Latest / Spiders Sound Off / Episode 32: Non-Conference Ends with a Bang—and a Bruise | Richmond Basketball Podcast

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Episode 32: Non-Conference Ends with a Bang—and a Bruise | Richmond Basketball Podcast · Spiders Sound Off

• 0:07
  Well, this is Spider Sound off from the Robin Center.
• 0:12
  And this is Tom, Yeah. This is Porter.
• 0:15
  And we are here after a tough loss against Charleston
• 0:20
  Southern. Very tough loss.
• 0:22
  And we don't really want to talk about it right now.
• 0:25
  Yeah, we'll get into it a bit later.
• 0:28
  In the meantime, we thought we'd talk a little bit about the
• 0:31
  women's team. Try to after that nice two game
• 0:35
  win in the Henrico tournament. We got that final win against
• 0:39
  Penn State after our last pod, yes.
• 0:41
  And we got a game coming up against Tuesday.
• 0:43
  Night. Against Tuesday, Rhode Island.
• 0:45
  So, oh, we went to that Penn State game.
• 0:48
  I was travelling out of town. Tell me kind of what did you,
• 0:52
  what did you take out of that one?
• 0:54
  First and foremost, congratulations to whoever did
• 0:56
  the scout from the coaching staff, that was the most
• 0:59
  prepared I've seen all year long.
• 1:02
  The team played a fantastic game.
• 1:04
  We looked good right from the start.
• 1:06
  We figured out that Ali had a distinct advantage of getting
• 1:11
  around her defender and going straight to the hoop, and I
• 1:14
  thought she played probably just one of the best games of season.
• 1:17
  She just had layups at will when she wanted it.
• 1:20
  Yeah, it was all about pushing that ball up as fast as we
• 1:22
  could. Yeah, we went small to start the
• 1:24
  game. I mean, we actually put
• 1:25
  Perchetti in the starting lineup over both Simon and Dewey, which
• 1:28
  was interesting. Again, great, great coaching
• 1:31
  scout there. Yeah, I was totally moved to to
• 1:33
  go fast. I mean, you do that because you
• 1:35
  want to get quick. We talked about on the pre the
• 1:38
  pre show that like we and think that they they're big as big as
• 1:40
  they were could cover Maggie and her speed and they couldn't.
• 1:43
  Maggie had a game a really just another exclamation point and
• 1:48
  what is has been an unbelievable career at the University of
• 1:50
  Richmond. 30 points in the game. She won the A10.
• 1:54
  We call it the Maggie Dugan Player Award, but it's really
• 1:56
  the player of the week award for the fifth time.
• 1:59
  Fantastic stuff. I want to call out Newell's
• 2:01
  defense on Mcmiller. First time Mcmiller had been
• 2:04
  held under double digits and points all year.
• 2:07
  She had eight points, and I think four of them came when
• 2:09
  Newell wasn't in the game. Probably the best individual
• 2:12
  defensive performance of Newell all year long.
• 2:15
  So I thought that was really, really good.
• 2:17
  We held Penn State to their lowest point total of the year.
• 2:20
  That was remarkable in and of itself.
• 2:23
  And this is a, this was an important win for a lot of
• 2:25
  reasons. But one of the reasons is 12 of
• 2:27
  the top 36 teams in the net are Big 10 teams.
• 2:30
  And so when you go into at large time, you know they're going to
• 2:33
  be looking at like, OK, comparing us to maybe a team we
• 2:35
  didn't play in the Big 10. And so having a nice win against
• 2:38
  the big team, Big 10 team by double digits.
• 2:40
  Yeah, and Penn State will will get their wins in that
• 2:43
  conference. They'll win some games.
• 2:44
  Yeah, yeah. I thought Rachel, also 14
• 2:46
  rebounds, deserved a shout out that.
