Mens: Fla Tech in the Gulf Coast Classic - Monday 11/25 - 6pm - on fabulous FloHoops
- Thread starter Section9.RowD
- Start date
.....and keep waking up to the same nightmare. You know the one, Mooney talking aimlessly into a microphone, espousing the same BS. Hardt sleepily staring at you with a sh$@ eating grin. You want to wake up screaming. But you have got the malaise and don't give an eff anymore. Keep dreaming go, keep dreaming.
"We are all about flow and softness."
We certainly have the softness part down, the flow might be the worst I have ever seen from a Mooney team. Even his no talent teams for the first couple of years ran his offense much better than this team so far.
Possibly the coach might add this appropriate statement to use at times too .... "I'm just not coaching at the level I need to coach at in the games."
What I don't get is how 6 games into the season we have 3 new starters already. Walz got 7 minutes (0 points) and Tanner got 10 minutes (zero points). All summer we heard Mooney rave about these two and we are still in November and they are both basically out of the rotation and non-factors.
And it was infinitely clear to anyone who has watched Mooney coach for oh the past 20 damn years, that Beagle was the type of big man needed to run Mooney's offense and Walz was not. Abundantly clear for everyone except the architect of that offense himself.
6 games in and this team is not getting any better. The talent is not there and we all know Mooney is not the type of coach who can coach up inferior talent. This is going to be a LONG year. I wonder if Mooney's NIL daddies are gonna be irritated that he spent their money so poorly.
Tyler Burton said the biggest difference between Richmond and Villanova was how hard they practiced at Nova. Now it didn't help Nova much so take fwiw but still found interesting.
Here we go again. Lets see both sides of this victory.
Positive
Spiders hold on to a tough neutral site win. Spiders handled the travel from Richmond to Florida and came out of the gates ready to play. This will pay dividends in other road games. Roche was fantastic - 7-10 from deep, 3 rebounds and 0 turnovers in 30 minutes. Not sure how his leg is holding up, but he is looking like an all A10 player the last 2 games. DLO - all around game. 12 points and 10 rebounds - from our PG! He is doing whatever it takes for this team to win. We were able to keep FLorida Tech off the glass and limited them to just 7 offensive rebounds. The Brown kid looked good for Florida Tech and dropped 27 on us, I hope Gipe keeps an eye on him - could be someone we can add next season. Not the prettiest of wins - but a win is a win, and this team is starting to come together.
Negative
We barely hang on to beat a D2 team with one player on it. In true spider fashion, we build a lead, then go into our classic scoring drought. This time for nearly 8 minutes in the 2nd half where we only score 2 points. Nothing from the bench besides Neskovic. Our free throw shooting is terrible, and shooting overall - from one of the best shooting teams these coaches have seen - has yet to show up. If you take Roche out again - we are 3-18 from deep. I understand cold shooting nights, but it is usually 1-2 players. The entire team has been cold (minus Roche the last 2 games) since the season started. Something doesn't add up. Also - where are our big guys and this so called depth we had? We play a D2 team with no one over 6-7 and our big guys give us 12 points, 8 rebounds, 9 assists between Beagle, Soulis, and Walz (and most of that production is Beagle). This should have been a game they feasted with little resistance inside. Good news - we got the win. Bad news - we barely beat a D2 team.
Positive
Spiders hold on to a tough neutral site win. Spiders handled the travel from Richmond to Florida and came out of the gates ready to play. This will pay dividends in other road games. Roche was fantastic - 7-10 from deep, 3 rebounds and 0 turnovers in 30 minutes. Not sure how his leg is holding up, but he is looking like an all A10 player the last 2 games. DLO - all around game. 12 points and 10 rebounds - from our PG! He is doing whatever it takes for this team to win. We were able to keep FLorida Tech off the glass and limited them to just 7 offensive rebounds. The Brown kid looked good for Florida Tech and dropped 27 on us, I hope Gipe keeps an eye on him - could be someone we can add next season. Not the prettiest of wins - but a win is a win, and this team is starting to come together.
Negative
We barely hang on to beat a D2 team with one player on it. In true spider fashion, we build a lead, then go into our classic scoring drought. This time for nearly 8 minutes in the 2nd half where we only score 2 points. Nothing from the bench besides Neskovic. Our free throw shooting is terrible, and shooting overall - from one of the best shooting teams these coaches have seen - has yet to show up. If you take Roche out again - we are 3-18 from deep. I understand cold shooting nights, but it is usually 1-2 players. The entire team has been cold (minus Roche the last 2 games) since the season started. Something doesn't add up. Also - where are our big guys and this so called depth we had? We play a D2 team with no one over 6-7 and our big guys give us 12 points, 8 rebounds, 9 assists between Beagle, Soulis, and Walz (and most of that production is Beagle). This should have been a game they feasted with little resistance inside. Good news - we got the win. Bad news - we barely beat a D2 team.
