30
freshmen in that game. They played 28 minutes combined
3:33
and they scored five points. So for.
3:35
What game are you talking? About, I'm talking about the
3:37
game where we beat Liberty in 2022.
3:39
So we've beaten them twice now at home since they opened that
3:41
arena. So if you go back to that game,
3:43
why I think it's important is because if you think about our
3:45
freshmen that we have on the team now, and let's say you're
3:50
you're not playing as much as you want or you haven't gotten
3:52
on the court as much as as as you want to be there.
3:56
Think about Maggie and Rachel, 2 future Hall of Farmers, one
4:00
whose jersey will most certainly hang in the rafters in Spider
4:04
athletics. You know, play in that freshman
4:06
year, 28 minutes, five points combined.
4:09
There's time to evolve, there's time to grow.
4:12
This this coaching staff is unbelievable at developing
4:15
talent. Look at the step Ali took
4:17
between freshman and sophomore year.
4:19
Look at this step Alicia Newell's taking this year.
4:21
Yeah. But what does that say about
4:23
Perchetti? Didn't she have 7 points in the
4:25
game? No, she had.
4:26
Like 10 points in. The 10 points in the.
4:27
More I mean, that's what I'm thinking about like man, I mean
4:29
Perchetti is breaking all sorts of like molds right now.
4:32
So she's she's really moving in the right direction.
4:34
I thought rain, right? She played only 9 minutes in
4:37
that game. She had two buckets, but both
4:38
times she took her woman off the dribble, went to the, went to
4:42
the rim, laid it in and they were both contested shots.
4:45
But she showed confidence. She showed aggression.
4:48
That's really, really encouraging to see.
4:51
So I think overall, I mean the ladies team is, you know, it's
4:55
where we need them to be right now.
4:57
Yeah, My favorite play, it was Maggie's play at some point
5:00
where she was at like the top of the the the top of the
5:03
three-point line and looked inside for a second and then was
5:06
just like, yeah, I might as well shoot and just launched a AA3.
5:10
Every When you're trying to defend her or defend our
5:13
offense, there's a lot of moving parts.
5:16
And at some point, you know that Maggie can rack up those assists
5:19
as well, and you're waiting for her to make a pass and she's
5:22
just like, I'll just shoot it in your face and score.
5:25
Yeah. And you know, the great thing
5:26
about that game was, you know, we didn't need the three to beat
5:30
them. Like we actually got the
5:32
majority of our points from inside the three-point line.
5:35
And one thing I'll say like if you notice our team, like the
5:39
way we stretch defenses because we have so many shooters is just
5:42
it's just magic, right? I mean, you stretch the defense,
5:44
it opens lanes to cut, it allows the ladies to figure out to read
5:50
and react to what the defense is presenting them.
5:52
And you get just a lot of movement towards the basket.
5:54
I saw, you know, a lot of that in this game.
5:56
And I thought the motion looked really good.
5:59
I thought it like you said, our defense, the way we scouted them
6:01
and shut their down, their best players looked really good.
6:04
Just an all around great game. I mean, it's just one of those
6:06
games where like, OK, we have now taken a little bit of the
6:09
pressure out of the system that came after the Fairfield loss
6:12
move back up to #44 in the net again.
6:15
That's squarely on the bubble for an at large in the NCAA
6:18
tournament. The 8, the 810 is improved, I
6:21
think across the the majority of the conference this year.
6:25
So you know, davidson's #43 in the net, that's a, that's two
6:28
chances for good wins coming up. Rhode Island's 56, George Mason
6:32
is 70. We still have Penn State who's
6:34
72 and Saint Joe's 80. So there's a lot of good teams
6:38
that we still play. So as long as we don't have any
6:41
bad losses along the way and we get we get three or four of
6:44
those six games to be decisive wins, I think we're still
6:47
squarely in in play for an at large.
6:49
Yeah, what's nice about that win against Liberty?
6:52
We know Liberty's a good team. We're playing on the road and we
6:55
didn't shoot well from three. It's not that we didn't try, we
6:59
just didn't shoot well from three.
7:00
So I mean there's a, there's a whole nother level.