• 2:48
  Was unbeliev. That's got to be her season
• 2:50
  high, maybe career high. Unbelievable work on the boards
• 2:52
  for her that game. Really, really good stuff.
• 2:54
  So it was a great effort. It was a great game.
• 2:57
  Fun to be in the in the Henrico Sports Center there.
• 3:01
  Great venue for basketball. Hoping everybody comes out and
• 3:03
  supports us during the A10 tournament this year.
• 3:05
  That'll be great. Stuff and that is just kind of
• 3:08
  an interesting way to wrap up the non con schedule for the
• 3:12
  women was tournament. Then they had some time off and
• 3:17
  unlike the, you know, the men who had this game kind of
• 3:19
  squeezed in. We'll get to the the men's game
• 3:22
  in a second. But OK.
• 3:23
  So the women's head on Tuesday to Rhode Island for a tough
• 3:29
  opening match for A10 play number. 50 in the net numbers.
• 3:35
  I think they're #60 in Bartorvic very good team, multiple good
• 3:40
  players. 5 foot 11 inch. Brooklyn Gray is their most
• 3:43
  efficient player. She's averaging about 12.6 a
• 3:46
  Game 5 rebounds. They also have a a gal M BU MBU
• 3:51
  very efficient player again, 13 point 6.7 rebounds and then a
• 3:55
  freshman who's getting a lot of attention.
• 3:57
  Vanessa, what is Vanessa's last name?
• 4:00
  Hold one second, please. Vanessa Harris, who is really
• 4:06
  lighting up the A10 as a freshman this year.
• 4:08
  So she's she's really good. So they've got a a very good
• 4:11
  balance team. Another another girl by the name
• 4:13
  of Ines de Bruise who who plays extremely well.
• 4:16
  This will be a tough test. Bartorvic has it toss up game,
• 4:20
  56 percent chance of a spider win, 44 percent chance of a
• 4:23
  Rhode Island win at Rhode Island.
• 4:25
  Some court. This is A at large resume
• 4:27
  builder. Rhode Island beat NC State at NC
• 4:30
  State this year. NC State, of course has been top
• 4:31
  25 for a lot of the year. So this will be a very tough
• 4:34
  game, a very tough test for our ladies.
• 4:36
  So you can watch it on Tuesday, it'll be an away game, but still
• 4:40
  worth worth tuning into. Yeah, it'll be interesting to
• 4:42
  see as we get to A10 play. I mean, Maggie has clearly upped
• 4:45
  her game from last year when she was player of the of the year
• 4:49
  for the conference. So kind of these teams are going
• 4:52
  to all know like Maggie is, has been dynamite this year.
• 4:57
  She was beating them last year. And kind of do they do something
• 5:01
  new that maybe we haven't seen to try to slow her down?
• 5:04
  Or is it Maggie's going to get her points and they're trying to
• 5:06
  stop everybody else 'cause that's to me, the question of
• 5:10
  how do we do an A10 play is like, is anyone going to have an
• 5:12
  answer for Maggie, 'cause if they can't come up with answers,
• 5:15
  Like, I think we're going to have an incredible a 10 season.
• 5:18
  But these teams have, you know, spent a lot of time with a lot
• 5:21
  of good coaching Staffs who are spending their time trying to
• 5:23
  figure out like, how do they just slow her down?
• 5:26
  I mean, they're not going to stop her, but can they get her
• 5:27
  back to 15 points versus her 2324 point?
• 5:32
  It's going to take obviously much more than Maggie to win
• 5:34
  this game. This is again, just so we've
• 5:36
  played, you know, a handful of top 50 opponents this year.
• 5:40
  Fairfield was one, TCU was one, Texas was one.
• 5:43
  This is a chance for a for a statement win on the road.
• 5:47
  It's the kind of thing that when you add it with to Penn State
• 5:49
  and some of these other smaller conference teams that are really
• 5:52
  good, it'll will will lead to a strong at large possibility.
