Just because their opinion differs from yours? Couldn't they ask you the same thing?
Absolutely pathetic garbage
- Thread starter Eight Legger
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Players will always defend their coach. People on here hate JW will a passion, but I have spoken to players from UR and UNCW who played for him and they would go to war for that guy.
It is very simple when your talking about the decision to keep or let go of a coach. It comes down to wins and losses and what the expectation of the program is. If the expectation is NCAA tournaments, then one might argue why wasn't he fired a few years ago. But I think deep down we all know the reason - athletics is not a priority for UR. We have heard the word over and over and over again - COMPETE. Its not WIN championships, its not WIN NCAA bids, its not WIN vs VCU. It is simply COMPETE. And by that measure - Mooney his teams have succeeded. Only 4 losing seasons in his long tenure at UR, and 2 of those were first 2 years when he was rebuilding everything. And 8 years with 19 wins or more. Kids graduate, no scandals to speak of, and no issues with the kids off the court. This is everything UR wants in sports programs. Winning is probably 3rd or 4th on the list. And if they do win and make tournaments - its just an added bonus, not an expectation.
It is very simple when your talking about the decision to keep or let go of a coach. It comes down to wins and losses and what the expectation of the program is. If the expectation is NCAA tournaments, then one might argue why wasn't he fired a few years ago. But I think deep down we all know the reason - athletics is not a priority for UR. We have heard the word over and over and over again - COMPETE. Its not WIN championships, its not WIN NCAA bids, its not WIN vs VCU. It is simply COMPETE. And by that measure - Mooney his teams have succeeded. Only 4 losing seasons in his long tenure at UR, and 2 of those were first 2 years when he was rebuilding everything. And 8 years with 19 wins or more. Kids graduate, no scandals to speak of, and no issues with the kids off the court. This is everything UR wants in sports programs. Winning is probably 3rd or 4th on the list. And if they do win and make tournaments - its just an added bonus, not an expectation.
No question that JJ's loyalty is to Mooney and as others have said that is completely fine and expected. Former players are more often than not loyal to their coach if the coach treats them well, which we all know Mooney does.
The problem lies with those whose job it is to look out for the best interest of the University also have some displaced loyalty to a person over the institution. Certainly, the voices of our programs (BB and Matt Smith) have an unabashed loyalty to Mooney, which is problematic. Interestingly, I can't get a read on Beckwith, which is probably how it should be.
I would never expect Bob Black or Matt Smith to bash the head coach. And I think it would be difficult to find a radio commentator who is employed by their school to do the same. They can provide criticism and from time to time, ask some difficult questions - but overall, they are going to side with the University and try not rock the boat - simply because at that point, your risking your own employment.
If your looking for someone to question Mooney and his tenure at UR - then you should be looking at RTD, and national media outlets. Not the media outlet employed by the University.
If your looking for someone to question Mooney and his tenure at UR - then you should be looking at RTD, and national media outlets. Not the media outlet employed by the University.
I don't get why people think he's such a great coach, he's perfectly mediocre. We've had a few players dismissed from the team for off court stuff (see Josh Jones, Buck, Derrick Williams), he has a 7-20 record against our main rival, has won one A10 championship in 16 seasons, isn't really visible in the community outside of that charity cooking event, doesn't believe in rebounding. Really, what is it that makes him so great?
2k - All very good points. Mooney gets a lot of credit for essentially staying out of trouble, keeping a low profile, and doing enough to be the dreaded "competitive" word in most years.
He is probably slightly better than mediocre. Maybe "above average" but again - I think that is the University expectation. Just be "mediocre" or "above average" - anything better than that is just a bonus in their eyes.
Exactly, I never understood it either. And on top of that, he is not a good public speaker, he is not particularly motivating or inspiring to listen too. He lacks accountability. Say what you want about Russ, but he owns it every game and sometimes he makes the players own it. Now granted that only goes so far but accepting personal responsibility is a big one for me and Mooney is an artist at deflection of that. It's a character flaw, a pretty big one in my opinion for a coach.
please do ask the question, the answer is quite simple in my view, the University should always be more important than one person.
