Proposal to go to a flat 32-game schedule limit. The big guys have fewer and fewer reasons to play the little/medium guys.

Our friends at Loyola are really enjoying their run in the NIT. They are well-coached and have a good team. The game was exciting to watch, but will all of the money floating around college sports, I found it interesting that the NCAA/NIT pays out funds for participants. This article from 2021 says that payouts are made to each team and that the tournament turns a profit.

"In addition to having travel, hotel and other expenses comped, each school in the NIT is given $4,000 for every game it plays. It’s a total payout pool of $128,000 this year."

And we're off and running! First up, Campbell's Colby Duggan. First-team all-CAA forward who averaged 15.7 ppg. Ok, not great, shooter at 46.1% overall and 34.0% from deep. Soph with 2 years of eligibility left. Early entrant into the portal due to McGeehan getting the boot.

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I don't see this impacting UR in anyway as Mooney I believe is safe for at least 2 more years, if not 3 and would expect he puts together a winning season in that timeframe. But interesting to see some of the rumors and happenings around college hoops and some of these could have an impact on the A10.

The shocker in my opinion is NC State and Keatts parting ways. This year has been a down year for them, but overall - he has been at NC State 8 years and they have made the tourney in 3 years, with a final four run just in 2024. I would think that final four run alone buys you 3-4 years after it occurs. He has won 20+ games in 5 out of the 8 seasons, and in 2 years made the NIT. So clearly looks like something behind the scenes happening in NC State. But that will be an opening that will likely get some looks and 2 coaches from the A10 high on the list for probably every major program will be VCU's Odom and Mason's Skinn. Odom will likely get a lot of calls. Skinn will likely be on the list of some programs - but probably a 3rd or 4th option if the search gets that far. But we could see some coaching changes in the A10.

I enjoyed this thread last year so let's roll it back for the new year.

11/4:

LaSalle -4.5 over American

Looks like we have a 2025 baseball schedule on the website - hasn't officially been announced by the athletic department yet, but should be coming soon. Some highlights:

• Season-opening home series vs. Navy (Feb 14 - Feb 16).
• Second-weekend home series vs. Fairfield (Feb 21-23), followed by a mid-week @ NC State (2/25).
• We're hosting the "Central Virginia Challenge" again this year, and the field is MUCH better. We play Penn State (2/28), Boston College (3/1), and Toledo (3/2).
• Strangely, we host BC again on 3/5. Looks like they're doing a long trip to VA, playing W&M/UR/VCU/UR/UVA all in a row.
• Mid-week @ UVA on 3/19.
• End of conference play should be rather tough. Our last 4 weekends are vs. SLU, @ Dayton, @ VCU, vs. Davidson.

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He kicked off our 2025 transfer portal thread with his early entry and our interest, but now things are ramping up with him and he's planning to take a visit to the Spiders. Some stiff company though.

After a First-Team All-CAA campaign (15.7 PPG, 6.2 RPG), the 6-foot-7 forward is scheduling visits. “I’ll be at Richmond and Providence soon,” Duggan said. Butler and Wake Forest Demon Deacons remain in the mix, per sources.

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I caught every home game and every Henrico Sports Complex game. I have said if you don't go watch these girls, you are missing out on TRULY great basketball! We have to find a way to keep Rousell, Doogan, Ullstrom, Sweeney, etc together to keep this magic going!!! Buy you and your family season tickets in 2026 and enjoy the BEST Richmond has to offer!

Thank you UR Ladies for an unreal season!!!

Figured we could use a thread separate from the betting one to follow how our conference mates are doing.

14 squads in action on opening day, with 13 of them playing D-I competition. Davidson was the exception, hosting D-III William Peace, and of course the Spiders were not in action. The A-10 went a respectable 11–3 on the day, with several squads recovering from early deficits to score wins.

Not a lot of surprises I guess. Mostly beating up on inferior competition, though Loyola only winning by 5 over Chicago State is a bit surprising to me even though Chicago State isn't quite the basement dweller they were a few years ago. SLU falling to Santa Clara was a missed opportunity for a decent win...gotta have those if you've hoping to be a contender. Hope Avila is okay.

I don't know whether to be surprised about Duquesne losing to Lipscomb...it's Duquesne. VCU rolled over Bellarmine with their guards doing a ton of damage. Not a lot of bench production and they really only went 8 deep. Billups only got 4 minutes but had 5 points, while Jennings was scoreless in 15 minutes.

Wins
Bona 70, CSUN 56
UMass 103, UNH 74
Dayton 87, St. Francis 57
Mason 75, NC Central 58
VCU 84, Bellarmine 65
St. Joe's 70, Navy 63
La Salle 65, American 52
URI 96, Fairfield 58
GW 76, Mercyhurst 59
Loyola 77, Chicago State 72
Davidson 88, William Peace 47 (D-III)

Losses
Santa Clara 85, SLU 78
St. John's 92, Fordham 60
Lipscomb 77, Duquesne 72

Opening up one of those roster spots that would have been taken by a walk-on. Thank you for your four years, Liam!