• 5:55
  So I think it's a it's a game that we we need to win.
• 5:58
  I mean, I again, very tough game, 45% chance, give or take
• 6:02
  that Rhode Island takes it from us, which is more than I would
• 6:05
  like to admit. They have a good coach.
• 6:06
  Tammy Rice. She's been about six years.
• 6:09
  She's won every year. The last year was her best yet
• 6:11
  and this year's an improvement on last year.
• 6:13
  So she's clearly getting better, getting a team together that can
• 6:16
  compete long term in the A 10s. Yeah, so that's Tuesday.
• 6:19
  It'll be on ESPN Plus, so you have that at home.
• 6:23
  It'll be an easy, easy game to get access to.
• 6:26
  I think that's how I'm going to get a chance to watch it.
• 6:29
  I don't think we're not traveling to Rhode Island on
• 6:32
  that's I guess that's the 30th is their game that leads to the
• 6:36
  men starts their A10 on New Year's Eve.
• 6:40
  But I guess before we get to the first, a 10 game, it's we can't
• 6:45
  avoid this entire pod talking about the end of our conf, a non
• 6:50
  conference schedule and a loss, a loss where, you know, we were
• 6:57
  clearly not the best team. Yeah, we were pretty.
• 7:00
  For for 40 minutes today pretty thoroughly.
• 7:03
  I played where a loss to the Buccaneers from Charleston
• 7:07
  Southern Initial reactions Porter.
• 7:10
  Yeah, I mean, like Bryson Blaine, a Richmond kid lit us up
• 7:15
  23 points in the game. That was that was pretty painful
• 7:19
  because he came out with a lot of energy, a lot of emotion.
• 7:22
  I felt like they pretty much dominated us on the glass.
• 7:25
  They had a lot of second chance points.
• 7:27
  I'm looking at the stat sheet right now, I think it's 14 to
• 7:29
  two on second chance points. Not very characteristic of a big
• 7:33
  S team to come into the Robin. Center out, rebound, us score so
• 7:38
  prolifically on the second chance, rebound points.
• 7:42
  And I, you know, it, it didn't work, but I give Mooney some
• 7:45
  credit and that like Walls was not having a great game, Beagle
• 7:47
  wasn't having a great game and Mooney really went with a
• 7:51
  smaller line up for a lot of the second-half.
• 7:54
  It's kind of, we got a little bit closer with that smaller
• 7:56
  line up, but there was just too many times where they were just
• 7:59
  getting rebound after rebound. I see Walls, I got the stat
• 8:04
  sheet at 5 turnovers and there was a moment when he got pulled
• 8:08
  in the second-half where, you know, you could see how
• 8:11
  discouraged he was with his own play.
• 8:13
  He was on the on the bench, like hitting his head with his hands,
• 8:18
  kind of pulling his hair out. Like he knew that there was a
• 8:21
  really like a 3 minute span there early in the second-half
• 8:25
  where he just, you know, made some turnovers, missed a shot.
• 8:29
  And it was. He didn't really play much after
• 8:31
  the only 15 minutes for Wallace tonight.
• 8:33
  Yeah, second game in a row where where Will Johnson just hasn't
• 8:36
  shot. He took one shot tonight, 0 in
• 8:38
  his last game. And of course, Johnson's so good
• 8:41
  on offense and is most of his efficiency is gains on offense,
• 8:45
  not defense. And so I just can't imagine a
• 8:47
  world where we see him not shooting two games in a row
• 8:50
  because he's such a such a dangerous 3 point shooter.
• 8:52
  But that's something that bears watching because I mean, we need
• 8:55
  to get him involved in the offense.
• 8:56
  We need to get him shooting. Shout out to to AJ Lopez, 14 for
• 9:01
  14 from the foul line, 22 points.
• 9:04
  Had a really good offensive game for us.
