No. Shouldn't need a consultant. Didn't help.
He has the gall to go on the air and say Richmond doesn't have enough quality wins? He helped put together the schedule!
Lunardi impact
- Thread starter SpiderTrap
- Start date
He has the gall to go on the air and say Richmond doesn't have enough quality wins? He helped put together the schedule!
I have said I never understood why we needed to hire Lunardi. I think several of us on here could look at teams, look at quads, and see the type of schedule we want. It did not seem that difficult to me. This is kind of like football teams hiring a clock management guy. It seems so easy to me, but if a team I like hires someone, just manage the clock and time outs correctly and I'm fine. I don't care what it took to do it right, just do it right.
So, regarding Lunardi, , I also said if we use him, we might as well get a good schedule that helps us make the dance. I think we did that. Others don't. But, that is all opinion, and make the dance or not, I still don't get why so much anger is directed at Lunardi. I agree with ply here. Who cares if we used him for scheduling? The bottom line is we are in a good spot right now. Some on here sound like Archie Miller.
Won’t be why. Seen that number much higher elsewhere but I’ll definitely take nitty gritty number. But to be at large from a mid major u need to be strong there it’s our biggest drawback imo.
Also lunardi weakened it. This is about lunardi. The games we had scheduled before him are carrying us the most regarding sos. His games were worse and we performed worse too. Bringing lunardi in was potentially fatal flaw I sure hope doesn’t come down to it.
Regardless there r many factors to this as discussed. Anyway u were against the hire you’ve said and u think Lunardi is bad at what he does so not sure why sticking up for him here but I do know u always take the ur athletic company line no matter what.
I don't always take the pro UR stance. I just don't see why this bothers people so much. I know I can't change your mind about the schedule, and you can't change mine. But, we have a good OOC SOS number and a big reason is the lack of high numbered NET teams on there. How can you say this could be our biggest drawback? We have a good OOC SOS number, whether you want to admit that or not. Some teams have 5 or more above 200 games. We have 3, and 2 were part of the early tourney we were in. Hampton is the only 200+ team Lunardi gave us and at least that was a road game that made that category that much better for us.
Bad job. Bad pr. Unethical. Waste of $$ & resources when u could have got it many other places for next to nothing or free or relied on highly paid coaching staff that should easily know it by now.
We can’t have our AD making critically dumb decisions like that. It speaks to competence and leadership or lack there of. So i care a lot as if that needed to be restated, ha. & now I’m tired and going to sleep.
There is no one on this board that can’t do what Lunardi does and be just as accurate. Of all these new “Bracketologists” Someone will guess the teams a little better than he does this year and he will slowly disappear.
Lunardi has Rutgers as a freaking NINE seed with two road wins all year. Apparently the path to an at-large is to schedule every game at home in the OOC and win a few of them against decent teams. Since he’s rewarding that approach, you’d think it would have occurred to him to schedule it for us.
Yes, he should have scheduled Rutgers to play at the RC. Guaranteed win for us.
The only reason I am hoping Rutgers gets in is so that we can play them in the First Four. Talk about easy money.
I agree with the first part, but I don't think he will disappear. ESPN seems to love him. As long as people watch him, and keep clicking his updates online, which they will, he will keep collecting his millions to do what he does.
Palm has 14 teams on the bubble. Here they are in order of OOC SOS:
Cincinnati 18
Xavier 53
Richmond 74
ETSU 85
Indiana 87
NC St 96
Miss St 98
Rutgers 105
No Iowa 112
Texas 114
Wichita St. 124
Texas Tech 187
UCLA 198
Stanford 206
Yet, you still think if we don't get in, it will be because of our OOC SOS? All year long, you kept defending this opinion of yours by saying the numbers will change during the year based on how these teams do. Well, here you go. Our OOC SOS number got better and better all year long, and when it counts the most, is as good as it has been all year, and more than good enough to get us an at large bid.
Last edited:
You pay a guy to help build a schedule to get you in the tournament then he publically talks us down.....unethical, sleazy, if I’d have paid him I would be all over his butt now. He shouldn’t do both consult on scheduling and prognosticate.
I’m not sure his position isn’t because others paid him also, or he doesn’t want to appear biased because we did pay him, whatever it puts him in exactly the untenable position he’s in. He made a bad choice to do both jobs
Here is another prospective: you pay a guy to build you an advertising plan then he turns around and publically bad mouths your product???
Last edited:
Question -- who did we have scheduled that we dropped and then picked up a lesser team at suggestion of Lunardi?
