I mean most of our recent high school recruits have ended up in the portal anyway and Mooney seems to be able cache them in for better players, so perhaps this is the cycle of life for us.
Donovan Richardson - 2025 Commit
- Thread starter Section9.RowD
- Start date
Wow, someone woke up even more negative than normal today...at a time when Spider fans should have no reason to be negative at all following our transfer gets and our two 2025 signings. Oh, sorry, I forgot...one of the signings didn't score enough for you as a junior. Have you seen him play before judging him? Who cares about his highlights and rankings, right? Sure, let's go find some dude that no one wants who shot a hundred times a game and averaged 30 a game on a low level team no one has ever heard because high school ppg is such a telling stat, right?
Does anyone have highlights for these two guys. That is a good point about watching the highlights. They are very sparse for both of our commits. I think between the home runs in the portal and lack of tape it's probably impacting our hype around these two.
Ahh yes, sorry if I had a different take than you (and others) on Harper. This is a basketball forum so differing opinions are allowed and in fact encouraged.
I posted Mooney's most recent 5 year high school recruit success on another thread, it isn't pretty. So, that is a fact. 9 ppg as a high school junior, is not personally exciting me, glad it excites us others. If I'm wrong, feel free to come back and roast me in a few years. I hope I am wrong and you are right and you get to do that. Unlike you, I am big enough to admit when I am wrong.
But I'm not going to say I am super excited about a recruit, if I'm not.
I posted Mooney's most recent 5 year high school recruit success on another thread, it isn't pretty. So, that is a fact. 9 ppg as a high school junior, is not personally exciting me, glad it excites us others. If I'm wrong, feel free to come back and roast me in a few years. I hope I am wrong and you are right and you get to do that. Unlike you, I am big enough to admit when I am wrong.
But I'm not going to say I am super excited about a recruit, if I'm not.
LOL...Jacob, Grant, Nate and plenty of others might beg to differ. King was a freaking walk on for crying out loud...good thing no one listens to your expert recruiting evaluations. But, hey, you keep being you.
8legs1dream
Graduate Assistant
No one said u have to be super excited, but do u need to non stop post aftet post crap on a guy ( who u have never seen play) who probably just made one of the happiest and most exciting decisions of his life? Whatever.
Last edited:
Whatever happened to the fact that you are innocent until proven guilty. This the same as giving the benefit of the doubt, actions speaks louder than words! I am looking forward to all of our players play over the next few years. Go Spiders 🕷️🔥🕷️🕸️🏀
That's what our athletic PR Office says. 
Just kidding, Carolina. Enjoy your posts.
Just kidding, Carolina. Enjoy your posts.
First of all VT, King may have been walk on, but UR recruited him as a seasoned player in the portal. Second 97 you cannot go by who is looking at him and who has their name associated with his recruiting. Smith, last year I had expected to see on playing stat sheet vs on the bench. Knew he was gone when I saw him after the VCU game at UR, he was not enjoying the win at all. He was a highly ranked guard in VA sports.
CM is having a more effective recruiting cycle in the portal, simply due to the fact he is witnessing college experience and level of ability. High School/AAU can be a crap shoot, thus many times you are ordering mystery meat to some degree.
CM is having a more effective recruiting cycle in the portal, simply due to the fact he is witnessing college experience and level of ability. High School/AAU can be a crap shoot, thus many times you are ordering mystery meat to some degree.
My point about King was his lack of offers and what he turned into to....some on here are only concerned about the offers a guy gets, which is a ridiculous way to judge a 17 or 18 year old kid. Most players will improve dramatically by the time they are in their 20s. And, of course all recruits won't pan out...no team has all their recruits pan out, but some on here want to act like it is only our team who has this happen while ignoring all of the great talent we have recruited that has turned out great for us.
Posted this in another thread, but here is our most recent 5 year HS recruiting period.
Wojcic (miss)
Goose (hit)
Verbinskis (miss)
Sal (miss)
Schneider (miss)
Grace (outside of the A-10 tourney shots, largely a miss)
Burton (hit-star)
Dji (hit (1 year though)
Wilson (miss)
Noyes (miss)
JayNel (miss)
Randolph (miss)
Dread (miss)
Walz (TBD)
So, in 5 years, we have recruited 14 high school players. 1 of them was an all A-10 player in Burton, 2 players that were servicable A-10 players (Goose, Grace) and Dji who had 1 great year for us. Over 70% of the high school players recuited during this time were undeniable misses. Guys that barely played and made no impact in the program.