• 9:07
  Can't say enough good things about what he was giving us on
• 9:09
  offense. I thought there were times where
• 9:12
  like, you know, Jalen Robinson came in and I think he thought
• 9:15
  he played solid, you know, for for some short run.
• 9:18
  I liked what I saw out of him. I looked he had another really
• 9:22
  aggressive thunderous dunk in the early part of the game,
• 9:25
  which gave us gave us some energy.
• 9:27
  I just, I just, I'm having a hard time explaining the, the
• 9:30
  mismatch that we had on the offensive glass.
• 9:33
  I mean, it's just that was the thing that sticks in my mind.
• 9:35
  You just can't just can't let a big S team clean up the boards
• 9:38
  like. Yeah, and it's unfortunate.
• 9:40
  It just gets into effort or energy.
• 9:43
  Both of which, I mean, it felt like we were, we were there.
• 9:46
  I mean, I mean, if I'm being honest, it just felt like they
• 9:49
  were the better team tonight. Like it was just, I mean, they,
• 9:51
  they just seemed to be a step quicker, step bigger.
• 9:54
  I mean, just a little bit bigger.
• 9:55
  They just were the better. Teams, you know, it was tough
• 9:57
  too. Is Blaine, it was clearly
• 9:58
  trouble for us shooting a lot of threes, but he fouled out and
• 10:02
  there's probably 4 minutes left in the game or and we were down
• 10:07
  maybe you know, 7 points at the time, but we just couldn't get
• 10:10
  it back. Like their best player was now
• 10:12
  having a watch and we just, we weren't able to take advantage
• 10:15
  of that. We just didn't have anyone
• 10:17
  really with their A game tonight, I mean.
• 10:19
  Charleston Southern shoots 1 of 17 from 3 point line in the
• 10:22
  second-half, one of 17 like in the game where you see that and
• 10:26
  it was close at half time, we should have won by 1015 points,
• 10:29
  yet we didn't. And that all comes to the boards
• 10:31
  and keeping them off the boards, cleaning up the boards.
• 10:34
  That's the. That's the difference in the.
• 10:36
  Game now we shot 34% for the game.
• 10:41
  So you look at all of that rebounding edge and we did have
• 10:46
  and we won the turnover battle, but we you know, we had some
• 10:49
  sloppy turnovers at times, but at some point like you got to
• 10:52
  make your shots and their defense was aggressive and out
• 10:55
  on us, but we also missed some some that look like easy put
• 10:59
  backs or we got a lane and we just just didn't hit him.
• 11:05
  I mean, shooting 34% is hard to win now.
• 11:07
  I mean it was we thought we might have had a chance at some
• 11:10
  point because they're they went really cold in the second-half
• 11:12
  shooting. They were hot in the first half
• 11:14
  the Buccaneers, but they got really cold.
• 11:16
  But we we just couldn't we couldn't get any consistency.
• 11:19
  There was no streaks on the offensive side for us.
• 11:22
  I felt like inside both Daughtry and Beagle when they were doing
• 11:25
  a lot of their like around the basket, you know, attempted
• 11:28
  layups, put backs, etcetera, that there were some contact
• 11:31
  that wasn't getting called tonight.
• 11:33
  Like you saw like just we missed a lot of rim out layups and it
• 11:37
  felt like they were looking for the foul to be called and the
• 11:39
  foul wasn't called. But there are going to be games
• 11:41
  where the refs aren't, you know, cooperating with what we want.
• 11:45
  And yeah, the rest were letting them play out there.
• 11:46
  Yeah, they let. Them play and I mean they let
• 11:48
  them play kind of on both ends I.
• 11:49
  Thought yeah, and I and I and to the, you know, credit for the
• 11:52
  refs, like there's some games where like the refs want to call
• 11:54
  it travel every time someone like fakes a shot.
• 11:57
  And tonight I think they called one all night.
• 11:59
  Now we are arguing for some, but I think, you know, we saw our
• 12:02
  team travel at times too and not get called.