7:02
And I think we're both still hopeful that of our, our five
7:07
position can turn into something that contributes a little bit
7:10
more. I think they there are, there
7:13
are spurts where you'll seek a bunch of assists or a good
7:16
rebounding day or a good scoring and we can get that position to
7:20
just combine for, you know, eight points a game and five
7:24
rebounds a game and three assists.
7:26
Like I think they can get there, they're just not there yet.
7:28
I think the thing that to me is most encouraging is we have not
7:32
played our best game yet. We have not like we have not had
7:35
a game like Fairfield had against us.
7:37
There will be a game like that this year.
7:39
I don't know who it's going to be against, but the ladies,
7:41
they're going to have a game where they get hot and they
7:43
shoot 50% from 3 in the game and we win by 25 against a good team
7:47
that's coming. If that happens to be in the A10
7:51
tournament, great. I mean, if it happens to be in
7:53
the into in into the blade tournament, great, right?
7:55
Like it's, it's coming and. It can happen more than once.
7:57
And it can happen more than once.
7:58
And so, you know, we've got, we've got better.
8:01
I mean, the thing I love about Kosher Sale and the staff is
8:04
they're building for the A10 tournament.
8:06
That's their everything is a work in progress until we get to
8:08
that tournament and the team is very much moving in a positive
8:12
direction. Yeah, we have some setbacks,
8:14
right. We've had, we've played an
8:15
incredibly brutal schedule. Navy was on.
8:17
It was was a really good team. It seems like every game I've
8:20
been saying this is a really good team.
8:21
Liberty, Green Bay, Fairfield, TCU, Texas, by the way, both
8:25
still undefeated. So, you know, we've got we've
8:28
got some real potential I think to to be special this year, but
8:33
there's going to be bumps along the way because this is still a
8:35
work in progress. We're still getting better.
8:37
I know you know it's not going to all look good together just
8:41
yet, but it will eventually click.
8:42
And when it does click, watch out.
8:44
What was nice about that game being pretty comfortable midway
8:48
through the fourth quarter is that allowed me to and my wife
8:53
to leave a little early from home so we can get the spider
8:56
brews on time. Spider brews.
8:58
So we've, you heard us talk about it in our last episode.
9:01
You know, the spider brews, I think they do twice during the
9:03
year. This was the first one.
9:06
Solid event and solid event. A lot of local beer.
9:11
And by the way, can I just say that was a nice Segway from the
9:14
end of the ladies game to Spider Brews so we can talk about the
9:17
men's game? Yeah, that's right.
9:18
So what was Spider Brews was good if you've never been there
9:21
again, a lot of lot of options of craft beer.
9:24
We'll come mostly local, a couple non local but mostly
9:27
local choices. There's a little bit of food.
9:29
I mean, there's plenty of pizza. So if you like the Papa John's
9:31
pizza, tons of pizza. They had some soup, which is a
9:36
bit odd, like these little shots of soup, but they're good.
9:39
Yeah, that's a good flavor. And then they had, I think,
9:41
Morrissey's Catering, who's one of the Richmond sponsors who had
9:44
lots of sandwiches and chicken fingers.
9:46
By the time I got up there, there wasn't much left, but
9:49
Laura told me she saw some people with like a plate, like
9:51
filled with sandwiches and tons of chicken fingers.
9:54
You know anyone who would have done that.
9:56
I. Have no idea, honestly.
9:58
If I see the person I'll let you know.
10:01
But that's just, yeah. I mean, who lets the person take
10:04
that much food? Yeah, I don't know.
10:05
Yeah, they could they that the catering was fine.
10:08
They could use a little more supervision.
10:10
I think the students sitting there was like take whatever you
10:12
want. Yeah, versus like, you know, you
10:15
get, you know, one serving or whatever.
10:16
In fairness, I'm a big guy, so like, it takes it takes a little
10:19
bit of food. To fill me out, you need a pile
10:21
of sandwiches. Need a little bit of.
10:22
Sandwich OK, so had some fun at Spider Brews.
10:24
Went over to the game. It was a pretty tight game
10:28
against Southern Illinois. Yeah, I mean, like I, I went
10:31
back and I listened to our our episode.