Predictably, the Mooney worship cult, didn't respond too much to it.
Wojcic (miss)
Goose (hit)
Verbinskis (miss)
Sal (miss)
Schneider (miss)
Grace (outside of the A-10 tourney shots, largely a miss)
Burton (hit-star)
Dji (hit (1 year though)
Wilson (miss)
Noyes (miss)
JayNel (miss)
Randolph (miss)
Dread (miss)
Walz (TBD)
So, in 5 years, we have recruited 14 high school players. 1 of them was an all A-10 player in Burton, 2 players that were servicable A-10 players (Goose, Grace) and Dji who had 1 great year for us. Over 70% of the high school players recuited during this time were undeniable misses. Guys that barely played and made no impact in the program.
Predictably, the Mooney worship cult, didn't respond too much to it.
Hard to deny that we have not done well in the HS ranks recently, as 97 points out, but I think we all are hopeful that our recent success means we are able to attract higher-level guys now, and hopefully these two will be next in line at that level.
What I like is that we are doing very well in the portal, so that at least for the time being, we don't need to rely upon high school kids the way we might have a few years ago. That may change soon (we'll see), but in the meantime, let's hope those HS recruits learn in our system and from the transfers and are ready to take the reins when needed.
What I like is that we are doing very well in the portal, so that at least for the time being, we don't need to rely upon high school kids the way we might have a few years ago. That may change soon (we'll see), but in the meantime, let's hope those HS recruits learn in our system and from the transfers and are ready to take the reins when needed.
I thought the incoming classes were
October 2017 - Schneider, Verbinskis, Gilyard, Cayo, Ford
2018 - Sal, Woj, Goose, ,Grace
2019 - Burton
2020 - Wilson, Bailey, Weir
2021 - Dread, Randolph, Noyes, Nelson
2022 - Walz
2023 - Smith, Soulis, Tanner, Tyne
So you may have to drop Schneider & Verbinskis to show a 5 year drought that doesn’t include last season.
Last edited:
nobody is denying that most of our HS recruits haven't panned out recently.
but the fact that Jason Nelson or Trevor Smith didn't meet expectations has no bearing on the future of Tyne, Tanner, McGlothin, Robinson, Harper, Richardson, etc ...
if you want to go in expecting failure, that's your prerogative. in 2 or 3 years you'll be proven right or wrong. I can't be a fan like that. until I see something that makes me think otherwise, I'll believe in these guys.
True.
On balance our success in recent years has been better with portal than hs players. I know CM has a preference for hs players with hopes for long term retention, growth, and success. The reality is that the landscape has changed across the board in loyalty and retention with the portal and NIL. I suspect the pct of hs players staying at their freshman school of choice for 4 or 5 years decreases over time.
My guess that even CM has to look at the above and realize that our recent success and probably this coming season is more dependent upon portal players than his hs recruits.
No, he gets to count them and not count Jacob and Nate, who were in the same class. LOL. And, as a true freshman, Wojcik made 65 3s at 36.3% before losing his spot to Blake, so I certainly wouldn't call that a miss. And, calling Grace largely a miss is a joke. But, whatever.
Bottom line is we won 24 games in 2020, 24 more in 2022 with an A-10 title and a dance win, and 23 in 2024 with an A-10 regular season title, but all 97 wants to do is bad mouth our recruiting, which is laughable at a time when the portal has turned out to be so huge to success.
* And, the 2020 and 2022 success was with Jacob, Grant, and Nate....players 97 would never want because of their offer lists.
In the old model which was 90% HS recruiting - you needed to hit on average 2 guys a year to be in your rotation so that you'd have 8 players at any given time. Ideally, that would be a mix of older established guys and younger guys forcing their way into the lineups. Tyler was a great example of that type of situation.
In the past it's been the years that didn't hit at all that hurt UR's depth or caused unbalanced classes, which in turn may have led to rotation issues.
I don't think you can judge a 5 year back look anymore unless you include portal guys, as those guys have been counted on for immediate production.