• 12:04
  So I think the refs were we're, we're, you know, just letting
• 12:07
  him play and not trying to call out a blow, blow a lot of
• 12:09
  whistles. And I like that.
• 12:10
  I'd prefer that in the grand scheme of things, especially
• 12:13
  when watching a game. It was a it was an interesting,
• 12:17
  interesting game to watch. It was a good game.
• 12:19
  I didn't want it to be a good game.
• 12:20
  I was open for a 20 or 30 point spider blowout.
• 12:23
  Exciting game to watch. I thought the fans were were
• 12:27
  into it. I thought the fans made some
• 12:28
  noise to try to pick us up at time.
• 12:30
  So it was felt like a game where we at some point in time we were
• 12:32
  just going to take the lead and run with it, but we never did.
• 12:35
  Well I mean there was one good thing that came out of the game
• 12:38
  tonight is they did miss 2 free throws late in the second-half.
• 12:42
  So the fans that did remain a lot had left by then but did get
• 12:46
  free chicken at BW3. So my wife on the way out
• 12:49
  hopefully grab some coupons for some for some free chicken.
• 12:54
  That was the only good thing that came out of the the game
• 12:56
  tonight, that's for sure. Well, do we want to like go into
• 13:01
  this anymore? Are we ready to move on?
• 13:04
  I want to expunge that we knew at large was not really looming
• 13:08
  in our future and now it's a definite we are not an at large
• 13:10
  team to the NCAA, so we're going to have to win three or four
• 13:12
  games in March. Yeah, and it's tough to losing 2
• 13:14
  out of our last three after such a promising out of conflict
• 13:18
  schedule. And then we did that Elon.
• 13:21
  We beat The Citadel, who's not really a good team, and we lose
• 13:25
  HE. Was our worst.
• 13:25
  This was a bad loss. This was a quad four loss.
• 13:28
  I believe they're like 240 or so and Ken Palm 225.
• 13:32
  They'll move up actually after beating us on the road.
• 13:34
  But you know, just just the game, you have to win.
• 13:37
  Well, it's our first home loss. First home loss.
• 13:39
  And hopefully it's the last home loss, but you know, A10 schedule
• 13:44
  starts. We got GW on New Year's Eve, a
• 13:47
  4:00 start. For some reason.
• 13:49
  You know, the way the scheduling gods worked it out, We played GW
• 13:52
  on New Year's Eve last year and won.
• 13:55
  Yes, we get the second. We get the party with with
• 13:58
  George Washington again. Coached by Chris Caputo, GW
• 14:02
  brings in one of the best players in the A10.
• 14:04
  You want to talk about Castro for a second?
• 14:06
  Yeah, so Castro 611 senior returning player.
• 14:09
  So he's not one of these guys that they kind of pulled from
• 14:12
  another team. Like he's been successful at GW.
• 14:15
  He's averaging 15 points, a little over 7 rebounds.
• 14:17
  What's interesting about that team?
• 14:19
  And we can we can talk more about Castro cuz he's got an NBA
• 14:22
  potential for sure. But they've got eight guys that
• 14:25
  play like 20 minutes. So they don't go as deep as we
• 14:28
  do off the bench, but they've got good guys that are in that
• 14:31
  20 to 25 minute range. So even Castro, who's like a
• 14:35
  dominating player in the A10, he's not playing 30 minutes a
• 14:37
  game. I mean, he he may have at times,
• 14:39
  but he's he's certainly not his average.
• 14:41
  They got a bunch of good players.
• 14:43
  One thing that's interesting about their team and and this is
• 14:47
  probably back in the day, you know, pre NIL was frowned upon,
• 14:50
  but like one of their transfers and he actually is, I think
• 14:53
  plays off the bench is Trey Dinkins who came from Duquesne.