It’s an ok philosophy perhaps, although I find it to be terribly shortsighted for revenue sports and MBB in particular. The monetary credits alone for making the tournament are sizeable but more importantly, the Publicity benefit is in many ways priceless.
All of this also ignores the possibility that UR turns off prospective students, student athletes and alumni that seek a loftier goal than merely to compete.
Thus endeth the lesson.
I asked the same question in a different thread and I think the answer is no one has an answer. The situation definitely has more to do with a lack of real goal and no one wanting to commit significant effort to something greater. There was a vision of greatness when UR decided to move to the A10. Then the leadership changed and no one was left who wanted to turn the vision into reality. Some thought throwing money at the problem would solve it, but paying a coach a bunch of money along with a long term contract does not make him a great coach. If it were only that easy….
Well clearly not for athletics and definitely not for engineering. 😊
Mooney's contract is not the issue in my opinion. He was coming off back to back NCAA Appearances, a sweet 16 at that - and had an NBA draft pick on his roster. Along with VCU - Richmond as a whole was the center of college basketball for an entire weekend on national TV. The school did what they needed to do to keep him as we all complained on here before about coaches leaving after success at UR. No one was happy when JB left to be WVU's 4th choice.
The issue is the school made the deal, but then when it to the normal fan's eye it didn't work out (probably after the 2018-2019 season when we were coming off a 12 win and 13 win season) - the school did not want to pay the buyout. So we stuck with him, next year team wins 24 games and COVID hits. No we are stuck in this never ending limbo of winning, not enough to make the tourney - and not losing enough to change the coach.
She'll be disappointed in our engineering school.
Have to disagree. The buyout is part of the contract. UR waded into the big leagues with a big contract with an extremely long term trying to “protect” its coach from being poached and ended up creating a contract they themselves were not willing to break. The contract is the issue and no one wants to take charge of the situation.
There must be something to it, if she wants to give up her free ride, transfer, change her major, and start paying upwards of 70K a year in tuition. Kids today.
My point is that UR offered the contract - and as I said before, if your willing to offer someone 10 years at 1 million a year, fully guaranteed - then you have to be willing to pay the money to get out of the contract. So in my mind - its not the contract that is the issue - its the leadership at UR who did not want to pay the money to get out of it. If you knew you would not want to pay the money to get out of it - you should have never offered the contract. Like you said
UR is not willing to break" the contract. That is on UR - not the contract. We all know they can break it, we all know they have the money. And if I hear one more time they don't have the money - increase enrollment next year by 15 kids, and take their tuition payments directly to Mooney.
Its like buying a 100K sports car, but then when the brakes squeak you just say to yourself - nope, can't fix it - don't have the money. Well then maybe you should have bought a cheaper car that you could actually afford.
But this just shows UR doesn't care about athletics cause they don't want to pay. I fully expect Mooney to either get an extension at the end of this year, or they won't extend him and will just let his contract run out. And that will cause a bigger hole as players will transfer, recruits will not come, and new coaches will see this and be hesitant to jump on board not only for the massive rebuild, but also the fact they know the school doesn't care.
So we are past the original 10 year deal
Which I believe we know/expect was fully guaranteed. I still would be really surprised if the recently added years are fully guaranteed, there are all kinds of ways for Hardt to give UR some outs if CM poops the bed which arguably happened last year and seems to be happening this year.
I don’t know that Hardt is savvy enough to have done that or to your point, that the admin would have even contemplated it. It’s very easy to see them just staying the course.
Path of "least resistance" overwhelms any other considerations. Takes the "least" amount of effort.
10 years may or may not have been necessary to keep Mooney back then. I think the long term was more to protect UR. we knew if a big school really wanted him they would pay him and we'd get a big check.
