Keys to the season - Sal, Nick
- Thread starter spider23
- Start date
At this point, I’d take the rim protector over the decent looking 3pt shooting backup center.
I think grace is good to have on the roster but we really could use some defensive support from our bench bigs.
I've always felt it took a year or two for a big to develop, so I would recruit one every year I could.
How can we lose? 90% of scoring from team that won 13 out of 33 games will surely equal championship, right?
I have no clue if these pundits are experts or rubes but it seems like no one has a consistent view on us. It’s pretty fascinating that we return pretty much everybody but this guy has us coming in 12th of 14.
If we end up 12th, well, I don’t even know what to say. License to fully blow it up?
If we end up 12th, well, I don’t even know what to say. License to fully blow it up?
So I’m not trying to be confrontational, but with this statement it sounds like you’re preparing yourself for us to perform about the same as last year. Maybe I’m reading more into your post than is there.
The argument for bringing CM back, at least in so far as Hardt said, was that the future is bright with the strong returning class.
It seems circular at some point, either we should be better with the added experience or if we aren’t, we should consider it an uphill battle to win with a coach who either due to strategy or recruitment can’t get over the hump against conference foes.
Btw, I acknowledge we could be better in totality when non-con performance is rolled in. It’s the in conference aspect that’s befuddling.
It's a 14-year circle, T. At this point most of us are so dizzy we can't think straight.
The key is we have talent coming back and are adding Blake and Nick. Not many A-10 teams can match that. This should put us ahead of the bottom and mid tier teams we were with last year, and get us in that top 4 range.
"top 4 range"...is that a moving target, that could mean 7th. Don't go the big hat no cattle Hardt way where he revises things like best class ever to one of or when we have OOC schedule that is not really close to the toughest at all.
yes, you're reading more into my post than is there.
can't find it now but something came out about the 90% of scoring that we return. it showed a bunch of other A10 teams with 80%+ returning, including Davidson I think with 95%. it's an up year in the A10 and should be back to normal after being the 12th ranked conference last year.
and no, that doesn't mean that I think we'll perform like last year.
If he could hit 70% it would be fine. If he gets to 75% I’d be ecstatic.
But Vandy and BC are BCS schools. Look toughest OOC ever. Trying to treat our fanbase like we are a bunch of lemmings. Toughest OOC, I need to see some schools on there who actually are perennial NCAA teams on the schedule and predicted to be an NCAA team this year.
You really don't follow what other A-10 teams recruiting very closely do you? Blake and Nick are nice additions to the team, many other A-10 teams are also bringing in top level talent, either via recruit or transfer as well. Most of those teams also bring back much of their talent from last year & finished above us last year in the rankings.
Just leave out range then. Top four is fine. The two years we have had Nick during A-10 play, we finished third and fifth. So, top four is more than doable with a healthy Nick this year.
TJ and ShawnDre were, too.
VT's post is like saying the Bulls won a bunch of championships when Jud Buechler was on the team (oh btw, they also had a guy named Jordan).
Is it? Buechler barely played for the Bulls and averaged maybe 3 points a game? Do you really think so poorly of Nick that you are throwing this comparison out there? Nick had several huge games for us his freshman year, and carried us in A-10 play with games of 32, 28, 26, 25 points, and several more close to that 2 years ago. Are you really saying that compares to Buechler playing with Jordan? Wow. The things you guys will say to bad mouth our players amazes me.
Sherod was our 5th leading scorer his freshman year. He played on a team with A-10 POY (TJ) and and A-10 (ROY) Demonte and I believe SDJ was 3rd team all A-10 that year. But Sherod "carried" us in A-10 play and led to our 3rd place finish. You are hilarious.
VT4700 said freshman year but the stats are from his Sophomore year. When Nick was our best player we were 5-1 in the A-10, when he was not we were 4-8.
So I think it helped when he played well.
But I think both sides are confusing Correlation with Causation...
So I think it helped when he played well.
But I think both sides are confusing Correlation with Causation...
Only confusing if you choose to bad mouth Nick for some reason. I don't get it. I don't understand the lack of appreciation for Nick's game by our own fans. Our best 3-point shooter, and pretty much our only guy that can score both inside and outside consistently. As a sophomore, he had games of 32, 28, 26, 25, and plenty of others above 20 or close to 20. And that is after scoring double-figures or more in about 10 A-10 games his freshman year. To pretend like that is not huge production is just hating just to hate. I will never understand that.
Never mind. I do understand. I do get it. The negative talk and downplaying our players is all Mooney related as always. I think it's safe to say if we had a new coach this year, and Nick had games of 32, 28, 26, and 25, we would not hear anything negative about Nick. We would hear how great our coach is doing to get so much out of Nick.
Who is bad mouthing Nick? I didn't see one comment bad mouthing him. What I saw was you correlating his play as the reason we finished 3rd and 5th in the league, despite the fact that on those teams, we had several other players who played larger roles on a more consistent basis than what Nick did.
I'm glad Nick is coming back, he will add to this team. Francis will add to this team as well. We need a whole lot of help though because we finished 11th last year and most of the other squads in the A-10 all got stronger as well.