• 14:56
  So it's like this inner conference move of players is
• 14:59
  something I I think back in the day when you had a transfer in
• 15:01
  sit out of gear, you didn't see a lot of players moving within
• 15:04
  the conference. But he had another year left and
• 15:07
  I think wanted a chance to play in the NCAA Tournament and join
• 15:11
  GW to be. And he was, he was Duquesne's
• 15:14
  best player last year. And now he's a certainly
• 15:19
  important part to GW. But he's just one of those, you
• 15:23
  know, seven guys, 7 to 8 guys that play, you know, 20 to 25
• 15:27
  minutes a game. Yeah, there's a great story on
• 15:29
  their team too. Kid.
• 15:30
  Kid with last name of Johnson. Yeah, Garrett Johnson.
• 15:32
  He's a junior for the team, has overcome quite a bit to to just
• 15:37
  be playing college basketball. He started off as an Episcopal
• 15:41
  high school kid in Northern Virginia, ended up committing to
• 15:44
  Princeton. Then they discovered a tumor in
• 15:46
  his hip and the tumor was growing aggressively.
• 15:50
  It was non cancerous, but they still could not get the the
• 15:52
  tumor to stop growing. And of course, there's a lot of
• 15:54
  stuff in your hip you don't want a tumor to hit, like your
• 15:57
  sciatic nerve, for instance. And so he ended up having to
• 16:00
  have 4 surgeries and eventually chemotherapy to try to deal with
• 16:03
  his tumor. He withdrew from Princeton,
• 16:06
  focused on his health, eventually hit the transfer
• 16:09
  portal, GW signed him, and he's turned into a heck of a good
• 16:11
  player for GW. Well, I mean, part of that
• 16:13
  story. So he went to GW and tore his
• 16:17
  ACL. So he missed a year at GW with
• 16:21
  a, you know, had a surgery on his knee, was still going
• 16:24
  through chemotherapy and ACL rehab.
• 16:27
  So this is a tough kid. So I mean, he this year's
• 16:30
  average 13 .4 points per game and it was about the same last
• 16:34
  year. So he's a three-point guy.
• 16:36
  So he's tall 6-8, but he's a three-point specialist.
• 16:39
  So I know he hasn't played every game this year.
• 16:42
  He's played in the most of their game.
• 16:43
  So I hope we see him on New Year's Eve.
• 16:46
  It is such a great story. It's a tough kid who's had a lot
• 16:48
  of adversity, but but keep pushing and he's a junior and
• 16:52
  and when he missed some time last year late in the season,
• 16:57
  because I think he was having some, some hip, hip issues.
• 17:01
  And they're and Caputo said like because they had a good end of
• 17:04
  the year and he was mentioning how like and how proud he was of
• 17:08
  his team doing it without arguably their best player.
• 17:10
  So I think they, they look at Garrett Johnson as potentially
• 17:13
  like their best player who's, you know, overcome a lot of
• 17:17
  adversity and isn't, again, one of those, I think 7 guys who
• 17:20
  averages more than 20 minutes a game for him.
• 17:22
  GW is a very good offensive team.
• 17:24
  They have a couple bad losses they shouldn't have had this
• 17:26
  year. If you guys thought Charleston
• 17:28
  Southern was bad, these guys lost to Delaware earlier in the
• 17:31
  year and and some people said it was, it was, I think it's a time
• 17:35
  it was the fifth worst or most improbable loss in all of
• 17:38
  college basketball this year. So they've they've had they have
• 17:41
  the propensity to lay an egg every now and again, but overall
• 17:44
  this is a very good, this is a very good offensive team that's
• 17:47
  coming in a team that scores, can score points.
• 17:50
  They beat William and Mary by 13 points.
• 17:52
  So they're really they're really effective.
• 17:55
  They also play good 3 point defense.
• 17:56
  And so one of our strongest weapons, which is can be the
• 17:59
  three-point shot, you know, it's going to be tougher against this
• 18:02
  team. So that's something.
