Gilyard #23 in A10

[spider23]

https://www.a10talk.com/a-10-preseason-top-25-player-countdown-23-jacob-gilyard/

Good motivation for Jacob. I have him at number 8 in conference, 3 spots behind Grant. Top 2 or 3 in the skill department.

This is an interesting argument though. The glass half full crowd has Jacob as an all A10 performer (as do I) and have Gilly, Grant, and Nick as top 15 players (All A10 teams) as a prerequisite to us being a decent team this year. I tend to believe with the truthers on this one. I don't think we are over valuing because they are "our guys", but believe everyone else including this dilweed A10talk site is wrong.

Prove them wrong Jacob!!!!

 

[spider23]

I will say this, there is a certain power in 23

 

[spider23]

Ok, I'll try to be back to positive and put my shield on verse the passive aggressive attacks from the spiderman and ullas of the board.

What do we think Grant and Nick will come in on this A10 talk evaluation?

I predict Grant at number 3. Sherod comes in at 18.

Still think they are vastly underestimating Gilyard. What does Spidernation think?

 

[spiderman]

I actually thought there was a good chance Gilyard would be ahead of Nick. Jacob might score as much as Nick this year, plus he adds the high assist and steal numbers. so I'll say if they have Jacob at 23 then maybe Nick at 20?

the guy ranking Jacob 23 probably doesn't expect much from Richmond, so I'll guess he has Grant at #10.

 

[gospidersgo]

I'm guessing this countdown has no Sherod and Grant around #5

 

[97spiderfan]

I'm guessing this countdown has no Sherod and Grant around #5

Agreed. Sherod came into his own the second half of last year but I think he largely flies under the radar of really good A-10 players. Plus, I don't see the 11-12th ranked preseason A-10 team having 3 guys in the Top 25 players. That doesn't compute.

I predict Sherod will be on the postseason Top 25 A-10 team rankings though, cause he is going to score a lot of points for us this year.

 

[spider23]

Yes, Sherod is an interesting case. When you look strictly at his physical ability, he does not have the wow factor. BUT, he has scored at a high level in high school, and seemed to figure it out after the first 10 games or so last season. We need him to bring that mentality and scoring ability from game 1 this year.

 

[kneepadmckinney]

What I hope to see in the first game is:
1. A Grant that is aware of what is going on around him on defense -- he is critical to us being able to resist anyone effectively using our match up zone.
2. A Sherod that is not waiting 25 minutes into the game before he starts being aggressive finding his shot
3. A Gilyard that knows the entire team trusts him to shoot and score whenever available, and pass whenever that is the right play. I want the "end of JMU game" Gilyard.

 

[97spiderfan]

What I hope to see in the first game is:
1. A Grant that is aware of what is going on around him on defense -- he is critical to us being able to resist anyone effectively using our match up zone.
2. A Sherod that is not waiting 25 minutes into the game before he starts being aggressive finding his shot
3. A Gilyard that knows the entire team trusts him to shoot and score whenever available, and pass whenever that is the right play. I want the "end of JMU game" Gilyard.

Sherod is the type of player that needs to be fed early in the game to get him involved in the offense.

 

[LongTimeSpiderFan]

I'm guessing this countdown has no Sherod and Grant around #5

No way. NS is one of most effecient scores in the A10! Inside, outside whatever is needed. slow feet, super smart, great team player, uber efficient! He COULD lead the A10 in scoring if everythings falls in place. Hes Top 10 in my book, probably come in around 15. Agree that GG is Top 5.
Im not trying to demean anyones opinion but have you watched NS play?

 

[urmite]

No way. NS is one of most effecient scores in the A10! Inside, outside whatever is needed. slow feet, super smart, great team player, uber efficient! He COULD lead the A10 in scoring if everythings falls in place. Hes Top 10 in my book, probably come in around 15. Agree that GG is Top 5.
Im not trying to demean anyones opinion but have you watched NS play?

Have you watched the Top 25 author rate players? Go go is speculating on the author’s thoughts not giving his own...