10:33
I, I didn't actually give the net ranking for Southern
10:35
Illinois, but they were, they were a top 140 team in the Robin
10:38
Center. Now they're sitting I think at
10:39
1:20. So that makes them the second
10:41
best team we've played this year behind Belmont.
10:45
Very, very good win for that for the for the men's team, a well
10:50
coached game for us. We had a great game plan.
10:52
We talked about the Oligby brothers, Rollins Oligby, by the
10:55
way, the younger brother, he had a he had a monstrous game
10:58
against us just inside. He's such a force.
11:02
So I mean he's what a great get for Southern Illinois to have
11:04
him. And I think we're going to play
11:05
them again next year. It's it's a multi game that's.
11:08
Right, we'll be on the road. Contract and I don't look
11:11
forward to playing him again because he's a he's just a beast
11:13
inside. But I mean, can we just talk
11:16
about Jonathan Beagle for a second?
11:17
Yeah. Yeah, he was great and what I
11:20
interested, I know you were at the post game.
11:21
I kind of watched the the presser afterwards, like it was
11:24
really interesting to talk how, I mean, he had a great game and
11:28
he's been here for this is now a second season.
11:31
And I mean, Mooney basically said it's one of his favorite
11:33
players ever in terms of like how much he just everything he
11:37
does is for the team and. So I got a chance to ask Beagle
11:41
A about like, why have you evolved so much in your second
11:44
year in the system? And, you know, he just talked
11:47
about, you know, just growing into confidence about what he
11:51
needs to do. It's almost like he was
11:52
describing read and react. But the thing I'd I'd say that
11:55
was like I was most impressed about, I got I got to ask the
11:58
question, hey, you know, usually a technical foul is not a
12:01
positive thing. But I got to say I thought it
12:02
was a positive thing when you get the technical call on your
12:04
first half. What what happened there?
12:06
And he said, yeah, a player knocked down Arga Bright and
12:08
then he started talking a little bit of smack.
12:10
And so, you know, I intervened and told him what I thought
12:13
about that. And I mean.
12:14
He wanted to defend his player. Yeah, he's he's defending his
12:17
guy. I mean, you know, you're a
12:18
senior and you're five 11150 LB point guard has just been
12:21
crushed and you know, the guys now talking smack and now all of
12:24
a sudden you're dealing with six 10250 or whatever Beagle is.
12:27
I mean, you know, that's I love that about the guy.
12:29
I love the fact that these guys have each other's back.
12:32
I love the fact that they're playing unselfishly for each
12:35
other. And I think that shows
12:37
leadership and I think honestly it it makes this team super,
12:41
super fun to watch. Yeah, it was interesting.
12:44
Obviously I'm assuming everyone listening knows, but if you
12:47
didn't went into overtime. So I was our first overtime game
12:50
this year and it was good to see us win a a tight game like that.
12:55
It was also interesting. We've talked a lot about minutes
12:57
like Johnston played over 33 minutes.
13:00
Now again there's overtime, so there's some additional minutes.
13:03
Johnson. With a couple of clutch baskets
13:05
down the last in the last minute of regulation.
13:07
And by the way, he took the last shot in regulation and I love
13:11
that decision. I mean, he's red hot, you know,
13:13
don't let don't get the ball out of his hands.
13:15
Let him take another shot to chant try to win it.
13:17
He literally got us there. Let him try to win it for us.
13:19
That was, I thought, a great a great.
13:20
Draw and also you talk about the coaching like, you know, Beagle
13:23
was having such a great game when it was the game is tied and
13:28
let's put our or just even the last minute of regulation when
13:32
it was like offense defense, it was like put Beagle out there
13:34
for offense because coach knew like he was super aggressive,
13:38
had a hot hand and that's versus, you know, a couple games
13:42
ago where where walls was there at the end, you know, shooting
13:45
the last shot. So it's good.
13:46
Just coach making adjustments based on we've got this deep
13:49
roster, you might as well go with the the the folks who are
13:51
playing best. And the deep roster really
13:54
showed its benefits and overtime, House fouled out of
13:57
the game largely because Hark upright caused him to foul out
14:00
of the game with his unbelievable ability to draw a
14:02
foul. And and and they just didn't
14:05
have the the legs to keep up with us after that.