I'm glad Nick is coming back, he will add to this team. Francis will add to this team as well. We need a whole lot of help though because we finished 11th last year and most of the other squads in the A-10 all got stronger as well.
Here is a projection that fits that description.
http://www.barttorvik.com/trankpre.php?conlimit=A10&year=2019&sort=
I have said nothing bad about Nick and never will. I'm very glad he's a Spider. I was simply trying to correct the narrative that he was the reason we finished in the top portion of the league either of those years, that's all.
This sentiment is exactly correct. Its all about Mooney. Any and all criticism is really directed at him! If we went 23-10 the last two years and won an A-10 or got an at-large one year there would be no criticism on here! But we didn't. We have struggled mightily the past two years. Its the coaches job to win. Period. That's what he is paid (quite handsomely) to do. That's the mandate. (And to be clear, its not win at all costs, but to win with good solid people and to represent the University well etc. Not one or the other - - both).
So we haven't won. One possible reason is the players aren't good enough. The 2nd possible reason is the players are good enough, but the coach isn't good enough at deploying them etc.. The first (players not good enough) can be subdivided into two possibilities - - (a) they didn't have the potential to be good enough to start with (recruiting); and/or (b) they weren't developed well enough to now be good enough. All of that is on the coach. So are virtually all of the excuses - - e.g. we lost players unexpectedly (Khwan and Buck). Coach is responsible (and in Bucks case, yes he is responsible even if one believes Buck left him no choice but to kick him out). Injuries are tougher to say the coach's culpability. Clearly no coach can really be held responsible for one of his players being injured. But he can be held responsible for how prepared you are to deal with it and how you ultimately do deal with it (like having depth to deal with injuries or making adjustments to your scheme etc.). See Golden State currently without Durant or Auburn in the NCAA's this year. But yes, a coach should get some leeway when injuries are part of the equation. But not all injuries justify all results that follow. Nick's (and most players) impact is truly hard to "measure." how much should it impact a team - - - without Player X we should still win that game but not that other one - - - can't be done. But for me, I point to this - - we struggled with Nick for all of 2017-2018 and all of 2018-2019 that we had him. The Delaware and Jacksonville and Longwood etc. debacles all included Nick and our overall performance with and without him has been pretty similar so I think its hard to say his injury is a real difference maker . And to be clear, I am not saying any of that is NIck's fault. Its not. I am saying its the Coach's fault. Because its his job to win.
We lost 40 games in the last 2 years to all kinds of opponents under all sorts of circumstances. But the bottom line is that we have lost a lot more than we have won, lost a lot more than we we have over the past many years (and yes Mooney certainly helped create the standard that we should now hold him to); lost to a number of teams we have no business losing to and lost to all to often in the same way (solid efforts and games that we somehow find ways to lose). It's the Coach's job to win. Yes, I think we should have held the coach responsible for that! And yes, its probably fair that almost anything I say in any string is at least "infected" by belief we should have moved on.
And last but not least, I am actually a good bit madder at Hardt than Mooney for his failure to do HIS job - - - but that's a discussion for another day!
Familiar with site & like it. Posted links to it a few times this past season. I put much more stock in it than some random a10 contributor doing a prediction. So good to see they value us higher.
Not sure completely of their predictive method as most schedules are not known. So seems early but it’s also fluid. They do have us lot closer to the NIT bubble than NCAA too. Wrong bubble.
But if u look at that closer u can see our non conf schedule has long way to go. Toughest in league is laughable unless the last 3 games or so r strong. I like the Vandy and C of C added series but Vandy is worse than Wake that hurts not helps next season. New Mex was looking very improved now they just lost best player to transfer. That site sees Auburn having a big change in performance given they lost 2/3 of returning scoring etc. odu they predict way down. South Alabama improved but it’s still S Alabama. Lot of 100-200 teams.
Plus u know a couple real dogs r coming. At least 1 from Brooklyn tourney and likely our typical home opener.
Literally right now we r scheduled to play 1 team non conf in their top 64 ranking. That’s Wisconsin and we may not even play them. Winning that 1st game in Brooklyn is absolute must.
And didn’t bob black say he expected just 1 more Ncaa team added to schedule? The blabber about toughest OOC in league was a complete ruse. And we’re paying Lunardi for it.
Last edited:
That site also ranks VCU ahead of Virginia (17th vs 18th). To me that's laughable.
I think the players are good enough, and I think we have done a good job developing them. Grant, Nate, and Jacob are much better now than when they first got here. I blame no one for Khwan leaving. That happens all over college basketball. I blame Buck for Buck. To blame anyone else for what he did makes no sense at all. What I can agree with you on is the lack of depth. That is on the coach. And, I can also agree that back to back 20 loss seasons is on the coach.
This is all opinion, and hard to prove either way, but I think losing Nick last year was a huge loss. I realize we had some bad early losses with him last year, but that was before we saw Nate break out, and before Andre and Wojcik got comfortable. I would have loved to have seen the sophomore Nick that dominated the A-10 several games have a full season last year while the other guys got better and better. Obviously, I can agree with you that it is the coaches job to win.
I wouldn't say an AD's job is to fire people. Anyone can do that. Hardt evaluated things and made a decision. Let's see how the decision works out. If we have a great year, it would be hard to say Hardt did not do his job.