 

[VT4700]

I'm guessing this countdown has no Sherod and Grant around #5

Nick is a top ten returning scorer in the A-10. He will be in everyone's top 25 unless those who vote have never watched a basketball game.

 

[gospidersgo]

Nick is a top ten returning scorer in the A-10. He will be in everyone's top 25 unless those who vote have never watched a basketball game.

Just my guess. We know Grant will be high on their list. With 14 teams in the conference a top 25 list will have less than 2 players per team. Just kind of hard to see a team most are predicting to be bottom 4 in the league to put 3 in the top 25.

I'm not saying I don't think we have 3 of the top 25. I actually think our big 3 are all top 20 players in the A10. Our problem is the drop-off after the big 3. There's a huge opportunity for guys to step up this year and I'm hoping a few guys seize the moment.

 

[VT4700]

We were a game out of the top 4 last year and return 3 really, really good players, all of who are clearly top 25 A-10 players. Who knows why anyone would pick is in the bottom 4, but what I do know is those that did will be wrong.

 

[Not-A-Homer]

We were a game out of the top 4 last year and return 3 really, really good players, all of who are clearly top 25 A-10 players. Who knows why anyone would pick is in the bottom 4, but what I do know is those that did will be wrong.

The logic of bottom 4 pick is really not that difficult to understand if one examines the facts.

A team that won only 12 games loses 2 starters. That same team is loaded with freshman and sophomores who will need to make major contributions. That same team hasn't been to the NCAA tournament in years. That same team has a coach whose career winning percentage is slightly above .500. That same team has a few good individual players, BUT, having good players doesn't always translate into a winning TEAM. One could go on and on.

A near bottom prediction is measured and reasonable. Hope springs eternal for fans and those close to a program. I happen to think that this year's Spiders are going to do better than a bottom 4 finish, however, I don't expect the magical ride to the final 4 (slight exaggeration) that you espouse.

 

[MrTbone]

History suggests we won’t be in the bottom 4, we’ve rarely been that poor. I’m not sure that means we are going to be nearly as good as some hope though, lots of really big question marks with the team.

 

[VT4700]

The logic of bottom 4 pick is really not that difficult to understand if one examines the facts.

A team that won only 12 games loses 2 starters. That same team is loaded with freshman and sophomores who will need to make major contributions. That same team hasn't been to the NCAA tournament in years. That same team has a coach whose career winning percentage is slightly above .500. That same team has a few good individual players, BUT, having good players doesn't always translate into a winning TEAM. One could go on and on.

A near bottom prediction is measured and reasonable. Hope springs eternal for fans and those close to a program. I happen to think that this year's Spiders are going to do better than a bottom 4 finish, however, I don't expect the magical ride to the final 4 (slight exaggeration) that you espouse.

But, look at the facts you are examining. Why are you including last year's OOC games when discussing this year's A-10 finish? They could not be more irrelevant to this discussion. The facts are we went 9-9 in the A-10 last year, and were a game out of 4th. Everything else you went "on and on" about is irrelevant as well. So what if we lost 2 starters. Plenty of A-10 teams lost more. Every team in the A-10 will play freshman and sophomores this year, so why act like we could be bottom 4 because of this? Looks like 6 of our top 8 will have plenty of experience, and plenty of A-10 teams can't match that. How does not making the tourney in years mean we should be in the bottom 4? How does Mooney's winning % mean we should be in the bottom 4? How does any of what you posted back up a bottom 4 prediction for us as being measured and reasonable?

Strange final paragraph as well. So, you get on my post and obviously had to look hard for a case ( that was irrelevant anyway) as to why we will be bottom 4, but then agree that you don't think we will bottom 4? And, you do so by saying I said things I have not come close to saying? Slight exaggeration? Really? Geez, it seems like it would have been a lot easier just to say you agree with me than try so hard to disagree.

 

[97spiderfan]

We were a game out of the top 4 last year and return 3 really, really good players, all of who are clearly top 25 A-10 players. Who knows why anyone would pick is in the bottom 4, but what I do know is those that did will be wrong.