14:08
And we we had so many players that we can throw at you.
14:10
The rotation is so deep. We moved up to 80 in the net,
14:14
which is the highest, maybe second highest we've been so far
14:17
this year. 77 after the Belmont game, 80 Now we have 4 guys
14:20
shooting better than 43% on the season from three-point land.
14:25
We have some defensive specialists that are really,
14:28
really good, like like Ruma Glue who's playing at at the best
14:31
level. The last two games I've seen him
14:33
play defensively, he's just been really, really impressive. 10
14:37
guys still averaging between 16 and 24 minutes per game.
14:41
So the rotation is still very, very much a a shared
14:46
responsibility. Yeah.
14:49
I mean, it's just this team is fun to watch.
14:51
They're they're oh, I kept using the term stacking wins.
14:53
So you asked me to stop me using the term stacking wins.
14:55
But here we are with nine wins, one loss.
14:59
We were pre season I think picked 11th in the A10.
15:01
We're now up to probably 5th or 6th in the A10 depending on you
15:04
know, which you know, source you like to follow closely.
15:08
This team's doing stuff and they are interesting.
15:12
You know, housing. I was thinking it with the
15:13
holiday season and, you know, holiday movies, maybe this is
15:17
just a stretch in a way, but you know, this question of like, are
15:21
the Spiders one of the top teams in the A10 or not?
15:24
Like I think there's a, it's a little bit of the comparison I
15:26
put to is, is Die Hard a Christmas movie or not?
15:29
Like no one's debating whether Die Hard's a good movie.
15:33
They're trying to categorize it. And I think our Richmond Spiders
15:36
men's team is a good team. And how they're going to fit in
15:39
the A10 is a bit of who knows because the A10 hasn't played
15:42
each other yet. No one's had a great out of
15:46
conference A10 run where they've beaten like every, you know, top
15:50
team that they've played like a, you know, you look at VCU, Saint
15:52
Louis. George Washington with George.
15:55
Washington. 10 days. Like they've everyone's kind of
15:58
stumbled. So, you know, while we'd love to
16:01
be undefeated, right, you know, nine and one, like we're looking
16:05
as good as anybody, but we will find out soon enough because.
16:07
Here's a question for you. New Year's Eve, we've got, you
16:09
know, George Washington at home. Are we the most surprising team
16:12
in the Atlantic 10 this year? Yeah, I think so.
16:14
On the positive side. Yeah, on the positive.
16:16
Side loyal. Look, you could argue loyal.
16:17
It's been so bad that they're they're more surprising.
16:19
Yeah, that's true. I don't think anyone right now,
16:22
if they had the rank which they like, we're going to be 10th in
16:24
the conference like they they may, someone may put us at seven
16:28
or six or five or four like, but no one's putting us at 10.
16:32
And I would say I don't think anybody right now in the A10
16:36
would be surprised if Richmond won the A10 tournament like they
16:40
they we might not be favored to win it right now, but nobody
16:44
would be surprised given how this team has looked in 10
16:46
games. I think what what would surprise
16:48
me when we get to A10 play is that somebody goes 15 and 3.
16:53
Like I don't like, I don't think there's that team that is so
16:56
much better than everybody else. So there's going to be a lot of
17:00
beating each other up, I think during a 10.
17:02
Play, I mean, yeah, there's there's there's a lot of team.
17:04
I think there's nine teams in the top 104 net in the Atlantic
17:08
10. So a lot of chances for good and
17:12
above average wins still coming our way.
17:15
Yeah, hopefully GW can pick it up and not, you know, avoid any
17:19
more bad losses and have a good A10 schedule.
17:21
Because one thing that's interesting, when George
17:23
Washington is better, they tend to be not every year, but tend
17:26
to be one of those teams we play twice because they're close and
17:29
obviously we always play VCU twice.
17:31
So this is like 4 quality games versus I.
17:34
I'd have to look at the schedule.
17:35
But I guess for like rivalry purposes, St.
17:38
Louis plays Loyola Chicago twice.