I/m okay that we hired him, but the fact that he is now talking us down is bad. But my impression is he has been talking the A-10 down for several years.
Then we really shouldn’t have hired him....he’s an idiot (or unethical to take the job) and we’re just as stupid to hire him. The guy who ‘built’ your schedule doesn’t think it’s good enough. What message does that send the committee?
I don’t think our OOC was terrible, nor do I care if we paid Lunardi. But our OOC certainly isn’t a strength for us this year. We got 3 “good” games (wisc, aurburn, bama) out of it. When your conference doesn’t give you a ton of shots at quad 1 games/chances to truly improve your resume, you have to go find them OOC.
The P6 schools on the bubble have the luxury of knowing their conference games give them those opportunities. We’ve just seen one of the best Richmond conference regular seasons, and we fell in almost every ranking system from the beginning to the end. That to me says we need to play a tougher OOC so we can start higher.
Last edited:
Is he saying our OOC sucked or the A-10 sucks? Like I said I don't think he has "liked" the A-10 for some time.
So you hire somebody to help promote your team and he doesn’t like the conference and combined with the schedule he helped build he is daily saying it isn’t good enough?
Yes he was. Why else do you want him to build a schedule that can get you in the NCAA, if it doesn’t help the program why hire him at all?
We fell? We are 25 in rpi and 37 in the NET. We were much worse in both after our OOC schedule was done.
Last edited:
Perhaps not. We will never know, but if St. JOSEPH was on the front of our Jersey I wonder what his stance would be. Of course, that assumes he's on their payroll and not working for free. If I had an employee consulting for a competitor I wouldn't have an employee. The whole thing is wrong on many levels. Hardt should be fired.
Losses to teams like Radford will do that to you?
Sorry, but I really don't understand where you are coming from. We hired him to give us some games that could help us get an at large, not promote us. But, we lost a couple of them. Why is that his fault? I am not a fan of him, but I am pretty confident we would be a lock in his and everyone's bracket at 25-6 had we just won one of the Radford or Bama games.
Beating Bama would have given us a quad 1 win even though they are 16-15. That is a perfect team to play. Beating Radford would have taken our only bad loss away. He only helped with a few games, and we lost two of them, yet, people wanted him to give us even harder games?
Look, I’m not a fan of hiring him but he was not hired to promote our team. You’re conflating things if you think so. He was hired ostensibly to help us assemble a good OOC site. Frankly, none of us know what that was supposed to be. CM said toughest schedule which it wasn’t. So maybe it was toughest schedule our previously 8 win team could effectively succeed with...it was good enough to be in the discussion.
What is the constant discussion on us not getting in. Our record which is a combination of or record and schedule. No he wasn’t hired to advertise for us but he was hired to put us in the best position to get in the tourney, right? That is helping us promote our program.
I just don't understand the frustration. We are in a great position to get a bid. For all we know, we might already be a lock with the committee. But, if we win our quarter-final game and get in, very very few mid majors could ever say they got an at-large by winning their quarterfinal game of their conference tourney. If we need to win two more to get in, let's win 2 more. Bottom line is we don't have to win our conference tourney to get a bid, and I will take that position every year.
Where are u pulling the 74 from? 106 OOC sos here...
https://bracketologists.com/team/richmond-spiders
I think people are making too much of the Schedule discussion.
But I don’t think any A-10 team with 24 wins on Selection Sunday has been left out, IF we are left out with 26 wins, people will be searching for why.
This whole thing seems like something to analyze on Monday if necessary.
I can't read the committee's minds, but I really think we are in good shape right now. But, we could easily get passed by teams if we lose Friday and they win a game or two in their tourneys. So, let's just keep winning.
Since there are a number of comments re: promotion...of course it was a factor in play. I'm surprised some don't even see that. Was it explicitly on his contract? No but that does mean it was not a consideration in our choice. And I speculate on here like others but I also get inside info occasionally sometimes.
So I've asked it before but nobody can answer...why Lunardi. Why him? He sucks at the bracket picking that is documented. Picking is the easy part if he can’t do that well how can he determine the right scheduling to getting picked. It makes no sense.
Except maybe they thought hey this guy is the most visible guy out there, surely if we treat him nice and overpay him, and throw him on the radio, we'll get a little kick from him talking us up. But again you CANNOT do that unless you know for certain. This is first grade stuff. There was always the chance, and a greater chance, he says you know I don't want my shady unethical consulting gigs to come up publicly it looks bad so I wont talk up Richmond otherwise it might and I don't want to be accused of playing favorites or have bias so I'll be even harder on them. If you don't consider the latter you are buffoon. Hello John Hardt. You just cannot make the hire with the higher likelihood he does the latter. At best you don't know, and when you don't know you don't do it. Risk too great. Again we could have hired anyone or nobody to do this we are all in agreement there, yet we thought the most visible but bad at job bracketologist was the way to go.
