Only if you’re counting transfers. We’ve had newcomers every year for time immemorial.
2025-2026 Non Conference Schedule
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17 your belief about mid majors inability to schedule well is just the group think Hardt is pining for. I dropped some evidence that the top mid majors can still schedule well. Yes most mid majors cannot. There is very little path to be successful in our model. We have to try to swing for the fences and find the next JB, the next Brad Stevens, the next Rand Bennett, etc. VCU always does this. But we just keep sliding into mediocrity. Mooney pulls a good year out of his butt just often enough then take a break. Keep keeping on.
Would you agree that we’ve been able to schedule well in the past like 10-15 years? If so, what’s changed in your eyes? I don’t think it’s for our staff’s lack of trying. It can’t be because we have stunk some years because P5 teams play Q4 games all the time. I wonder what the conversations are like when trying to schedule games with power teams. GK suggested in the past that we the P5 teams don’t give us money so not a buy-game. I have no problem with that. There are a lot of complaints about the NET and P5 gaming the system by either playing each other OOC or very bad teams from bad conferences and winning those games by 40+. I think we have to adapt and schedule more games against other top mid majors or conferences in similar situation like us like MWC/AAC/MVC/WCC. Still try for P5s obviously but can’t wait for them forever.
What's changed? A 10 year draw down drought in which the buzz around Richmond hoops has slowly had the life sucked out of it. Yes greatest class ever delivered nice little NCAA miracle season. But between Mooney's lack of ability to pull these good games and our lack of a national presence, we can't get the games. More imperative in this era to have a dynamic networked coach. Ours gets d2 games.
If we aren’t getting the games after 2022 A10 tournament championship and 2024 regular season championship then either the staff is REALLY bad at their jobs or the landscape of scheduling has greatly changed. Given that we’ve had solid schedules for the most part from 2013-2022 that I’ve been following UR, I think the last couple of years is more a byproduct of P5s wanting to squeeze out mid majors. Still, it’s doable and I’m not arguing against that. We can and should try and get a couple solid P5s on the schedule. Staff though has done a good job of getting other quality mid major games so far too in the meantime.
Right but typically newcomers haven’t played as much role as the upperclassman after developing freshman, which is the philosophy Mooney has predicated his system on. Players staying all 4 years now at one school will be a rarer occurrence. He’s only dealt with newcomers making immediate contributions since the 2022-2023 season.
No Furman et al r not solid games when that’s your full MTE. Not close. It is opportunity lost. If we had Furman at home as a buy game it would be.
In my opinion, in order to have a good schedule it’s almost just as important to avoid really bad Q4 games as much as it is schedule really good Q1 games. So far we’ve done well in limiting our landline games which is good. I want to see us get now a couple P5/top 75 NET caliber games.
I’d have to dig in the archives for this one, but if I’m not mistaken when we were talking about Auburn and there was concern that the game wasn’t happening you (or maybe another poster) mentioned getting these kinds of games at all costs. Even if it meant negotiating the amount of money Auburn would give us for the buy-game. I’m all for that. We should be offering to go to P5s and playing them for free if it means getting those quality games.
We have 7 known games aren’t 3 of them really bad q4’s. Is that doing well so far? & I guarantee a couple more r coming. U will always have a couple & I agree u want to limit but we aren’t. And we subbed in mediocre mid major games for p5 in mte. That’s doing shitty not solid.
We need more than 2 p5 top 75. U have long been against scheduling more which I’ll never get. I disagree scheduling q1 is not the most important. Take em all. If we r serious about ever getting an at large again. Maybe we aren’t anymore. Which has definitely crossed my mind because we keep lowering expectations even with a 20 year dean of a10 coach.
My own opinion on scheduling aside, what evidence is there that the staff isn’t trying to schedule the best games possible? We agreed to play at Auburn last year, who was one of the best teams in the country, with a bunch of newcomers. We weren’t shying away from these games. Just not getting them.
Glad to answer but u have to answer my question that was asked first. That’s a known vt4700 tactic. Avoid answering questions & instead ask only your own, usually in rapid fire style like towards sman.
How have we done well in limiting q4s? There r 7 known games. 3 are q4. And actually would be 4 of 7 if we match up with Charlotte neutral.
One bit of evidence is that we don't get them.
More likely we just don't have guys on the staff that can pull it off.
Yes so far we have done well in limiting our Q4 games. I have said that I will make my final opinion of the schedule once its complete, but to answer your question I think so far its fine. We will have Q4 games every year. That is to be expected. We just can't have too many. Right now we are at 3 for sure. Goal is to limit to no more than 4-5 depending on how tough the other part of the schedule is.