17:40
And so they got two games against a team that's, you know,
17:43
with 300, that's not. That's not going to happen.
17:47
And so we get a little luck of the draw this year if if GW can
17:51
keep can rebound from their Delaware loss and have a good
17:56
rest of the out of conference, hopefully we we could beat them
17:59
twice. But those two wins will be
18:01
meaningful versus I mean, it's a few years ago they were pretty
18:04
bad and we play them twice and it, you know, it didn't help
18:07
anybody. You know, one other thing I
18:09
think, you know, we keep, we've talked about it a lot, but it's
18:12
bears mentioning. Like, I mean, Aiden Argabrite is
18:17
he's becoming a force of nature for this team and he's a
18:20
freshman. He's a freshman.
18:22
He's our leading scorer, right? He's our leading scorer.
18:25
I think he's, he's and. He's more than that.
18:27
He's, I mean, if you look at, you know, all of the different
18:30
sites to track advanced metrics, he's he's kind of the best
18:32
player on this team this year on a team that has a lot of good
18:34
players and a lot of people playing well, he's been the best
18:37
player. And I mean, it's just super
18:40
impressive for a freshman. Like it's just, it's just
18:42
impressive stuff. It would be interesting to see
18:45
since we play such a different brand of basketball with so many
18:48
players that play and being so deep that, you know, and this
18:52
is, you know, a dreamer versus being realistic.
18:54
But, you know, imagine we go, you know, 14 and four in the
18:57
A10. We're in second place.
18:59
Everything continues in terms of the rotation and we have no one
19:03
in the top three teams when it comes to A10 awards because if
19:07
you look at the. Stats such a shared
19:08
responsibility. Yeah, that we don't have any,
19:10
but we'd be, you know, second in the A10 and, you know, win win
19:13
the A10 tournament or have a great seed because you those
19:15
rankings come out right before the tournament.
19:17
But it is kind of interesting like you think, I think before
19:19
the season Walls was third team and we had no one else listed.
19:25
I know we've got, you know, some some good players on the defense
19:29
and we've got Arga Bright who'll probably get on some sort of
19:33
rookie team in terms of top three teams, like we can have an
19:36
incredible A10 season. That doesn't mean anyone makes
19:38
those teams. We're.
19:39
Going to get some people on those teams though, just because
19:41
like I, if we play as well as I think we could, you know, during
19:44
the conference play, there's a real, there's a real chance that
19:46
everybody's going to have to study what Mooney's done here
19:48
and just either copy it because it's been so effective or, you
19:53
know, give a hand out some awards just of appreciation for
19:56
for what's being done here. I mean, we're the only team in
19:58
America so far that solved, you know, the Belmont pack line
20:02
defense. I mean, they're, they've they've
20:04
only lost one game this year. We've got now decent wins
20:08
against William and Mary in Southern Illinois, both top 125
20:10
teams. Yeah.
20:12
I mean, it's, it's working and it's working and it's working,
20:15
you know, well, and I and the thing about the schedule, we'll
20:18
talk about that for a second. I mean, it was not the schedule
20:20
I think people wanted, but it might have been the schedule we
20:23
needed. Like it might be the schedule.
20:26
That Mooney needed to exercise last year's demons, right,
20:30
Because that was that team last year had a rough time.
20:33
So he built it in a way that we've been building upon each
20:36
game successfully. And you know, it's positioned us
20:40
to where we're still very much in contention for an at large.
20:43
Now, I'm not predicting we're going to get an at large.
20:45
I'm not that that's not a hot take for me right here, right
20:48
now. We're still 80 in the net.
20:49
We need to be like where the ladies are top 50 to have to be
20:52
in that conversation. But I would not be surprised if
20:56
we're top 50 if we win a, if we finish out the non con without a
20:59
loss. And I know we got a tough game
21:00
at Elon, you're going to do the scout for today.
21:03
But if we finish out the non con without a loss and then you beat
21:05
George Washington on New Year's Eve, you're going to be knocking
21:08
on the top 50 in net. And all of a sudden, it's a long
21:11
way to go it. Is.
21:12
I know something ranked teams. But anyway, let's, let's let's
21:15
move ahead because we do want to talk about some games coming up.