I don't think it was even an afterthought that we might want to get out of the contract. Mooney was going to be a smashing success here. so no, I don't think we considered that we'd someday want to buy him out and pay him 3 or 4 years at over $1M to not coach.
as for "we have the money", I don't know how to say it clearer. a buyout comes out of the atheltics budget, more specifically men's basketball. you don't get to tap our endowment when you want out. you raise new money. you approach donors for that buyout. if donors aren't willing to foot the bill, you can't pay it. we're not some big state power conference university with a ton of really wealthy basketball donors. we have a handful. and clearly they weren't writing that check. and I can't blame them. that's money down the drain.
I agree on the extension that Mooney had very little leverage. so I do hope we have options available. if you replace Mooney with an up and coming assistant coach, maybe you save some salary in the early years to offset a little of the writeoff.
I don't think it was even an afterthought that we might want to get out of the contract. Mooney was going to be a smashing success here. so no, I don't think we considered that we'd someday want to buy him out and pay him 3 or 4 years at over $1M to not coach.
as for "we have the money", I don't know how to say it clearer. a buyout comes out of the atheltics budget, more specifically men's basketball. you don't get to tap our endowment when you want out. you raise new money. you approach donors for that buyout. if donors aren't willing to foot the bill, you can't pay it. we're not some big state power conference university with a ton of really wealthy basketball donors. we have a handful. and clearly they weren't writing that check. and I can't blame them. that's money down the drain.
I agree on the extension that Mooney had very little leverage. so I do hope we have options available. if you replace Mooney with an up and coming assistant coach, maybe you save some salary in the early years to offset a little of the writeoff.
The last ten years haven't already been money (Mooney?) down the drain?
A buyout isn't money down the drain. It's an investment in trying to improve the program.
A buyout isn't money down the drain. It's an investment in trying to improve the program.
Totally or one can ask the question - will medocrity define our basketball program going forward with no end in sight?
that sounds great until it's your money. start a go fund me for that "investment" and see how much you attract.
8legs1dream
Graduate Assistant
If MoonPie had gotten poached by a "bigger" program after the last NCAA appearance I guarantee you he would have already been fired from that job and probably about to be fired from the one he took after it. But not here! We are strapping in and mentally preparing for year 18 of this awful ride.
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See Brian Gregory - who deserves some of the blame for the last 10 years.
If someone is making the argument that we don't have the ability to buy out head coach's contract at the University of Richmond, I'm sorry I just can't believe that. Have you walked around that place recently, we probably spend a million bucks a year on flowers and shrubs.
We've got 150 million sitting in the bank right now, not to mention 3.2 billion in the endowment. So, for comparative purposes if you have 150,000 in your bank account, you can write a check for $1,000 -$2,000. Please.
We've got 150 million sitting in the bank right now, not to mention 3.2 billion in the endowment. So, for comparative purposes if you have 150,000 in your bank account, you can write a check for $1,000 -$2,000. Please.
If I have $150,000 in my bank account I can write a check for $2,000 for whatever I want. That's not how it works with a university budget. You approach donors to pay the buyout. In fact, usually a good part of a coaches salary is paid by donors. At least that's my understanding.
The buyout comes out of the athletic budget - and where does the athletic budget come from? The school. Its all one big pot of money - if you have to move money from one pocket to the other to increase the athletic budget for the buyout - then so be it. Its all money from the school at the end of the day.
And to your point - if the athletics doesn't have the budget to pay him out at the end for 2-3 years (2-3 million at that point) - then that is the fault of the of athletic department for agreeing to a contract they knew they could never get out of. And no - you don't enter the contract thinking your going to have to buyout the deal. You think he will be a success and bring in more money and NCAA appearances. But in the back of your mind - you have to plan for these types of things - the "What if" scenarios. And the fact that the school didn't do that - and didn't want to pay him - just shows athletics is not a priority like I think we all wish it was on this board.