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Women's season opener is a bit of a mystery. Supposed to open at Penn State at 1:00pm today, but the live stats feed isn't working on either team's site. I suspect there may be a weather issue, and maybe it's been announced on Twitter, but for those of us who have discarded Twitter who knows what's going on.

The NY Times is reporting that Trump wants to make Marco Rubio his Secretary of State. This may be premature, but here it is

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The Ukrainian President has refused to leave. The US offered to rescue President Zelensky. He said I don't need a ride, I need ammunition. The world will never forget.

Thought I’d get this thread started. Vegas giving a ton of respect for our spiders with UCLA only as 14.5 point favorites as the #1 team in the country playing at home against us. Let’s shock the world on Sunday!

One week ago today, they were dancing in a First Four game.

What an incredible season our women’s team and what an incredible program Roussell is building. Similar to the men’s team, I wanted to make a thread for what to look for going into next season. Unlike the men’s thread, the tone for this one will be a lot more upbeat with the common theme of capitalize.

Capitalize:

How many times has our men’s team had great 1-2 seasons, but we were unable to sustain that and elevate our program at the next level? We have a great opportunity now to do that with the women’s program. The biggest way to do this is pay Roussell a P5 salary that he deserves and give him the NIL resources to continue building Richmond to be a top 25 program. Basketball is our flagship sport: both men’s and women’s. I do not want us to lose out on an elite coach because we didn’t want to pay the money. If we don’t want to pay coaches in our Olympic sports a higher salary to prevent them from going to P5, fine (with the exception of Chemotti with men's lacrosse). In basketball we have to go all in. I don’t care where we draw the money from but find a way to get it done. The ROI we will get from this will be the best out of all our sports.

Keeping Coach Roussell:

• This one is obvious and discussed in more details in other threads, but incredibly important. If he stays here for his career, I think he will go down as the best coach in Richmond history.
• UR really can be a top 25 caliber program and we should do everything we can to support Roussell in that pursuit.

Roster:

• First and foremost, we have to keep our core returning roster. Doogan, Ullstrom, and Sweeney will be an excellent core coming back next year and there is absolutely no reason why we can’t content for another A10 regular season/tournament championship and make the NCAAs again. We need to give them serious NIL money that they deserve.
• I have no doubt that we will also have new players that will step-up whether that is someone currently on the bench, an incoming high school recruit, or incoming transfer. I think we are another 1-2 solid players away from being just as good if not better than the past 2 years.
• I want to see us hit the transfer portal and go after big name players who are transferring from P5 programs or who have produced at a high level at lower conference. With our reputation now and (hopefully) NIL money, we should be a place that everyone we reach out should seriously consider.

Scheduling:

• Hopefully no debate on this one. Let’s focus on building another very strong schedule. Our women’s team should go and try and schedule as many Q1/Q2 games possible next year. We are a very respected team and I am sure the opportunities will be there. More importantly, we have the talent to win a good majority of those games.
• I would love to see us continue to be invited to the elite non-conference tournaments.

Other:

• Let’s build on this momentum and hopefully have an even better turnout attendance wise next year. Kudos to the athletic department for offering a lot of free promotions or other reasons to get people to the games. The attendance and garnering more interest is worth whatever revenue that would’ve been generated with ticket sales. Let’s keep the interest in this team growing.
• Would love to see some red outs (with shirts provided of course) for some women’s games too like against VCU.

PG out of St. Chris down the street. Bunch of lower-level offers, but evidently we feel good enough about him now to offer.


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Figured this deserved his own thread. Not at all surprised by this, but still pretty disappointed. No clue why Mooney just refused to play him most of the season, especially on a team that lacked talent. Curious where he'll end up.

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There is a lot of speculation about Ryan Odom to UVA. It would be a good fit. I would prefer him to be there than VCU.

ttps://x.com/PrestonWillett/status/1900187634518868007

This team deserves a special welcome home! Does anyone have info on their flight arrival time tomorrow and/or there eta back on campus? If so, we should all pass the word and encourage a large warm welcome.

Let’s get a dedicated thread for the accomplishment the ladies made this season. Roussell has kicked ass and so many of these players have made sacrifices for the greater good of the team. Big shoutout to Addie Budnik for the role she played on this team, so much happens because of her.

I just purchased my ticket to the game. $25 for GA, so I’m getting there at open and sitting as low down as possible.

My coworker’s younger sister starts for UCLA, so that would be a really fun matchup in the second round. Time for the women to get the first tourney win in program history.

GO SPIDERS!

Adrian Wojnarowski retiring from ESPN to become the GM of Bona basketball, his alma mater.