21:18
So Tuesday at 11 AM, Yes, the women are home against Bethune
21:24
Cookman. Cook, the two and seven Bethune
21:27
Cookman. That's on ESPN Plus.
21:29
Technically their two wins did not come against D1.
21:32
OK, so they're they have zero wins on the.
21:34
D1 It is Education Day, so if you want to hear a lot of high
21:38
pitched elementary school screams, I recommend you go to
21:42
Education Day to watch. 11 AM I'll be there.
21:45
I'll be Section 18 watching the ladies play.
21:48
It's it's going to be loud. I'm not going to lie to you.
21:52
Just take an aspirin because it is high pierced, you know, like
21:57
very loud, almost like, you know, if you were, if you were
22:01
sleeping, you know, in the Outback and there was a, there
22:03
was a, a flock of bats screeching above you.
22:07
That's kind of what the sound bat.
22:09
I don't know. Where where do bats live?
22:11
I mean, I'm just like trying to wing it, right.
22:13
So I mean, like, but there's a lot of like really loud shrilly
22:17
kind of voices. Yeah.
22:18
And. Everyone.
22:19
I think most people know what a bunch of high school I mean a
22:22
bunch of elementary school or middle school screaming.
22:24
Unless you've heard 4004 thousand of them together in an
22:27
arena, you probably don't know 'cause it is really loud.
22:30
And it, I mean, look, I love the fact that the ladies feed off
22:33
the energy and it's great for attendance and it's really good
22:36
to build the game. And I'll definitely be there
22:39
because I just love the game. But it's definitely, it's
22:41
definitely loud and loud in a way that you're not used to.
22:44
Is there any? Does Bethune Cookman have any
22:46
chance? 00.0.
22:48
Yeah, what? What Tell tell me about this
22:50
team. Are they?
22:50
Just. Are they just?
22:51
Bad, bad. Hey, look, they're AD one team,
22:55
so you can't take them lightly. That's the thing.
22:59
I'll say that's probably the best up the they're #324 in the
23:03
net, the games on ESPN Plus, by the way, they hail from Daytona
23:07
Beach, FL, so they're they're coming up from Florida.
23:11
Nobody on their teams averaging double digits and points.
23:15
The estimates of our of our victory margin somewhere between
23:18
35 and 50 bowsers, yeah. So it's going to be a game where
23:23
I think you see a lot of the. Kids will enjoy that game.
23:26
Yeah, the kids will enjoy that game.
23:27
Our our team should enjoy that game.
23:30
I mean, they've got some size, they've got some players who
23:32
can, who can disrupt, but it should not be much of a test.
23:36
It'll be the kind of game that'll be fun to watch because
23:38
you'll see a lot of our reserves get some time.
23:40
Here's a here's a thing for you. And that's just been on my mind
23:43
for these next two games. If coach wants Maggie to get the
23:49
triple double, all he has to do is play her 34 plus minutes in
23:53
these next two games and I bet she'll get a triple double.
23:56
That being said, I don't think he's going to play her 30-4
23:58
minutes in these next two games. So she would she would
24:02
absolutely dominate these rosters that are coming up.
24:05
But at the end of the day, it's going to be a game.
24:07
Our ladies will be able to work on some stuff.
24:09
We'll get a lot of the reserve some time, which can help them
24:12
build their skills and confidence going forward.
24:14
It'll be very loud. It'll be a fun game to be at.
24:17
Heavily recommend you go just because just the experience of
24:21
being with 4000 shrieking kids is is an experience that
24:25
everybody should have once in their life.
24:27
OK so after the women are home and and beat up on Bethune
24:31
Cookman the next day Wednesday, normal Wednesday night game,
24:36
7:00 PM. The men are at Elon.
24:39
Yeah, that game is on Flow Sports, so I recommend you
24:42
listen on Radio Slow Sports. It's on the road, right?
24:46
Yeah, it's on the road. It's at Elon.
24:49
Elon, they are five and four. They've been.
24:53
They're real problems that they're inconsistent.
