wow I havent been around here in a while. OMG what a catastrophe. Fore gone. Buck gone. Golden not coming. This program is gonna have a hard time recovering from the CM apocalypse that is taking place.
Dumpster fire
- Thread starter fatherspider
- Start date
This program is slowly rolling down the hill. Basically, a .500 coach is trying to lead a team full of CAA players. I don't care if Mooney is almost .600 coach we can never get over the hump. Going to be eight years without a NCAA bid coming from a program that has beaten: Syracuse, Kansas, Temple, Xavier.
Why does the image of Bruce Smith circa last year on Redskins jumping onto a pile of an already tackled QB in a desperate attempt to reach the career sack record pop into my head when reading this?
These threads of which there are several (numerous is more accurate) are more entertaining when videos of dumpster fires are included.
Jacob back. Nick back. Grant back. Sal arriving. Wojcik arriving. Things are looking real good here.
Hey VT, how many games do you see us winning this year? Do you expect us to have a realistic chance to make the NCAA tournament? What should we be expecting this season as fans?
Yep, that's 5 potential good players. We had 5 good players last year (not including 2 potentials) and won a total of 12 games. Need more than 5 players to have a great team. Think we would have learned that by now.
I agree, but if we replace 6'0 talent that cannot shoot with 6'4 talent that can shoot, and a 6'4 athletic guy with a 6'8 athletic guy, we have already improved. With better size and better shooting, it will easier for our other role players to be role players.
As I’ve mentioned before, I certainly like the size increase. On the other hand, I remain very concerned regarding the depth of our talent base, and I still have a hard time foreseeing how we will compete. I truly hope you are right, but recent history is not pointing in that direction.
Very fair concern. I am counting on Jacob, Nick, and Grant to have really great years. I think they will go down as 3 of the best to ever play for us. They will be expected to do even more this year, and I don't think that is a bad thing at all. The more shots they get, the better because we don't need 5 guys in double figures like last year. With those 3 leading the way, I just don't think the loss of our 4th and 5th best starters will hurt us as much as people think because while lots of other A-10 teams lost their top starters, we did not.
With the big 3 leading the way, I realize I am counting on some unproven guys to deliver, and I cannot fault you at all for being concerned with our depth, but most teams that have good years do so because they have unproven guys deliver. They don't have to be great, just good because we already have great with Jacob, Nick, and Grant. Time will tell, but I think it can and will happen because the new guys seem to be good fits.
Have you forgotten about the year/year-and-a-half it takes for new players to learn the mooney system?
Yes, he has. it is pretty comical to me how people who say we shouldn't take an experienced college basketball player as a grad transfer because he won't be able to learn Mooney's system in one year are usually the same people who seem to think a high school player can come in and become an immediate contributor in that same system. You can't have it both ways, people.
I would love for this to happen. But the issue of learning the system is one that won’t go away either, unfortunately. And one of the other issues that has worried me over the years is that our non-transfer redshirts don’t usually end up prepared to play right away. Practice isn’t enough, evidently.
The funny thing is we finnished 3rd and 5th the last two years in the A-10 out of 14 teams. We don’t need that much more to win this league or it’s tournament. This will be another down year for the A-10 that lost most of its stars. If we can put together 4 players to go along with the big 3, we will do fine.
Without Buckingham and Fore this year. We will see how bad we are this year we might be worse than last year. Losing to Jacksonville State and Delaware on the home floor... Debate if we should get season tickets to something that never works.
Man VT you are just like Mooney. Must explain why you are so high on him and our program. Will you ever say how many games you think we are capable of winning next year? Sounds to me like you are content to just be "competitive". If that's the case then ya I see why you think the way you do about the program. Just wait until one more of either Golden, Gilyard, or Sherod transfers, hint it's gonna happen. None of the redshirted from last year will contribute, they never do and there is a reason If we go over 12 wins next year I would be stunned. I see us winning about 5 overall and maybe only 2 A10 games. We have no depth and not much other good going for us.
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You keep saying this. I will bet you a one year self-ban that by opening day 2018 these 3 are all still on our roster.
Also can we do an additional 1 year ban bet on each of these? I'll take the over on 5 total wins and 2 conference wins. Hell I'll even give you better odds and say they have to double them so 10 overall wins and 4 conference wins.
But that's not what you said. You said 5. You're going to cut back on your sensationalism and go back on what you said now that you're being asked to be held responsible to it? You've made 2 outrageous claims and I've made offers to you on both and yet you have denied both of them. Hmmmmm.......
I will admit 5 is pretty hard for anyone to do no matter how bad you are. I will go with 8 as my overall number and 4 conference wins. I'll take you up on the bet with those two numbers.
You've got yourself a deal. Took a screenshot of this on my phone so I remember since odds are I'll forget in a week.
