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A10 Game 7 - VCU

To answer the 2nd part, some of you can focus on 8-23 or whatever all you want. I choose not to because I don't see the relevance. We could win the next 4 and the thread will say 12-23, so whatever.

Looking more recent, we beat them by 18 in 2020 in a huge game while we were chasing an at large bid. They got us in 2021, and then we won the most important of the 3 games last year in the A-10 tourney. So far this year, advantage them, but we will meet again. To use your word, yes, I would call that being competitive recently, yes, I would call this a rivalry, and I didn't even include a few years back when we swept them.

And, I'm not just accepting things. All teams, win or lose, look at things and try to get better. I'm just not as quick to blame coaches and players, and yes, I find it funny when I hear that it was the players who beat VCU in March and the coaching that lost to them last night.
Well, maybe you should have circled Richmond instead of Dayton at last year's tournament? Things were pretty loud last March. Didn't see a lot of thriving by your boys then. I actually have a lot of respect for VCU, but your post makes it sound like you guys never lose and went dancing last year while we were NIT bound. Think it was the other way around. As for last night, VCU's defense was outstanding and they earned the win.
Dude, they kicked our asses all across the board.
 
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Fine here you go, we’ll do this Letterman style. The top 10 coaching changes we can make:

10) Send Mooney to the Gulag
9) Send Mooney to jail
8) Send Mooney to prison
7) send Mooney to prison, but the Martha Stewart prison
6) Fire mooney
5) Just hire a new coach and act like nothing happened
4) shift his job title to concessions assistant
3) 2 years later promote him to concessions manager
2) Use our endowment to build a Time Machine to go back and fire him in 2012

And number 1…just change coaches like every other damn school does when it’s time
#2
 
Can't call it much of a rivalry other than the fact both teams are playing in the same conference. Google gives the definition below as being a "good rivalry. Called the "Capital City Classic" for hype purposes. Certainly not a "rivalry" in the sense of consistently close game or alternating wins and losses. When it first begun it was more of a rivalry. Now that we win roughly 25% of the games more of a consistent domination by VCU that Richmond fans have to endure.
What makes a great rivalry?
  • “A good rivalry is made when two teams constantly play in close games and battle one another to win. I think there is a sense of rivalry and respect that is created and these two characteristics are passed on from year to year. I think it starts with two teams constantly going back and forth between wins and losses.
It should be treated like any other game. You would think we were hosting a top 10 school !
 
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Let's start with Duke and Mike Krzyzewski vs UNC in Natl. Semi-final.....
Come on, what is this?! Like Coach K didn't win dozens and dozens of games against UNC over his career? If we lost to VCU in the Final Four, we still would have made it to the Final Four. Cherry picking individual games as a way to excuse Mooney's complete ineptitude over 31 games is laughable and pathetic.
 
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Wood, you were there during Lou Mills, how fun was that? Carl Sloan followed with a feeling of euphoria with his transfers and the exciting Maryland game first semester before seems most didn’t return second semester. Then new short lived enthusiasm with Lou Goetz followed by that ho hum temporary coach named Tarrant.
Why can’t we expect success?
Are you truly happy with getting thumped by VCU? I’m not. I used to be mad after just about every losing game, especially the ones we should have won. But since about 2012 I really stopped most of my caring and I’m healthier for it. I feel for those players and we have had good players who never tasted the success I expect from all UR sports programs. But we compete…what a crock if that’s acceptable.. Do you think any kid comes to UR in any sport to just compete. Geez I hope not, I hope they come with hopes of building and or advancing a successful program.

UVA Tech. I’m not a UVA fan and three generations of my family are Hokies, so yea it’s a gem.

W&M- why shouldn’t we dominate them in football and like every sport, including basketball….oh.

LKNSpider- you asked Ply to be specific about Mooney. I’ll respond. It’s simple, he doesn’t get his players, the talent he has, in a position to win. He’s does what he does on O & D and never varies, not matter the strength of his players, the kind of mindset of Boeheim sticking with his 2-3 D no matter what. But Boeheim has won a great majority of his games.
I could really see how he prepared the team for the Syracuse. When we were playing them even or better I knew he had spent time preparing. But then it’s like every game he loses focus or I don’t know how to explain it but the game gets out of control and he has no answer. After all these years he has no answer…
 
I’d take UVA’s program too. What else ya got?
The question I answered was not about you being satisfied......it was about great teams in "big time " games ...playing careless and undisciplined!!!! I fired away and there are countless examples!!!!
 
Wood, you were there during Lou Mills, how fun was that? Carl Sloan followed with a feeling of euphoria with his transfers and the exciting Maryland game first semester before seems most didn’t return second semester. Then new short lived enthusiasm with Lou Goetz followed by that ho hum temporary coach named Tarrant.
Why can’t we expect success?
Are you truly happy with getting thumped by VCU? I’m not. I used to be mad after just about every losing game, especially the ones we should have won. But since about 2012 I really stopped most of my caring and I’m healthier for it. I feel for those players and we have had good players who never tasted the success I expect from all UR sports programs. But we compete…what a crock if that’s acceptable.. Do you think any kid comes to UR in any sport to just compete. Geez I hope not, I hope they come with hopes of building and or advancing a successful program.