24:56
They have a coach, Billy Taylor. He's their fourth year leading
24:58
the program. If you look at his history, been
25:01
at a few different programs and 500 or a little over 500 is the
25:05
best you get out of out of that guy.
25:08
They were picked 12th in preseason CAA, so they're
25:12
actually exceeding expectations at 5:00 and 4:00.
25:16
They're 156 in the net, 162 in Bardovic.
25:21
So they're not the worst team we're going to play and it's on
25:24
the road. Interesting.
25:28
So they they're in a arena that holds about 5000 they average.
25:33
Oh, actually they played last Saturday.
25:35
They won versus Northern Illinois, the rival of Southern
25:39
Illinois, I'm guessing. Anyway, the attendance was only
25:43
1092, so I don't part of what I think of Elon is it's a it's a
25:50
beautiful university, a lot like all the.
25:51
All the kids are going to be home for.
25:53
For, for Christmas, kids are going to be home for Christmas.
25:56
It, it is not a school that I think is passionate about
25:59
basketball, right? Shouldn't be anyway.
26:01
And so even though it's a road game, it's going to be an empty
26:05
gym, we hope. Or if it's even if they get the
26:09
attendance they had last Saturday, it's, you know, 1100
26:12
folks. So in a in a good way, it's not
26:15
this. We're not we're not going on
26:17
this road trip where someone's got a massive homecourt
26:20
advantage and there's going to be 10,000 screaming fans that
26:23
that's not the road game we've got The team we're playing is
26:27
super strong offense team. It's all offense.
26:31
Not very, they're not. Like a William the team, they
26:33
play faster. They play 8 deep, maybe 9, so
26:36
more traditional, you know, versus what we've been doing
26:41
now. But let's talk about their best
26:42
player, Chandler Chandler. His name is Chandler Cathrell.
26:46
Yes. Could he be any more productive?
26:52
He averages 22 points, 8 rebounds a game.
26:54
Wow, he's 69225. Can I give you a fun fact about
26:58
him? Yes.
26:59
So I've been talking since the beginning of the year about
27:03
Arterbright's, you know, top five in the nation or top six in
27:06
the nation and fouls drawn per 40.
27:08
He's actually fifth. Guess who's 4th?
27:10
That guy you just mentioned? Yeah, he is a good player.
27:13
He's a. He gets fouled.
27:14
He's a graduate student transfer.
27:15
He's been in a couple other programs.
27:18
So yeah, he he's been around now.
27:20
I looked at his stats last year. I think he averaged like eight
27:22
points per game. So there's a nice find here.
27:25
They've unlocked by by Billy Taylor.
27:28
So so he's a, he's a tough player.
27:30
I mean, we don't, we've got some good inside players, but we
27:33
certainly don't have like this dominant inside force at the at
27:37
the the four spot. So I think that's going to be
27:39
tough match up for us. They're going to push it inside
27:42
a lot. They're going to be very fast
27:44
trying to score a lot with him. They do have another guard.
27:46
They have a guard. Randall Pettis scores 15 per
27:49
game and and I think Cathrell shoots like 3 threes a game.
27:55
So it's not just all inside you leave him alone outside.
27:58
He'll he'll hit a three on you. So that's really our challenge.
28:03
They're not a good defensive team.
28:06
And so that's real. I mean, they're they're a bad
28:08
defensive team. So this is a game that I'm, if
28:12
you look at Bartevich, they say, hey, we should win 81 to 80.
28:16
OK. And I think, you know, that's
28:19
accurate. If we're, you know, an 85 to 100
28:24
ranked team, you know, it's good.
28:25
We're going to play teams on the road that are whatever 150 sort
28:29
of ranked team and it's going to be tight.
28:31
But I that's not what I think we are.
28:33
I mean, I think we should beat them by a lot.
28:37
I'm going to buy a lot, you know, double digits.
28:39
That's not what the stat services are going to say.
28:42
But this is a team that doesn't play good defense.
28:46
They're not this lethal 3 point shooting team.
28:48
They're fine from three, but they're not, you know, lethal
28:51
from three. 35% looks like. And have they, you know, are
28:55
they going to be ready for going against our 10 deep rotation
28:59
that plays good defense, that hustles, fights for loose balls,
29:05
is a good rebounding team defensively and getting a little
29:08
bit better on offensive rebounds?