If we win 5 or less next year I think a lot of people will retroactively volunteer for this self ban.
The silver lining of the current state as defined above (losing Fore, losing Buck, Bryce Golden committing to Butler, new incoming talent mediocre at best, no evidence of redshirts suddenly becoming contributors, CM making the same old lame excuses, etc.) is that we are setting ourselves up for another disappointing performance next year that might force some sort of change at the top.
That and the fact that VCU will probably be no better off than we will. Sweeping them this past season was the only glimmer of optimism I had for our MBB program.
For now, I am in Dooley-era mode.
That and the fact that VCU will probably be no better off than we will. Sweeping them this past season was the only glimmer of optimism I had for our MBB program.
For now, I am in Dooley-era mode.
I feel like 2/3 guys coming in next year have some pretty nice accolades. The Euro is a bigger unknown, for sure.
In your opinion, what do guys need to be at to elevate above "mediocre?"
We are setting ourselves up for a year where we win 14-15 games, maybe finish middle of the pack in the A10 and the statement is - we are young, next year will be it.
Sal is being characterized as a "project" player before he has even set foot in a UR classroom, so I don't expect him to be an immediate contributor. Wojcik didn't have many offers and frankly I don't expect him to be an immediate impact player, either. Gustavson is a total unknown, only had interest from us and Davidson, he's skinny like Bryce Schneider and probably not physically ready for D1 basketball. Blake Francis was a good pick-up for us, but won't be playing next year. I don't see anyone like Golden, NS, DMB, JG, who came to the program ready to contribute right away.
Who is defining Sal as a project player? He’s a solid 3 star recruit, 2nd team all-star in a conference full of d-1 talent, and is long. Sure he’s skinny at the moment, but I for one am definitely expecting him to play (and play well) meaningful minutes, and hopefully sooner rather than later be in the starting 5.
Wojcik committed early to Sienna and only recently came back on the market. I too don’t think he’ll be a Star right away, but his shooting should get him on the floor, and more importantly spread the floor for someone like golden. I admittedly am a little concerned about his athleticism on defense, but it’s hard to tell without actually watching game film (which I haven’t).
Agreed on Gustavson being a complete unknown.
Blake is out of my mind for this year.
Wojcik committed to Siena in 2016, extremely early in the game for a 2018 recruit. We snatched him up very quickly after he was released from Siena. I think he would have had many more offers if he had kept his recruitment open into his senior season instead of committing to Siena so early, he was two-time player of the year in his league over P5 recruits. Athleticism is a question, but he has a very high basketball IQ and is a very good scorer.
Sal needs to put on weight, but I think his offense and defense are much more developed than Cayo for example. He also played in a league with a ton of talent, multiple 5* (multiple top 10 recruits) and a bunch of 4* players. Sal had a really good offer list with multiple P5 schools, and was rated well by the scouting services. I think skill wise he will be ready to contribute immediately.
This is the optimistic view of the recruits, but I think there is legitimate reason to believe these two recruits will be better than the standard Mooney recruit.
This is almost a word for word description of what we said about Tomas Verbinskis last year. Schneider was also touted as an elite shooter. Even Sherrod, who was the leading scorer in VA HS history took a while to get his shooting touch at this level. Until they get here, and show some resistance to CM's innate ability to turn HS shooters into D1 non-shooters, I don't rate any new player as a great shooter until they get here and prove it.
Just go back through the threads here. His offensive stats are not that great, and when you have posters talking about how a kid needs to eat a bunch of sandwiches and lock himself in the weight room, chances are good he is not going to be physically ready to contribute right away, hence a "project player".
Many similarities to Darrius Garrett who didn't really hit his stride as a player until his junior year, and was described as a "project player" in his early days as a Spider.
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By standard Mooney recruit, you are referring to the 8 guys on our roster last year, that didn't really help us all that much, not the 5 guys who actually could play? Correct? Yes, Sal and Wojcik might be better than the Verbinski, Schneider, JJ, Cayo, JMA, Ford, type players, but that is not all that high of a bar.
I don't see them having anywhere near the accolades of a Buck or Sherod coming out of high school.
from 4/6/18
The 2017-18 Journal News/lohud boys basketball all-stars...
Westchester/Putnam first team
Souleymane Koureissi, Iona Prep:The 6-foot-9 Richmond commit showed vast improvement as a senior when he helped the Gaels earn a share of the regular-season league title. He led the team in scoring at 16.3 points per game and averaged 8.5 rebounds. Despite playing both inside and out, Koureissi shot an efficient 61.5 percent from the field. He earned second-team all-CHSAA honors.
https://www.lohud.com/story/sports/.../boys-basketball-all-stars-2017-18/455908002/