I think the staff likely realizes how important lead guard play is to the system - specifically for replacing scoring in those spots - and will likely go the portal route in the future for replacement of graduated numbers in the backcourt. It's just too tough to rely solely on a freshman to do it, and the position is too important to UR's offense. Additionally, our small sample size sees to indicate there may usually be portal guys who can score at the A10 level available to step right in. That in turn allows us to wait on Tyne's development and jumper to start hitting more.
In the past it's been the years that didn't hit at all that hurt UR's depth or caused unbalanced classes, which in turn may have led to rotation issues.
I don't think you can judge a 5 year back look anymore unless you include portal guys, as those guys have been counted on for immediate production.
I think the staff likely realizes how important lead guard play is to the system - specifically for replacing scoring in those spots - and will likely go the portal route in the future for replacement of graduated numbers in the backcourt. It's just too tough to rely solely on a freshman to do it, and the position is too important to UR's offense. Additionally, our small sample size sees to indicate there may usually be portal guys who can score at the A10 level available to step right in. That in turn allows us to wait on Tyne's development and jumper to start hitting more.
I'm just worried that the portal substantially dries up next year.
the one year fill-in grad transfer guys like King and Neskovic and White ... those guys are gone for us and everyone else, leading to more high major competition for the multi-year Beagles and Roumogous of the world.
we'll still need to find portal guys to replace departures and I agree there will be some available. but I'm not sure we'll be as successful finding as many productive pieces as we have recently. so we better land high school talent who can be the next Burton or Golden or Gilyard and then develop and retain them.
No, I specifically and repeatedly said our high school recruiting is below par. Mooney has been killing it in the portal which I also have repeatedly said. You see unlike you, I can point out the good and the bad.
And I was going off of verbal commits so apologies on mixing up the classes, I was going for the 5 classes since the Gilly, Grant, Cayo class. And btw, I offered praise of the Gilly, Grant and Cayo recruits. Cayo had some really nice offers, Grant was 6'11 and you could tell he was a player, Gilly was dropping 50 point burgers in his high school playoffs. Easy to tell those guys had a lot of potential.
I'm not as worried, because guys can still transfer and be eligible immediately, they'll just do it a year earlier. There will be fewer guys, true, but we're still well-positioned to claim some good ones every year.
This is a very interesting conversation (debate?) and to me I think many (what I consider) truths can exist at once.
I believe it is a fair assessment to say that the staff have underperformed as high school recruiters. There may have been several obstacles than hindered them (lack of practice facility, academic requirements, etc) that hopefully have changed now, and that may be reflective in the upcoming years. We have gotten several incredible recruits over the years, but in my opinion, to consistently compete at a top 4 A10 level, we need more of the KA's, Gilly's, and Golden's on our team than not. I think one of Mooney's strengths in recruiting players, is them developing, learning the system more, and playing a big role here in the junior, senior years. When we won the A10 in 2022 it was with several 5th and 6th year seniors and last year we won the regular season with many 4th and 5th year seniors. The benefit of the transfer portal is players have had at least a year to develop at the college level either proving it at lower conferences or practicing among the best in top conferences, which can more accurately translate to how they would do in the A10.
However, seeing the potential of one's ability can take time and is not always apparent in freshmen. Cayo and Dji are examples that come to mind of guys who had more of an impact later on in the program. I also disagree with 97 saying that Grace was largely a miss. He developed into a player who became a solid A10 back-up center and contributed on the court in the time he played. If our definition of "miss" are players who did not end up as all-conference selections, then that's a very high bar to set in my mind. Every team in the country will have players that transfer every year. We realistically cannot play all 13 scholarship players on our team and their are other more skilled/experienced players who are older and ahead in the order of playing time. Players skillset in high school may not always translate to the college coach's scheme too. In today's day-and-age, players may not be willing to be on the bench 1-2 years before getting more time and will want to look for other quicker playing opportunities. To each their own. Wojcik transferred to Fairfield. It doesn't look like he had eye-popping stats, but he started for them the majority of the games, averaged about 9 ppg there in 3 years, and even was preseason all-third conference team one year. Good for him. He wasn't player of the year or anything, but looked like he made a solid impact on that team. He may have had that same impact if he stayed here too. Also, I don't think any of us would consider GW3 or Glou as "misses" right now because they transferred down from P6 schools. For a variety of reasons, players may view that looking at different opportunities is what's best for them.