UVA Tech. I’m not a UVA fan and three generations of my family are Hokies, so yea it’s a gem.

W&M- why shouldn’t we dominate them in football and like every sport, including basketball….oh.

LKNSpider- you asked Ply to be specific about Mooney. I’ll respond. It’s simple, he doesn’t get his players, the talent he has, in a position to win. He’s does what he does on O & D and never varies, not matter the strength of his players, the kind of mindset of Boeheim sticking with his 2-3 D no matter what. But Boeheim has won a great majority of his games.
I could really see how he prepared the team for the Syracuse. When we were playing them even or better I knew he had spent time preparing. But then it’s like every game he loses focus or I don’t know how to explain it but the game gets out of control and he has no answer. After all these years he has no answer…
Of curse I'm not happy. Despite last year's success, Mooney has clearly grown stale and is past the sell-by date. But I have no say in whether he's fired or stays. So as long as he's here, I want him to succeed.

As for the rest:

* Many here say UR-VCU isn't a true rivalry because it's lopsided in VCU's favor. If that's the case (which it isn't, it's a rivalry), then those same people can't call UVa-Tech football a rivalry, since it is even more lopsided in Tech's favor the past 25 years.

* UR and W&M have virtually identical athletic programs. No reason we should dominate them, or that they should dominate us. Which is exactly the situation.
 
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Taking basketball into the equation - UR and W&M do not have identical athletic departments
 
Taking basketball into the equation - UR and W&M do not have identical athletic departments
We have many of the same sports. We both have higher-than-average academic requirements for athletes, and our players are expected to succeed in the classroom. I'd imagine we have similar budgets, although as a private school our is not public information. We have pretty similar facilities. Neither school intentionally breaks or bends NCAA rules.

We're in the same league for football. As for the other sports, the A-10 is better than the CAA, but not by an overwhelming margin.

Close enough they could be our athletic first cousin, if not brother or twin.

Getting back to the original point, there is no reason either school should dominate the other. And they don't.
 
I will say that we appear to be undisciplined and careless with the ball..to me, that's a coaching issue
Kind of like Alabama this year? They average over 15 turnovers a game, I think the 2nd most of any power team. Is that a coaching issue? They are ranked 4th in the country.

And, if it's a coaching issue when you are careless with the ball, is it great coaching when you are not?
 
Kind of like Alabama this year? They average over 15 turnovers a game, I think the 2nd most of any power team. Is that a coaching issue? They are ranked 4th in the country.

And, if it's a coaching issue when you are careless with the ball, is it great coaching when you are not?
They make up for it with better athletes that were recruited by a better coach
 
VT, I have asked before in a different manner but what would be your criteria on a performance evaluation to rate a coach as not meeting expectations? In short, when in your mind is firing a coach warranted? I wish to better understand your evaluative process.
 
Kind of like Alabama this year? They average over 15 turnovers a game, I think the 2nd most of any power team. Is that a coaching issue? They are ranked 4th in the country.

And, if it's a coaching issue when you are careless with the ball, is it great coaching when you are not?
They’re also 1st in RPG, 5th in FT made and 15th in Blocks. I can find stats too. It’s safe to say they do a lot of stuff well to counterbalance their turnover problems.

Is your point that turnovers aren’t our issue, or that the coach isn’t responsible for them?

Maybe we need to coach harder on rebounding, making free throws and getting blocks. Or I guess we could keep doing the same thing we’re doing and see how it turns out.

At some point all of these are paper arguments if we aren’t willing to seriously evaluate if what we’re doing is working. Right now it’s not really working, and that’s against a relatively soft schedule.
 
VT, I have asked before in a different manner but what would be your criteria on a performance evaluation to rate a coach as not meeting expectations? In short, when in your mind is firing a coach warranted? I wish to better understand your evaluative process.
If the Coach isn’t Mooney. If the program has kids that “cause trouble”. If a coach violates a major NCAA rule. If a coach fails to schedule an easy enough schedule to get to .500 over a decade.
 
VT, I have asked before in a different manner but what would be your criteria on a performance evaluation to rate a coach as not meeting expectations? In short, when in your mind is firing a coach warranted? I wish to better understand your evaluative process.
It’s always a good question. I’m very simplistic on this, make the tournament every 3 years. Maybe that means twice in six years considering how contracts get structured and our unwillingness to buyout of them. I think that’s reasonable given our conditions.

For that reason I’ve kind of reset the clock on CM but it feels like we’re already on a tough path.
 
Still here. Was sitting in my season tickets, right behind the visitors bench. ur actually sold me extras, which I sold to VCU fans. The fans around me ask me every year- How do you get these seats. I tell them- Same way you do.

Before the game I was going to come over here and wish you luck. But before I did that, I went to the A-10 stats page and looked at both teams stats. When I realized that VCU's stats were (are) just too far ahead of ur's, I just did not see the point.

See you at the SC. Oh wait, your fans don't travel.