And if we are already thinking - lets hire a cheaper up and coming assistant coach to offset the writeoff - that is bad thinking as well. We should hire the best person we can get - whether that costs us $1 million or year for the new coach or 500K - we should be looking for the best person to get us back to the NCAA - that is where the offset should come from. Not - lets hire the cheapest coach we can find and if they give us the same results as Mooney and save money. But then again - I could see this AD and administration doing that type of thinking.
I think that this is absolutely true, and agree that this was prevailing sentiment. That is where the root of the mistake originated. Too many overestimated Mooney's ability.
Mooney's coaching deficiencies were obvious in year # 1. With the exception of my close friends (whom I took to the games), those near me in section 6 thought that I had 3 heads when I identified the exact same issues then as most commonly see today. The majority just didn't see it yet.
The same coaching mistakes were made during the Anderson era. The difference is that those players were good enough that their skill and performance masked the coaching problems. Simply put, they overcame Mooney's mediocre performance. Winning, and winning big, hid the mistakes that Mooney was making. His deficiencies were not as obvious to the majority because everyone was focused upon the winning results.
The exact same thing would happen today. If a group of players were good enough (which we thought that this group might be) to overachieve in spite of the coach (overcome the coaching problems) it would cause the majority to say that Mooney did a GREAT job! That would not be true (his overall career record and results clearly dispute such a claim), but that is exactly what would be said, and Mooney would immediately get another 5-year extension.
good points, but you'd have to give him credit for bringing in and developing the players who played well enough to win in this system without strong defense and rebounding. that's what I expected this year. and in fairness, they still might.
yeah, I probably shouldn't have brough that up. only did because I've got a guy stuck in my head. I'm 100% sure Cody Toppert will be a star coach. can't wait much longer before he gets his shot.
Buyouts happen when a well heeled donor(s) says this has gone on long enough and we need a new coach. Backs this thinking up with the action of either saying here is the money needed for a buyout or here is x amount (substantial toward reaching the amount) for the buyout. So anyone willing to take this action?
I've shared this before but financially, they would have to carry the liability for the contract on the books year to year, this would be true of any long-term contract whether it's for payroll, software, construction, or otherwise. So UR has the buyout factored into their budget somewhere already and the money is accounted for. Doesn't mean they have any interest or intent to pay it out any sooner than necessary, but I assure you they are not obligated to go knocking on donor doors to cobble together the buyout funds as there are any number of reasons why they might suddenly be on the hook to accelerate payment beyond the AD determining he's no longer the right guy.
Even if the buyout is $2 million, which there's no way it should be, hire the right coach and make the NCAAs again and our unit money for one appearance almost pays that off.This isn't rocket science.
At the end of the day, it is the sum of all the parts/aspects of the job that he needs to be evaluated on. Mooney clearly does very well with some aspects of his job but also very poorly with other aspects. The end result is that he is pretty much average at his job. And I guess at UR, just being average at your job is good enough.
I think it is a discredit to not just our players and our flagship program to have someone who is "average" at the helm for 18 years now. I also think it is a discredit to have such a visible person, perhaps the most visible person at the University be average at his job. I'm sure one of our broader University goals is for excellence at all aspects of operating a University and not just be average or good enough.
yes the contract is budgeted for but in the years they're scheduled to pay it. not accellerated. and if you accellerate it in a buyout, you then take on another contract which has clearly not been budgeted for.
Correct, my point is that it's clearly budgeted for, it's not coming out of endowment, and it's not coming out of a donor pocket. If we can him and have to pay? Sure, probably would be funded by donors who back the decision. If we can him for some other reason that isn't breach of contract, then money from future budgets are accelerating to the termination and coming out of those budgets to the present. All of this money is accounted for already is the point.
To your point though, no one is budgeting funds for a new coach while we still have one.
To your point though, no one is budgeting funds for a new coach while we still have one.
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