Now, the point regarding a high school recruits' rankings or offer list. While I don't think that is the only thing a coach should look at when recruiting a player, I think its a pretty good barometer of their skill level. In today's world where highlights are posted online, scouts go to games, there's a bunch of people blogging, and people's livelihood is working for places like Rivals, On3, 247, Verbal Commits, Prep Hoops, etc. if a player is a high 3 star recruit with offers from P6 schools, chances are they are pretty good. Sure, there are the Steph Curry's and Damian Lillard's of this world who are under recruited in high school and end up at lower conferences, but there's a reason that the top 150 players in the country go to Top 10 basketball conferences every year and the Top 50 players in each class end up at P6 conferences. Outside the top 150 or so, its more of a crapshoot and some teams/ranking websites will undervalue players for reasons like their height or competition in high school or something. Personally, I would like to see us recruit and win against other A10 teams and P6 schools for 4 star, top 150 recruits. Other teams in the A10 team do it. It's not to say, ignore players who aren't high 3 or 4 star recruits. The irony when I mentioned above that we need more KA's, Gilly's, and Golden's on our team is that they were all not highly ranked recruits (though Gilly was 3 star on 247). Also, Sal, Wilson, and Smith who all transferred in recent years were some of our most highly ranked recruits. So I get that rankings/offer lists don't mean everything. I just think that too be successful at this level, all our high school recruits cannot be under-the-radar and we hope that they were undervalued more than they actually are and can develop more quickly as freshmen and sophomores here then expected.
At the end of the day, no one can truly predict how successful recruits will be coming into our program from high school or as transfers, but I am excited that they chose Richmond and I also choose to be optimistic and supportive of all our recruits that they will do well here, or if they do end up transferring, wish them well at their new school.
I believe it is a fair assessment to say that the staff have underperformed as high school recruiters. There may have been several obstacles than hindered them (lack of practice facility, academic requirements, etc) that hopefully have changed now, and that may be reflective in the upcoming years. We have gotten several incredible recruits over the years, but in my opinion, to consistently compete at a top 4 A10 level, we need more of the KA's, Gilly's, and Golden's on our team than not. I think one of Mooney's strengths in recruiting players, is them developing, learning the system more, and playing a big role here in the junior, senior years. When we won the A10 in 2022 it was with several 5th and 6th year seniors and last year we won the regular season with many 4th and 5th year seniors. The benefit of the transfer portal is players have had at least a year to develop at the college level either proving it at lower conferences or practicing among the best in top conferences, which can more accurately translate to how they would do in the A10.
However, seeing the potential of one's ability can take time and is not always apparent in freshmen. Cayo and Dji are examples that come to mind of guys who had more of an impact later on in the program. I also disagree with 97 saying that Grace was largely a miss. He developed into a player who became a solid A10 back-up center and contributed on the court in the time he played. If our definition of "miss" are players who did not end up as all-conference selections, then that's a very high bar to set in my mind. Every team in the country will have players that transfer every year. We realistically cannot play all 13 scholarship players on our team and their are other more skilled/experienced players who are older and ahead in the order of playing time. Players skillset in high school may not always translate to the college coach's scheme too. In today's day-and-age, players may not be willing to be on the bench 1-2 years before getting more time and will want to look for other quicker playing opportunities. To each their own. Wojcik transferred to Fairfield. It doesn't look like he had eye-popping stats, but he started for them the majority of the games, averaged about 9 ppg there in 3 years, and even was preseason all-third conference team one year. Good for him. He wasn't player of the year or anything, but looked like he made a solid impact on that team. He may have had that same impact if he stayed here too. Also, I don't think any of us would consider GW3 or Glou as "misses" right now because they transferred down from P6 schools. For a variety of reasons, players may view that looking at different opportunities is what's best for them.
