Hope springs eternal!

[UR Fan 2]

First up is JMU. Picked to be #2 overall team in the CAA. KenPom has us winning at home by 11. I think we win but in a close one. I am going 64-59. Overall I see us winning 21 games through the conference tourney. WIth 21 wins I think we dance as a 10 seed.

 

[SpiderHoops32]

If we barely beat JMU at home, then we have major issues. I'm expecting a blowout at home.

 

[fan2011]

If we barely beat JMU at home, then we have major issues. I'm expecting a blowout at home.

Agreed. We will get a double digit victory and see a lot of minutes from our freshmen and Wood.

 

[R&B fan]

This is going to a tough game. They beat us last year and if i am not mistaken they have 4 starters returning.

 

[WebSpinner]

this time of the year, we are undefeated and positive, then the season starts........

 

[calispider]

I remember the Delaware game. Yes we should win but it's early let's see how we gel

 

[urmite]

I wouldn't be surprised by a comfortable win.

On the other hand. This year's JMU team is predicted to be better than last year's W&M team...

 

[calispider]

BTW Terry Allen needs to come out of gate strong and not look back. We can't have him finally turning it on late season like he has the last two years. Go Spiders

 

[UR Fan 2]

We are playing a lot of inexperience in the backcourt and it is game 1. I just am prepping you folks so we won't have a board meltdown if it is only a single digit victory.

I would love to see a blowout but this is a dangerous JMU team. I will take a W.

 

[fan2011]

I wouldn't be surprised by a comfortable win.

On the other hand. This year's JMU team is predicted to be better than last year's W&M team...

That W+M team had a future NBA draftee on it who played the game of his career against us. We still got the win.

 

[urmite]

That W+M team had a future NBA draftee on it who played the game of his career against us. We still got the win.

Like I said I would not be at all surprised with a 10-15 point win. However KenPom listed 2014-2015 W&M as 130 for the over all season. And JMU projected as 118 this season. Yes, preseason projections are notoriously inaccurate in general. But if they are accurate I see this as a game that has a high risk to reward ratio. Just bad enough to not have a big benefit and just good enough to have a realistic chance of costing us.

 

[urmite]

2011, Do you expect the ORtg of our 5 returning players to be different in this year's JMU game vs last year's? I think that would definitely help...

 

[urmite]

Continuing to scout JMU...
Hall who had 12 points on 6-8 shooting in 23 minutes as a freshman is not there this year?

 

[fan2011]

2011, Do you expect the ORtg of our 5 returning players to be different in this year's JMU game vs last year's? I think that would definitely help...

Our offensive efficiency for the JMU game last year was 77.3, the lowest we put up the entire season despite playing some of the best defenses in the country in other games. Last year our average offensive efficiency was 104.1. Yes I expect our offensive efficiency to be better this time, yes I think the last time we played JMU it was a fluke.

 

[Eight Legger]

Yeah, I am not buying that JMU will be better than W&M was last year. No one on JMU is going to the NBA, and no one on JMU is dropping 38 on us at the RC. We should win by 12+.

 

[SFspidur]

Hari Hall left to pursue a career in music.

http://jmusports.com/news/2015/4/6/MBB_0406151307.aspx

 

[urmite]

Hari Hall left to pursue a career in music.

http://jmusports.com/news/2015/4/6/MBB_0406151307.aspx

So Hari Hall transferred to Carnegie Hall?

 

[fan2011]

Like I said I would not be at all surprised with a 10-15 point win. However KenPom listed 2014-2015 W&M as 130 for the over all season. And JMU projected as 118 this season. Yes, preseason projections are notoriously inaccurate in general. But if they are accurate I see this as a game that has a high risk to reward ratio. Just bad enough to not have a big benefit and just good enough to have a realistic chance of costing us.

One game does not define a team. We beat Davidson at home by 26 points last year and they were a top 50team. Does that mean we should expect to beat every team outside the top 50 by 26+ points? No. The same goes for the W+M game last year. We only beat them by a point, but if we had played again we would still be expected to win by close to double digits and if we played them many times we would win on average by close to double digits.

Sports are very random, this is why professional baseball, basketball and hockey play series instead of single elimination games in their tournaments. It reduces randomness and allow the best team to win. Since we don't get series in college basketball we can't compare things as easily, but we still have to look at a team's entire body of work to get an idea of how good they are, not single games.

We should beat JMU by double digits in our home opener, if we don't it is not the end of the world. It could be because we are not as good as we think, or it could be due to sports randomness, we have to play a lot more than one game to know for sure.

 

[97spiderfan]

I know a lot of us our "superstitious" when it comes to not taking opponents likely. Over on the FB board, folks were worried about a let down against a horrid Albany team and yes while we nearly crapped away a 28 point lead, our overall talent was better than Albany, we were playing them at home, and because of that I think we would beat them 9 out of 10 times. Likewise our overall talent in hoops is better than JMU's talent, we are playing at home, and think that we would probably beat JMU 8 out of 10 times.