Its not quite apples to apples because I am going to base next year's schedule off last year's NET, but last year we had 6 Q4 games and 2 D2 games. Also 2 games were Q3 @ 213 Bucknell and @ 218 W&M. That is really bad.
Right now, we have 3 Q4's with ODU, VMI, & W&M (again based on this past season's NET)
@Belmont is Q2
vs. So Illinois is Q3
Neutral Illinois State & Furman is Q3 and Charlotte is Q4.
So on paper, our schedule is off to a better start now than it was last year. I also believe So Illinois, Illinois State, & Charlotte are all going to go up in NET next season. Don't know for a fact, but on recent history I think will be the case.
Like I have also said, this schedule right now is not the best. We need a couple P5 games. Ideally Q4s to be at most 4-5 games. I have no inside information what games we are trying to schedule, but I will reserve my final thoughts until its finalized.
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Now with my question, what evidence have you seen that the staff is not trying to schedule the best games it can? I am not looking for a PhD dissertation here, but anything that might be indicative of that. The way I see it, Mooney has publicly stated the difficulties with scheduling good teams (the Youtube short I posted), we have done well scheduling in the past so we know the staff can do it, and we were willing to play Auburn last year despite knowing we had a bad team. So the way I see it, the effort is there to schedule good teams, its just not being reciprocated.
We've been pulling it off like 10 or 11 out of the 12 seasons I've been following Richmond. Our schedule the past decade has never been spectacular, but certainly solid and gave us at-large chances. We've gotten good games even after down years before too. I don't think our staff has suddenly forgot how to schedule good games. There is probably so much that goes into it behind the scenes that as fans we never really get to see. Just as important as scheduling great teams is limiting the amount of very bad teams we schedule. I don't mind playing more of the Belmont's and Furman's of the world. Go call teams like Princeton, Liberty, UNCW, & High Point. Replacing them with teams like VMI is also important.
The unwarranted enthusiasm of which I spoke and originally challenged your thesis that we’ll be much better extends as much to freshmen (if not more so) than transfers.
Again, there’s a long history on Spidernation of having irrational exuberance about newcomers, no matter their age/class. Many many “next years starting 5” threads evidence this.
I’m just suggesting you’re sort of falling in the same trap. Perhaps the optimism will be warranted.
That’s fair. I think we’d all love to see freshmen contribute more but it’s been awhile since that’s happened. So until then, tempering your optimism is more than reasonable.
Teams can certainly improve & let’s hope the ones we’ve scheduled do. I agree the schedule will be judged ultimately later & I’m not against going off predictive metrics for teams on the schedule. But last year NET is still best we have.
I disagree that right now we have limited the Q4s. If 3 or 4 out of 7 r q4s that’s not a good %. There is probably 50% chance we play Charlotte game 1 or 2 in mte so let’s call it 3.5. Half the teams so far. At that rate we’ll have 6 or 7 q4s. Not sure why u judge that as doing well limiting Q4s. And simply being better than last year is no standard of comparison.
And we r in a mid major mte. Even 4700 said it was important to get in a good mte. We didn’t. Because we missed out on p5 or good teams in mte it lowers our odds to land enough.
Regarding ? of evidence of staff not trying…it’s not just about trying. Fact is some mid major teams get good schedules. So there is that evidence. I agree with spider23 we have an attitude of “it’s too hard”. U need a presence of a program OR presence & aggressive attitude of a coach on scheduling which imo we lack. Staff is stale (expired milk). This year & last unacceptable MTEs. Overall this staff has NEVER in 20 years gotten us into the top ones when other a10s do. Call that inability over trying.
Lastly I’ve said b4 we don’t want or try for multiple road p5 buy games. Auburn is 1 game. Not enough. I believe a choice. They don’t try for more. We do a game like that once every 3-4 years. Take a new approach. Take 3-4 of those games in 1 season I don’t care. There is definitely evidence we don’t want too many of those games. U could take less if in good mte but we suck at those now. Look I’d rather have p5 at home or neutral. But if H&H r so hard (vcu just got nc state) & u have no pull to get in good MTEs u really need to do it. I think we’ll do 1 of those road buy games again but that’s it. Hope I’m wrong. But heck u r even afraid of playing more than 2 top 40 caliber teams (which means really 75 teams who r that caliber). The staff probably thinks like u. If that’s only way u can get em thats what u do. We need big games. Big games r ultra important for many reasons. I don’t think we’ll drastically change approach on road p5 buy games. & that to me is wrong decision.
Btw i expect at least 2-3 more bad q4 home games.