Now, the point regarding a high school recruits' rankings or offer list. While I don't think that is the only thing a coach should look at when recruiting a player, I think its a pretty good barometer of their skill level. In today's world where highlights are posted online, scouts go to games, there's a bunch of people blogging, and people's livelihood is working for places like Rivals, On3, 247, Verbal Commits, Prep Hoops, etc. if a player is a high 3 star recruit with offers from P6 schools, chances are they are pretty good. Sure, there are the Steph Curry's and Damian Lillard's of this world who are under recruited in high school and end up at lower conferences, but there's a reason that the top 150 players in the country go to Top 10 basketball conferences every year and the Top 50 players in each class end up at P6 conferences. Outside the top 150 or so, its more of a crapshoot and some teams/ranking websites will undervalue players for reasons like their height or competition in high school or something. Personally, I would like to see us recruit and win against other A10 teams and P6 schools for 4 star, top 150 recruits. Other teams in the A10 team do it. It's not to say, ignore players who aren't high 3 or 4 star recruits. The irony when I mentioned above that we need more KA's, Gilly's, and Golden's on our team is that they were all not highly ranked recruits (though Gilly was 3 star on 247). Also, Sal, Wilson, and Smith who all transferred in recent years were some of our most highly ranked recruits. So I get that rankings/offer lists don't mean everything. I just think that too be successful at this level, all our high school recruits cannot be under-the-radar and we hope that they were undervalued more than they actually are and can develop more quickly as freshmen and sophomores here then expected.
At the end of the day, no one can truly predict how successful recruits will be coming into our program from high school or as transfers, but I am excited that they chose Richmond and I also choose to be optimistic and supportive of all our recruits that they will do well here, or if they do end up transferring, wish them well at their new school.
I don’t do it intentionally haha, just write out my thoughts, as long as it may be. Funny enough, I hated writing essays in school. Maybe I should have a synopsis at the end of these long posts. I’ll take that into consideration
The conversation critiques the Richmond Spiders basketball staff for underperforming in high school recruitment, potentially due to past obstacles like facilities and academic requirements. The team has seen success with experienced seniors, particularly during the 2022 A10 victory. The transfer portal is highlighted as beneficial for acquiring already developed players. There is debate over whether certain players were "misses," with some arguing that even those not making all-conference still contributed significantly. High school player rankings are useful but not definitive indicators of success, and there is a desire to recruit higher-ranked players while recognizing that not all high-performing recruits need to be highly ranked initially. Ultimately, predicting recruits' success is challenging, but there is optimism and support for future recruits.
were any of our commits in the past 3 classes under-the-radar guys?
maybe Tyne but only because we reclassed him up a year?
Tyne, Walz, Soulis, Randolph all do not have any star rankings on 247 so I would consider that under-the-radar, personally, despite Soulis and Walz having P6 offers. Tanner, Noyes all had a 3 star ranking on 247 but we were the best offer competition wise. I don't really have a firm definition of under-the-radar, its more of a feel I guess looking at rankings and offer list, which typically go hand-in-hand. For perspective, by my vague definition, I would say Harper, Robinson, McGlothin, Nelson, Smith are "on-radar" as they have 3 star ranking and some combintation of either many mid-major offers and/or some power conference offers. I would say someone like GW3 is an "above radar" high school recruit as he had a 4 star ranking and multiple P6 offers. I definitely think our recruiting both high school and transfers has improved the last 1-2 years.
I did in fact count Grace as a hit in my summary of hits and misses at the end. Just to clarify how I counted him.
Grace was undervalued by some as well. I would count myself on that list, heck I probably headlined that list. But you can never take away what Grace did in the A-10 tourney and he made himself into a serviceable A-10 starter by the end of his career.
I'm not sure we could have asked for more out of a recruit at that time and position than Grace gave us. No one was gonna come in here and take a lot of minutes from Grant, and most recruits probably realized that. We needed someone to back up Grant for multiple years, and Grace did an outstanding job doing that. He made some timely 3s, had a good assist/turnover ratio, and could rebound and block shots. And, factoring in what he did for us in the A-10 tourney while Grant was still here, shows even more how reliable he was.
Some might have wanted or expected more when he started his last year, but he still made 38 3s at 36.5%, with a 2/1 assist/turnover ratio. As we have discussed plenty on here, our issues that year were more guard related, especially PG.
Some might have wanted or expected more when he started his last year, but he still made 38 3s at 36.5%, with a 2/1 assist/turnover ratio. As we have discussed plenty on here, our issues that year were more guard related, especially PG.
One thing to consider is only five guys are going to start/play starter minutes. 5 of 13 scholarships is 38% which means 62% of your guys aren’t key guys. So I don’t know that missing on 70% is terribly surprising, it’s a little worse than you’d probably expect purely based on available starting spots/math.
Nice little interview with Donovan. Embed should be at the right spot, but if not, it starts around 90 minutes in. Views himself in a similar role as Dji, able to play 1–4 spots and do whatever is needed.