I would go this year but unfortunately my gas mask has expired...
 
If we're twins or brothers, maybe we should pay Mooney $300k like W&M does for Fischer.
If he had been there 17 years, and was coming off a CAA championship and an NCAA win, with two previous NCAA appearances and a Sweet 16, he'd be making Mooney money.
 
As I wrote on the VCU boards. I thought Tyler Burton’s interviews post game were personally reflective and insightful. He took responsibility for not having played up to his personal and the team’s standards. Wow! Don’t see that often! Fine young man.
 
With Mooney's record he wouldn't have been there 17 years. Come on now...
Shaver lasted 16 years with a .457 winning percentage, so I wouldn’t be so sure about that.

But no, of course there’s no way he would still be at W&M with that resume. He might be making Mooney money, but it wouldn’t be at W&M. Even comparing to a weak A-10, the CAA is a big step down unless your name is Charleston at this point.
 
Well, maybe you should have circled Richmond instead of Dayton at last year's tournament? Things were pretty loud last March. Didn't see a lot of thriving by your boys then. I actually have a lot of respect for VCU, but your post makes it sound like you guys never lose and went dancing last year while we were NIT bound. Think it was the other way around. As for last night, VCU's defense was outstanding and they earned the win.

Sorry, but there was nothing in my post about winning and losing. It was about who we consider rivals and how loud the arenas are. My point was that, generally speaking, over the last few years we have had more important games against Dayton than any other team in the A-10. It could be because their coach is our former coach, so there is simply more interest. At the game Friday, I noted that there were not as many VCU fans as normal. It could have been the Friday night game makes it harder to get to. I noted the prices on StubHub with very high. I think that kept a lot of fans, on both sides, at home watching on TV.

As far as last year, most VCU fans would have agreed with you 100%. We should have gotten up more for the game in the tournament. But we did not and got beat. Hopefully, it is a lesson learned. But the noise level was not there at that game. When a team thrives on the noise, it hurts when it is not there. Some of our fans stayed home, planning to come up for the next game. Again, lesson learned.

I do think that the crowd noise helps the VCU defense. While our players are flying around the court trying to disrupt an opponent's offense, it helps if the crowd is loud. It helps create confusion. And from comments over the years, it appears that our coaches agree.
 
As I wrote on the VCU boards. I thought Tyler Burton’s interviews post game were personally reflective and insightful. He took responsibility for not having played up to his personal and the team’s standards. Wow! Don’t see that often! Fine young man.
Yes, Burton's postgame comments were great. Reflective, took accountability, great leadership from him.

And then contrast that to Mooney's. Bob and Beck don't do Mooney any favors because they lob him such softball questions basically about asking him about all we did right in game where we got blown out in our gym by our rival, they don't give Mooney much a chance to talk about what we did wrong, cause the focus is always on what we did right. If you didn't have the context of his us getting fired and listened to Bob and Beck postgame you would think that we either won or it was a highly competitive game.

But then you listen to Tyler being interviewed with the same soft questions and he just takes command of the interview and your like, yeah, Burton gets it at least.
 
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Sorry, but there was nothing in my post about winning and losing. It was about who we consider rivals and how loud the arenas are. My point was that, generally speaking, over the last few years we have had more important games against Dayton than any other team in the A-10. It could be because their coach is our former coach, so there is simply more interest. At the game Friday, I noted that there were not as many VCU fans as normal. It could have been the Friday night game makes it harder to get to. I noted the prices on StubHub with very high. I think that kept a lot of fans, on both sides, at home watching on TV.
Service job typically require you to work Friday nights and yeah I would bet the prices might have outpriced some in your fanbase as well. The game was sold out and it was probably 90% Richmond fans, so as far as fans watching from home, it would appear it was just the black and gold that chose that method.
 
I will say, I think Dalen Cuff is an excellent announcer. I think he did one of our VCU games last season. In contrast to some of the hacks we have mentioned on the board, he actually knew the players (or at least researched them) and actually talked about their tendencies, etc. Looks like he was a limited player back in the day at Columbia. But he talked about our transfers, and about how this type of game and environment is a reason you transfer from a Citadel or Lafayette. Really found him good and insightful.
 
Service job typically require you to work Friday nights and yeah I would bet the prices might have outpriced some in your fanbase as well. The game was sold out and it was probably 90% Richmond fans, so as far as fans watching from home, it would appear it was just the black and gold that chose that method.

Or it could be all those Doctors and Nurses have to work strange hours. Lawyers, on the other hand, typically can just chase ambulances on Monday.

I appreciate all those ur fans buying my extras, just as much as I appreciate ur selling them to me.

See you next month.
 
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Oh well, it all seemed like things were aligned for Spiders on Friday. Good energy in building, huge student turnout. From my vantage point less than 10% black & gold - maybe 5%. Continue to do a great job keeping Ram fans out of RC. Friday night A-10 featured ESPN game. Even Vegas had moved us to a 1 or 1.5 favorite. So, somebody thought we were supposed to win this one. Then ouch. UR lays an egg. No adjustments. Very frustrating. 32- 58.
 
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