Regarding the Spider shooting woes, sounds like a baseball analogy. We have a bunch of “5 o’clock hitters”. They can rip it in the batting cage in pregame. But at 7:00 when lights come and it’s game time - no good. Hope I am wrong and team starts improving on these horrid shooting percentages

MDspider8 said:

Looks like our PR department is already in mid-season form - this is from the digital program for tonight's game.

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I don't know about you guys but that fired me all the way up, I'm ready to run through two brick walls now 😤

SFspidur said:

Thanks, totally missed that LSU played last night.

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yeah - I watched the 2nd half - they are going need to be better for sure against 5-0 Pitt on Sat at the Greenbrier. I can't quite figure out their PG Sears .. a scorer but seems out of control at times.

spider23 said:

Crazily enough the dumb money crowd is following me and the line is up to RIchmond -8.5. May have to come back in on other side now

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Have bettors not seen us play yet?

Yeah, we're not last.

SFspidur said:

We also closed with UMass in a Black Friday game back in 2001 after the original September 15 date was postponed following 9/11. Hadn't remembered that.

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Thanks for picking me up. I didn’t see it when I looked, or remember it.

Go Spiders!

spider23 said:

Richmond -5 (What could go wrong)?

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Crazily enough the dumb money crowd is following me and the line is up to RIchmond -8.5. May have to come back in on other side now

We also closed with UMass in a Black Friday game back in 2001 after the original September 15 date was postponed following 9/11. Hadn't remembered that.

Collegian article about the '67 game against Parsons. The school had lost its accreditation the year before and closed a few years later.

I only recall, because I was kind of wondering if they tried to avoid those types of scenarios - but if a guy played at Duke or Kentucky that would be too hard.

Yes, both competitive as hell. Curtis was a little more soft spoken, but super competitor and clutch. I remember Kenny would come take over the carpet gym and halve half the gym hating him .

Thanks, totally missed that LSU played last night.

Was there at '81 game, too. Redden rushed for 280 yards. He was the offense.

LSU looked rough against Charleston Southern for most of the game and was down by 5 at half-time but ended up winning by 9. Charleston Southern looked much better than a team that hasn't won a D1 game yet ..

Dji had a quiet 1st half but ended up 5/6 for FG with 11 points and 3 rebounds. Pretty sure all of made shots were drives to the basket.

Gallipoli said:

I will miss the W&M end of season game. When was the last time it was not played at the end?

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Ha! I can't believe this question got my curiosity up, but I do enjoy Spiders football trivia.

It's happened three times since my first games in the late 1950s. In 1967 the season ended in embarrassing defeat to a little know college in Iowa named Parsons. The Spiders lost 23-0 after defeating the Indians 16-7 the week before. Frank Jones was in his 2nd season of turning the program around. Team finished 5-5.

In 1981 the Spiders finished with Penn. I attended this game and anyone who was there probably remember it was a showcase for RB Barry Redden, who I believe rushed for over 200 yards in the game. The Spiders got a tough 18-12 win after losing to the Indians 35-21 the week before. This was Dal Shealy's 2nd season. The team finished 4-7.

In 1995 the Spiders finished with Villanova. The Wildcats pasted the Spiders 28-0 after losing to the Indians the week before 27-7. The losses spoiled the ending of Coach Jim Reid's 1st season which finished 7-3-1.

If our future games with the Indians aren't at the end of the season I'll be disappointed, but if the Tribe doesn't follow us to the Patriot League they sure will make the non conference season much more interesting.

Go Spiders!

gcarter52 said:

He plays for Youngstown State.

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Well, he'll probably be at Wright State next year. He seems to be on the play 1 year somewhere and transfer cycle

8legs1dream said:

imagine the publicity and national media attention that would come our way if we made that move.

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Yep, pretty sure we wouldn't be getting shut out on the ESPN Friday night showcases if we made that move. Obviously, that won't happen for many reasons not the least of which is we are incredibly bad at creating publicity and media attention.

spider23 said:

Pretty sure I remember Curtis reffing some Brooklyn games when KA was the head coach. Not sure if that would help. I snuck into practice once and KA an Curtis got in a tussle with a few punches thrown.

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That doesn't surprise me. Those two were competitive AF.

I was joking - I doubt the NBA restricts officials who played with the coach in college.

97spiderfan said:

Anyone else get a Spider blast e-mail this morning from Moon dog asking for a donation to the Spider fund to support MBB. Maybe just maybe we should wait until after we get our first D-1 win of the year before sending this out. Just ridiculously bad timing.

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Damn, I know I've been away a while, but we really haven't won a single D1 game since this?

spiderstudent17 said:

The 10 year contract extension was a very bad decision. Also, I am sure VCU would love to have a coach like Shana who stays with them and doesn’t constantly get poached. I admit that coaches moving on to higher conference is one indicator of success, but also explain my very nuanced thought process as to how not having coaches be poached by better teams isn’t indicative inherently of a mediocre program.

Always ironic to bring up football success now when we have had the most wins in CAA the past 3 years, back-to-back titles for the first time in CAA, will have 3rd playoff appearance in a row, and a strong chance to get a playoff seed.

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Sure, they'd love to retain these coaches, but the point is they hire the best available coach that they can get. We were talking about Odom a few years ago. They're not necessarily getting poached by "better" teams, just richer ones. These schools have accepted the reality that when 8 figures get waved in front of their coach's family, they're gone.

I don't want to derail a basketball thread with football talk, but I was certainly not disparaging our current football program. Very happy that Russ has seemingly turned it around - see you Saturday! But there is no comparison to a National Championship, a semifinal appearance, and two quarterfinals in a 5-season span, in a much more competitive FCS landscape.

After Jimmye Laycock's last game (a Spider win!), Russ said he wanted be to that kind of coach here. Essentially, a CFL. That's kind of what we seek - coaches who don't aspire to higher levels. That's not a knock on RH, it's just what we are.

spider23 said:

This is enemy number 1. It is just so hard to compete from our lil ol leafy campus, with our IVY league academics (wink wink). We are doing the best we can!!

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Having 40% of your seasons be inevitable down seasons is perfectly normal!

I tried to be optimistic this year. I predicted 11 wins in the OOC with a win over Auburn. I also predicted they would win the past 3 games, even after losing the prior games. So in an effort to reverse the curse, I will go back to my pessimistic ways.

Prediction for tonight. Our shooting woes continue, especially with DLO - who is held to single digits. Our lack of scoring kills us. Maine takes advantage and a close game in the first half turns into a 10+ point win for Maine in the 2nd half.

Maine 64 UR 53

Also on a side note looking at Maine's schedule. They seem to playing in an event in Philadelphia after Thanksgiving where they play Elon, UPENN, and Navy. Not saying those are great teams by any stretch of the imagination. But is it possible that Maine got a better event lineup than we did with Florida Tech, Louisisana Tech, and Ball State.

MrTbone said:

In their defense, they are currently doing their annual EOY fundraising, so it's not specific to MBB and the timing is independent of any particular sport.

But of course it's going to land badly given what's transpired so far.

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Gotcha. Makes sense. Still could have waited until tomorrow in the hopes that we can beat mighty Maine tonight and at least have a little goodwill going with the fanbase.

I mean, based on the current state of our program, I'm also waiting on a finalized version, so maybe that's his actual letter.

We have passed Duquesne in KenPom. A win tonight might help us start to gain on Fordham…