Smoothie King gift card for Jerry Palm! All it takes.
So I've asked it before but nobody can answer...why Lunardi. Why him? He sucks at the bracket picking that is documented. Picking is the easy part if he can’t do that well how can he determine the right scheduling to getting picked. It makes no sense.
Except maybe they thought hey this guy is the most visible guy out there, surely if we treat him nice and overpay him, and throw him on the radio, we'll get a little kick from him talking us up. But again you CANNOT do that unless you know for certain. This is first grade stuff. There was always the chance, and a greater chance, he says you know I don't want my shady unethical consulting gigs to come up publicly it looks bad so I wont talk up Richmond otherwise it might and I don't want to be accused of playing favorites or have bias so I'll be even harder on them. If you don't consider the latter you are buffoon. Hello John Hardt. You just cannot make the hire with the higher likelihood he does the latter. At best you don't know, and when you don't know you don't do it. Risk too great. Again we could have hired anyone or nobody to do this we are all in agreement there, yet we thought the most visible but bad at job bracketologist was the way to go.
Smoothie King gift card for Jerry Palm! All it takes.
I agree that there are many who are much better than him. However, he pretty much invented the "job" - he's not going to disappear. He generates more clicks this time of year than probably anyone else in sports.
Vandy over Wake is thought to be one. But really u just know who he added. This is who we got after he came on board. NET listed. That schedule group is pulling us down
St Francis 173
Vandy 138
Hampton 307
Charleston 149
Radford 184
Bama 53
That's the end result that all knew, who did we drop, or not schedule that we would have without JL?
A lot of things to ask you about this post. How do you know what was in his contract? If you think promotion is a factor, how do you figure when to promote? If we go 7-6 OOC, should he still promote us?
Why Lunardi you ask? I don't know. I don't think we needed anyone, but I guess I am more in the why not, it's not a big deal thinking. Maybe he knows someone at Bama and that helped get us a perfect road game to play. I don't know. Who cares?
No way would we or anyone expect special treatment because of hiring him. Like I said earlier, how exactly do you draw that contract up? What if we go 7-6? Does he still have to talk us up? You talk about him not talking us up because he is worried about playing favorites, but I doubt schools on the bubble would be worried about us going ahead of them because Lunardi helped us schedule a few games and talked us up.This just does not make sense. What teams out there even know or care that we hired him?
More criticism at Hardt? Why? What has he done wrong? Keeping Mooney this year? Yes, how did that work out? We are 24-7 and on numerous brackets to make the dance out there, including 60 on bracket matrix, who now has us dancing. Will any of the ones that jumped all over Hardt for keeping Mooney ever admit he possibly made the right choice? Probably not. Just like if we make the dance, you will probably still get on Hardt and Lunardi for the schedule and whatever else you want to attack them for.
No u just said Palm had those teams on bubble u didn't say it was his SOS. The one I posted was the team sheet. Granted SOS is all over the place with many different sources. I want to be back in tourney more than anything. I'm advocating for the Spiders. I've had belief in NCAA more than anyone on this entire board. A LOT of things go away if we make it. On this specific issue tho it will not excuse it.
Urfan1, I gave you one. Impossible to answer beyond it. So you go by end result. Take a shot at your own question.
Nathan, you nailed it.
You can take VT's cherry-picked* list and remove all the Power 6 teams. They enter the season knowing their conference schedule gives them the upper hand. They can schedule OOC (almost) however they want. The game is rigged, and this is how. As a mid-major program, we make our schedule with full knowledge of this as well. Schedule accordingly.
We didn't even need more Q1 games. Q2 would suffice. There are a bunch of quality teams out there who would love to play us (because it boosts their opportunity too). Now, some may have been reluctant based on our last two seasons, but I think we were universally expected to be better this year.
Lunardi helped with 6 or 7 games, depending on your source. He got us one quality game.
There's only one way that a 24-7 (14-4) 2nd place team in the A10 is not a lock for the tourney already.
*Cherry-picked - Palm's is not used by the committee. Notice how VT loves to cite KenPom most of the time, but since Ken has our OOC SOS at #202, we don't hear that one? The SOS on our team sheet is 85, which is fine, but "fine" isn't good enough. The comp to the P6 bubble teams' OOC SOS is irrelevant.
Similar threads