• 18:04
  To keep an eye on, we are 39% from 3 point plan tonight.
• 18:09
  That's tonight. That's not terrible.
• 18:11
  That wasn't so bad. No, it wasn't so bad.
• 18:13
  That's not why we lost the game. Button No.
• 18:15
  No. I would say you know there are
• 18:17
  GWS 80 in Bartorvik, 79 in the. Net, yeah, that's right. 82 In
• 18:20
  Ken Palm we were. We were favored to win the game
• 18:24
  prior to tonight. Yeah, that may change.
• 18:27
  After the Charleston Southern game I'm seeing this is live for
• 18:29
  you guys. We're now a one point dog to GW
• 18:33
  at the Robbins Center on on New Year's Eve.
• 18:35
  It's going to be important for the folks in town to come out.
• 18:38
  Obviously, students will be probably still.
• 18:40
  Out. Yeah, they're still gone.
• 18:41
  So we're going. To need as many locals to come
• 18:42
  out and help support the team as possible.
• 18:45
  It'll be a tough it'll be a tough matchup, but you know, we
• 18:47
  can get back on track with a win against GW.
• 18:49
  This tonight's loss. I mean, you know, we're fans.
• 18:53
  We're doing the spot right after a loss in the Robin Center.
• 18:56
  It hurts. It really doesn't feel good to
• 18:59
  lose to a team like in the Big South that you should beat.
• 19:01
  But it's just just one game. Like we've always kind of been
• 19:05
  talking about. We need to be playing our best
• 19:07
  basketball come March, where if we put together three or four
• 19:10
  wins, we can we can we can get back to the dance.
• 19:13
  But either way you slice it, this sucks.
• 19:16
  This game sucked and I wish we had a different result.
• 19:21
  Yeah. I mean it's a, you know, this
• 19:23
  question we've been talking about all year is this evolution
• 19:27
  of Mooney and coaching minutes across his entire team.
• 19:31
  And he said it from the very beginning.
• 19:32
  I think pre season that he thought they had a solid group
• 19:36
  of of players where the difference between the best and
• 19:39
  the worst was really tight, which is going to lead to a lot
• 19:42
  of player playing lots of minutes.
• 19:44
  It is one of those now we're heading into a 10 play.
• 19:47
  We saw the bench shorten a little bit today, players that
• 19:50
  weren't playing well, we're playing less and there's got to
• 19:53
  be, whether you want to call him the Angel or the devil,
• 19:56
  something on one of Mooney's shoulders saying you got to find
• 19:59
  the five to seven guys that you want to count on for the next 18
• 20:03
  games. I think it'll be a nine man
• 20:04
  rotation. I think you're going to see a a
• 20:07
  shortened rotation at some point in time, but not shortened so
• 20:10
  that the other two aren't playing.
• 20:12
  But I just think you're going to see us focus on kind of a 9
• 20:14
  minute double digit rotation. What's great now about the team,
• 20:19
  and again, it's been successful in a lot of games that we play.
• 20:22
  Lots of people, the starting line up doesn't really matter,
• 20:26
  right? I mean they're coming out after
• 20:27
  2 minutes and you're getting a new line up and a refresh line
• 20:31
  up. Probably by the the five minute
• 20:32
  mark, you got 5 different people in there that didn't start
• 20:35
  right. If you're going to shorten the
• 20:38
  bench at some point, starting lineup matters.
• 20:41
  And he hasn't changed it really since the beginning.
• 20:44
  So I'm curious to see again A10 play.
• 20:47
  I mean there's something different.
• 20:48
  You're flipping the page of like the out of conference schedule
• 20:50
  is over. You're going into the A10 like
• 20:52
  this is now a real serious business and I'm curious to see,
• 20:56
  you know, we've got GW at home. Is it is it the same 5 or do you
• 21:00
  see Daughtry or, or do you see, hey, you know, Argar bright?