I am not disagreeing that we missed out on a great MTE. We have certainly done better in the past and also agree that best chances to play and beat P5s are neutral court MTEs. Still, the one we have is the one we have and I don't think it's that bad.
I am okay with our Q4s are at the moment because, if I'm not mistaken, we knew about them ahead of time as part of multi-year series or its a team like W&M we tend to play often because of rivalry. So there weren't any surprises so far with bad Q4 games scheduled. If we end up with with 6 Q4 games than that's 1-2 too many. We will see.
You keep referencing my own opinions of a top schedule as an argument against Richmond staff scheduling tough saying it's their mentality too. Literally the 2023-2024 season we had these games:
@ Boston College
Neutral Colorado
Neutral UNLV
vs. Wichita State
@ N. Iowa
Neutral (but really @) Florida
I am not going to post them all here but look through our old schedules and tell me when was the last time (other than last year) you think we had a bad schedule:
2023-24 Men's Basketball Schedule - University of Richmond Athletics
The official 2023-24 Men's Basketball schedule for the University of Richmond Spiders
I just don't buy the argument that the staff is scared to schedule well when we've done it for so many years. We also have schedule 1-off neutral games near the P5 team like against Florida 2 years ago, NC State & Clemson years before that. So there are creative ways to find P5 games.
See my post above. Please go through the schedules the last 15 years and tell me other than last year, when was the last time we had a bad schedule in your opinion.
2023-24 Men's Basketball Schedule - University of Richmond Athletics
The official 2023-24 Men's Basketball schedule for the University of Richmond Spiders
Lively debate. Of course, there are the usual 2 camps - one that thinks the current coaching staff is doing the best that can be done and one that thinks it’s not.
In terms of the schedule, I think history shows that it will be on the lighter side in terms of competition level as the staff always pairs the schedule with what it thinks the team can handle. Since the player turnover is once again high, the program is in a rebuilding phase. I think the chance of an at-large bid is essentially zero, so the OOC schedule has less importance to me. That being said, the schedule last year was easily the worst since I have been closely following the Spiders and to date this year’s schedule is underwhelming at best. It may be better than last year, but that is simply because there aren’t any DII games on the schedule (yet). There seemed to be a desire to get a couple of “quality games” (lower tier P5 programs or high tier mid-majors) into Robins, but it seems that that goal is no longer. Before the Spiders were too good and now they are too bad, so I guess we have to wait until they are just right.
In terms of the schedule, I think history shows that it will be on the lighter side in terms of competition level as the staff always pairs the schedule with what it thinks the team can handle. Since the player turnover is once again high, the program is in a rebuilding phase. I think the chance of an at-large bid is essentially zero, so the OOC schedule has less importance to me. That being said, the schedule last year was easily the worst since I have been closely following the Spiders and to date this year’s schedule is underwhelming at best. It may be better than last year, but that is simply because there aren’t any DII games on the schedule (yet). There seemed to be a desire to get a couple of “quality games” (lower tier P5 programs or high tier mid-majors) into Robins, but it seems that that goal is no longer. Before the Spiders were too good and now they are too bad, so I guess we have to wait until they are just right.
How can u say the staff "always" pairs the schedule with what the team can handle?
The year after Jacob, Grant, Nate, and Nick, we had an MTE with Syracuse and Temple, a neutral site game with Clemson, @Charleston, @Toledo ( 27 wins), No Iowa, Wichita St, and Drake ( 27 wins).
The year after TJ and ShawnDre, we started 2 freshmen and 2 sophomores. We played Cincinnati, @ BC, @Wake, Georgetown, UAB, Louisiana (27 wins), Vermont ( 27 wins), ODU ( 25 wins), and Bucknell ( 25 wins).
Our schedules have looked similar for a long time before last year. I will let 17 add anything else. Like he said, last year was pretty much the only year we have had a bad looking schedule.
Right. We have not only shown an ability to consistently schedule well for the past decade plus, but have also scheduled well in seasons following high turnover of players. Our MTE this year and last year aren’t as good as they’ve historically been, but we’ve also found other ways to play P5s whether it’s at their arena or a one-off neutral game. We’ve also gotten several quality games against other good mid major programs.
We’ll see what shakes out as the schedule is completed. To me last season matters more than the last decade. The staff that produced last season’s schedule is still in place. We will see if improvements are made or not.
Ok you are going to make me do a comparison of our scheduling the last 10 years vs the mid major coaches and programs i think we should aspire to be in line with. You just throw out names and think u slam dunked the argument. Maybe, but I'm not so sure. For instance BC was a mediocre team 2 seasons ago. I'll check out the numbers this week when I have time.