Well, I don't know but literally every A-10 writer, blogger, prognasticator have predicted us in the bottom 4. Homer gave a bunch a reasons why folks would pick us down there. All fans know there players really well and not so much the rest of the league. A lot of A-10 team returns some quality core players and many of them also brought in some very highly rate recruits, transfers, and grad transfers. Almost all of those players had better accolades than the group that Mooney brought in.

 

[Ulla1]

Well, I don't know but literally every A-10 writer, blogger, prognasticator have predicted us in the bottom 4. Homer gave a bunch a reasons why folks would pick us down there. All fans know there players really well and not so much the rest of the league. A lot of A-10 team returns some quality core players and many of them also brought in some very highly rate recruits, transfers, and grad transfers. Almost all of those players had better accolades than the group that Mooney brought in.

I like our players more than “there” players.

 

[spider23]

Welp, the bottom line is I think many of these writers feel Mooney is stale and talent being equal is not going to motivate or scheme us to an advantage. VT, I know you go way back to the Newman era. Do you feel the confidence in Mooney's coaching ability compared to the Beilein's and the Tarrant's? I would judge Mooney slightly ahead of Wainwright.

 

[MrTbone]

While it’s accurate to say that every team will play freshmen and sophomores, I think most of the teams projected above us aren’t anywhere near as dependent on them as we are. Here are how many underclassmen are projected starters for the other A10 teams:
Davidson (1)
SLU (3 - 2 are Top100 guys)
SJU (2)
GMU (2)
VCU (2)
UMass (1)
URI (2)
DUQ (4)
UD (3)
SBU (0)
LAS (1)
UR (3/4)
GW (2)
FOR (4)

So a couple of observations are that the top half of the league are starting only 1-2 underclassmen except SLU. In the projected bottom half, 4 of 7 start 3 or more underclassmen.

It also looks like very few teams are likely to have 5-6 underclassmen playing in their top 8 like UR.

When you look at the scoring returning of not just the top three but the projected starting 5, the majority of A10 teams are generally equivalent or better than UR, with the exception of URI, GWU and FOR. Scoring is a one dimensional view, but notable that we aren’t returning that much more scoring 1-5 than 10 of the other 13 teams.

I don’t think you have to be an upperclassmen to be talented but there’s definitely lots of data that supports that experienced teams tend to outperform younger/inexperienced teams.

Sorry for the long post, just thought it was interesting data.

 

[VT4700]

I would rather have have underclassmen like Jacob and Grant than just about any upperclassmen on any other A-10 team.

 

[spiderman]

the value of upperclassmen is experience and maturity. without looking it up, I doubt there are many underclassmen with as many minutes played as Jacob and Grant. they've probably played more than many juniors. I don't worry about them being young.

I do worry about our youth early on if we're leaning on Sal, Jake and Andre. I think we get enough time in the preseason to figure things out these days, but we run systems on both ends that typically require a certain amount of feel for playing with each other. Noah could struggle early on, too.

 

[MrTbone]

the value of upperclassmen is experience and maturity. without looking it up, I doubt there are many underclassmen with as many minutes played as Jacob and Grant. they've probably played more than many juniors. I don't worry about them being young.

I do worry about our youth early on if we're leaning on Sal, Jake and Andre. I think we get enough time in the preseason to figure things out these days, but we run systems on both ends that typically require a certain amount of feel for playing with each other. Noah could struggle early on, too.

I am not worried about Jake or Grant. My concern is about spots 4-8 on our roster/bench. Realistically talking about 1 senior, 1 sophomore, and 3 freshmen in that mix. Maybe some time from Noah as you mention. We seem to struggle every year coming out in OOC ready to go. Probably doesn't matter so much this year as we are not an at large consideration.

 

[LongTimeLurkerFirstTimePoster]

its official, #18 on this list, voided any legitimacy to this "list".

https://www.a10talk.com/a-10-preseason-top-25-player-countdown-18-rashaan-holloway/

 

[SpiderK]

The A-10 will remain weak like last year. With an excellent point guard, solid shooting forward and the best center, we should finish in the top half. As mentioned above 4-8 will be the big question mark. Really hoping Sal comes along quickly.