• 21:05
  Do you see some somebody else take a spot there to show that
• 21:10
  minutes will matter and the starting lineup is going to be
• 21:13
  an important part of kind of who's getting the minutes?
• 21:15
  I think I was 100% on board with the no.
• 21:17
  We're going to play 11 the whole season, you know, with depth.
• 21:20
  But after a loss like this, clearly the rotation didn't
• 21:24
  didn't work tonight against a bad team.
• 21:26
  And that that kind of gives me the first time I've had pause
• 21:29
  thinking, well, we maybe we need to, we need to have the 8 or 9
• 21:32
  core players that we're going to.
• 21:35
  So I think that's a possibility for sure.
• 21:36
  Also, quick, quick shout out, like Bryson Blaine Richmond kid,
• 21:39
  he's a junior. Does he pull?
• 21:41
  Is he the next AJ Lopez, the guy who lit us up in the Robin
• 21:43
  Center that we go after in the offseason to make him a spider
• 21:46
  for? His we're allowed to say that.
• 21:47
  For a senior year. No one here is allowed to say
• 21:50
  that, but we're allowed to say that we say.
• 21:51
  It for sure, like, I mean like I'd be, I'd be talking to his
• 21:54
  agent, you know, so. That kid was fearless.
• 21:57
  So I mean he. Lit us up he.
• 21:58
  Couldn't stop him. Quite frankly.
• 22:00
  Yeah, that's right. He was great.
• 22:01
  I just was looking at the stats a little bit more.
• 22:03
  So they had the lead for 33 minutes yes.
• 22:06
  So that kind of tells you this wasn't a game that, you know,
• 22:09
  we're winning and just kind of blew it at the end, right.
• 22:12
  This was a game where that team just outplayed us and it you
• 22:15
  know, you could call it a trap game because we're about to head
• 22:17
  into a 10 play. You can make a bunch of excuses,
• 22:20
  but we just weren't good enough today.
• 22:22
  And it's you know, it, it's hard because you know, we're right.
• 22:25
  You know, we're, we just saw the ending, you know, 15 minutes
• 22:29
  ago. Yep.
• 22:30
  So, you know, it's hard to wounds are fresh.
• 22:33
  It's hard to shake that off. Wounds are fresh.
• 22:36
  But maybe, you know, just to kind of wrap things up before we
• 22:42
  kind of move on physically and mentally to the next games.
• 22:45
  As you know, we do have New Year's coming up.
• 22:46
  Yes, we'll be doing our next pod.
• 22:48
  We will be released kind of in January of 2026.
• 22:52
  Do you have any? Are you a resolution guy or do
• 22:55
  you want to come up with some resolutions for the Spiders
• 22:57
  men's and women's teams? I do want to come up with a
• 23:00
  resolution for the spiders. Can we do that on the January
• 23:02
  episode? Because I'm not prepared to
• 23:03
  mentally for it right now. My mind is fried.
• 23:05
  I won't say anything witty. Let's do that for our.
• 23:06
  Episode OK so we'll we'll start with a a resolution that that
• 23:10
  Porter doesn't wear these losses as hard in the upcoming
• 23:15
  conference schedule. Like I give you permission to
• 23:18
  wear them this hard when the women lose conference games.
• 23:22
  But if, if you're going to take it this hard when the men's lose
• 23:25
  conference games like you're going to be at, you're going to
• 23:28
  have to get a bunch of blood pressure medicine.
• 23:31
  We might need to have a doctor here on location to to to to
• 23:36
  check you out like every 5 minutes that we're doing the pod
• 23:39
  so. I try try not to slump with my
• 23:41
  body language by the way, you guys who know that that means.
• 23:45
  OK, well, I guess we're going to make this short and sweet and
• 23:49
  we're going to wrap this thing up.
• 23:50
  So until next time, this is Tom. And this is Porter.
• 23:53
  And this is spider sounding.