29:10
Common opponents they They lost to Furman at home by 9 and beat
29:15
Gardner Webb by 11. Yeah.
29:18
And so again, they're an inconsistent team.
29:20
They can score a lot of points. So like, if we go on the road
29:23
and think we can just, you know, naturally beat A-Team like that,
29:25
we're in trouble. But that that's not how.
29:27
Coach, I was a little concerned when I saw the Bartevic saying
29:30
we were only like 51% like likely to win the game and then
29:34
I and Ken Palm has a 66% likely to win it.
29:37
What do you think that's attributed to?
29:39
I mean, is it just because we're not we haven't won a lot on the
29:41
road? Is that what's what's wrong?
29:43
It's a good question. Like I mean, so Bardovic still
29:45
has us 9 and 9 in conference. OK, so you know our statistics
29:50
so far today. Well, we're, we're, we're
29:53
beating the teams in most cases we're beating all the teams
29:56
we're supposed to beat. We haven't played a lot of top
29:59
teams. So I, I suspect the Bardovic
30:01
models are saying like, Hey, they're better than we thought
30:03
we were going to be. But they've, you know, I think
30:06
they've gone from 19 wins to 21 wins.
30:09
And maybe in conference we are going to be, you know, 7 and 11.
30:12
And now we're 9:00 and 9:00. But they don't have us being a
30:15
top team. They have us a middle A10 team.
30:18
And I think a middle A10 team going to a place like Elon is
30:22
going to have a really tight game.
30:24
I just, and you know, obviously we're biased here, but I think
30:27
we're, we're higher than. The middle, I think we're, I
30:30
think we're on the upswing for sure.
30:33
I mean, I like our, I like our chances to win this game.
30:37
I, I think, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm with Ken Palm.
30:40
I don't have it like being as close as Bartorvic has.
30:43
Bartorvic has it. I think it's, I think it's going
30:45
to be a game we should win, but we have to show up.
30:48
You cannot take a team lightly on the road, no matter who it
30:51
is. And if we have at large
30:53
aspirations, which I know we do, you got to win these kind of mid
30:58
range, you know, games against teams that are like right around
31:02
1:50. And even if they're on the road,
31:03
you got to win them. Yeah.
31:05
Well, before we wrap, I want to mention that you know, Porter
31:07
did go to the post game. Yes, good conference.
31:11
I'm sorry, the post game meeting with the coach and with the
31:15
player. What I you didn't know is I went
31:17
to the post post game, OK, because I went to the Tavern
31:21
with some friends afterwards and we were there for, I don't know,
31:24
1520 minutes and Coach Mooney came in and said.
31:26
Hello. Did he really?
31:27
So he was there having dinner with a couple of the coaches.
31:30
His wife was there and I thought it was nice and the place was
31:33
kind of was late so it was empty.
31:34
He had some privacy in the back to kind of hang out with the
31:38
coaches and enjoy the win. But it was a nice surprise.
31:41
So he can come in there and said hello to our table.
31:43
So it was a fun way to to to end the night.
31:46
Awesome. Well, glad you got over to the
31:48
Tavern. That's a great, you know,
31:50
postgame tradition. I thought you were.
31:53
You said you had something else to do, so you weren't working at
31:55
the postgame presser with me. So now I figured out what that
31:58
was, right? That's right.
31:59
Continue the postgame revelries. Well, thank you guys for
32:03
listening today as usual, like follow, subscribe, tell your
32:06
friends. Thank you so much for listening.
32:08
We appreciate it. Hopefully we have some sounds
32:11
like an what should be an easy but loud women's game on Tuesday
32:17
and then a road game on Flow Sports.
32:21
Again, you can hopefully listen to Bob Black on the radio.
32:25
If you're in the Elon, NC area, turn out for our spiders, you
32:28
might, just might just help us get over the hump there.
32:30
So yeah, that's right. Well, until next time, this is
32:33
Tom and this is Porter and this is Spider sounding off.
32:35
See you Porter and Tom Richman fans talking hoops.
32:37
Women and men spiders.