We should beat JMU by 8-12 points in my opinion, but as was postulated above there is a smaller chance the game is very close or that JMU outright wins the game. That would only happen though if JMU brought there A game and we played pretty poorly.

 

[calispider]

im going to take the approach this year of a win is a win. Ugly, blowouts, nailbiters, domination, as long as we get the W I'm happy. Last year those close losses killed us we got to clean it up this year. I'll take a one point win every day. Plus Mooney seems to have the guys playing the best ball after the holidays.

 

[urmite]

I know a lot of us our "superstitious" when it comes to not taking opponents likely. Over on the FB board, folks were worried about a let down against a horrid Albany team and yes while we nearly crapped away a 28 point lead, our overall talent was better than Albany, we were playing them at home, and because of that I think we would beat them 9 out of 10 times. Likewise our overall talent in hoops is better than JMU's talent, we are playing at home, and think that we would probably beat JMU 8 out of 10 times.

We should beat JMU by 8-12 points in my opinion, but as was postulated above there is a smaller chance the game is very close or that JMU outright wins the game. That would only happen though if JMU brought there A game and we played pretty poorly.

Would you say the same thing if it was St Bonaventure instead of JMU? About half the pundits have those two rated about the same. The other half have JMU a bit lower. I believe the 9 point spread is a reasonable average/mean, but players are not machines and arithmetic and probability are not the same. So there is enough variability to play the game.

Not completely disagreeing with you, just wanted to get some points out. And Pomeroy seems to agree with you on 8 out of 10.

 

[UR Fan 2]

"A win is a win"....I like this approach!

 

[MrVCU:]

My season tix were delivered today by UPS at the office, gotta figure out what to do with all of them except one ......

 

[TBSpyder]

Well, I'm not joining the rationalists, I expect to see us blow out JMU. I don't care if they return 6 or 7 starters, have a great transfer, we should dominate them and set the tone for the coming season.

 

[97spiderfan]

Would you say the same thing if it was St Bonaventure instead of JMU? "

No, I wouldn't. St. Bonnie has a couple players that if hot can take over a game. I don't see that level of talent at JMU. . My expectation would be for us to beat St. Bonnie if we played them next Friday as well, but I would be less optimistic about our overall odds of beating them than I am about JMU. I'm not delving into either roster here, so just kind of my "gut" feel for this.

 

[spiderman]

yeah, not my job to keep the team from being over-confident. that's on Coach. I expect we'll play very well and win handily.

 

[urmite]

Just to keep getting ready for NEXT Friday.
Nation & Hall are out, Numbers 0 & 1 are the transfers in.
Otherwise everyone we saw last year.

http://jmusports.com/roster.aspx?path=mbball

Hope to find out tomorrow how different our team is from last year. (or at least from last year's game.)

 

[MrTbone]

Overall, pretty tall roster. Samuel dalemberts half brother is on the team.

 

[SFspidur]

Dalembert is out.

 

[32counter]

Curry at guard is their engine.

 

[Spideroldie]

Watching that re-play is enough to get any Richmond Spider (or Spider fan) just a little bit angry. They played a good game, and had some open buckets, so re-watching this video should help to make sure we are not over-confident! We will definitely need to play better defense than we did last year.

 

[64Spider]

What I see watching that is us not defending the basket and ANO be taken to the hoop whenever he was one on one with their bigs.

 

[spiderman]

What I see watching that is ... ANO be taken to the hoop whenever he was one on one with their bigs.

I only saw that once the entire video (at 2:40), and it was decent defense and a horrible foul call.

 

[fan2011]

What I see watching that is us not defending the basket and ANO be taken to the hoop whenever he was one on one with their bigs.

Ododa was scored on 3 times in this JMU HIGHLIGHT VIDEO. They won't show Richmond playing good defense in a JMU HIGHLIGHT VIDEO, so of course you will only see Ododa when he is being scored on! There were 8 inside scoring possessions shown, Ododa was only on the court for 3 of them. Considering that ANO played 45% of available minutes that game, but was in only 37% of JMU's highlight interior scoring I think the only reasonable thing to extrapolate is that he was actually a positive defensive presence in the game. And when he is scored on he is at least in position and was making the shot more difficult unlike many of the other highlights where our defenders are way out of position.

I think we have talked about ANO to exhaustion. Some of us think he was a good player and an asset to our team, some think he wasn't. No one's opinion is getting changed as a result of discussions on this message board.

 

[64Spider]

Thanks for explaining what I saw. Jeeze

 

[73CPA]

The difference JMU game last year was they got 15 offensive rebounds and outrebounded us 39-27. Rebounding will be the key factor throughout our season as we will face teams with size underneath the basket and we cannot cede easy baskets, nor can we run down the court and take one shot with no follows just to get back on defense.