I believe it. And before folks start saying - YOUR NOT AT Practice how do you know blah blah. It is definitely just a sense I get from the clips they show, the Mooney messaging, the interviews with players, all feedback that is out there.
I don't see any. My only hope after the first few games was like guys were still figuring out how to play together. But it seems more likely with each passing game that we just don't have much talent to compete. None of the transfers seem like big impact players (maybe next year) and the two freshman that some of the Moondog supporters said were difference makers are redshirting.
my guess on the practice quote is that practicing hard = practicing with physicality as preparation. Total guess, I could be wildly wrong, but either way how else could it be? I assume UR practices hard, so what other difference could there be?
and yeah, the panic moves to the lineup following 6 months of player evaluation that led to the starting lineup in the first place is a reflection of talent evaluation. Which may be a problem for this staff in general, in all aspects including evaluating portal and HS players for ability and impact. I'm sure the ever-leafy contingent will use it as evidence of Moon's ability to adapt rather than his inability to understand his own players and rotations. But it's not like many transfer outs are lighting things up at small conf. schools, and a couple seem nailed to the bench at various places.
Frankly, I'm pretty shocked at player development issues. I'll give credit in this regard that over the years guys get better. But as I pointed out in another thread, what is Walz's go to offensive move that would allow him to expand his scoring - the clear aspect of his game that needed improvement from last year? Where is a big man coach to teach him a couple go-to moves in the post?
Tanner I see as jury still out, sample size is tiny, but to go from starter to semi-buried already?
almost 30 minutes for a starter shooting 21% from the field, 20% from 3 and 50% from FT line is wild. Every shot he puts up at present is working against UR winning. Hopefully this will change but season is now 20% in, sample size is growing more accurate by the game.
and yeah, the panic moves to the lineup following 6 months of player evaluation that led to the starting lineup in the first place is a reflection of talent evaluation. Which may be a problem for this staff in general, in all aspects including evaluating portal and HS players for ability and impact. I'm sure the ever-leafy contingent will use it as evidence of Moon's ability to adapt rather than his inability to understand his own players and rotations. But it's not like many transfer outs are lighting things up at small conf. schools, and a couple seem nailed to the bench at various places.
Frankly, I'm pretty shocked at player development issues. I'll give credit in this regard that over the years guys get better. But as I pointed out in another thread, what is Walz's go to offensive move that would allow him to expand his scoring - the clear aspect of his game that needed improvement from last year? Where is a big man coach to teach him a couple go-to moves in the post?
Tanner I see as jury still out, sample size is tiny, but to go from starter to semi-buried already?
almost 30 minutes for a starter shooting 21% from the field, 20% from 3 and 50% from FT line is wild. Every shot he puts up at present is working against UR winning. Hopefully this will change but season is now 20% in, sample size is growing more accurate by the game.
It seemed like 6 players shooting 50% in preseason. Now most of those not playing, shooting 20%, or not shooting at all.
Night and day...
With this team, maybe the thinking was for us to be good, we need Walz and Tanner to play well and be huge pieces, so they started early. Sometimes, it takes seeing guys on the floor in real games for good minutes to realize maybe they aren't who we thought they were. At least changes were made sooner rather than later, but so far, the results still look bad with them not getting good minutes.
It's just a bad looking roster right now. We thought we had depth at guard with maybe 4 quality guards, and Hunt is the only positive there so far, and he is only 3-15 from 3. Tyne is getting over 30 mpg ( I guess because no one else is better?) and is 6-25 from 3 ( 27-103 for his career) with 10 turnovers and only 4 assists. At forward, Tanner has given us nothing, and AP is now 5-30 from 3 this year. Roche needs to always get 30+ mpg, and I would like to see Dusan get more time and AP less, but in college ball, you want your guards carrying you, so until we get better play and shooting from multiple guards, we will continue to struggle.
Why is D Artis not back and GW not playing? Tyne and Hunt will wear down over 3 days.
Tyne still makes too many poor decisions with passing and driving into a crowd. 1v1 he is
good. Hunt has to start hitting outside shots or teams will layoff and cut off his drives.
Tyne still makes too many poor decisions with passing and driving into a crowd. 1v1 he is
good. Hunt has to start hitting outside shots or teams will layoff and cut off his drives.
Want to double down on this - three weeks ago, it was all about Walz being next-in-line as the lead Richmond C and Tanner being a breakout dynamic wing. I never saw it with Walz, but was happy to give Tanner the benefit of the doubt since we hadn't really seen him play.
Now both are removed from their starting spots and can't even get real PT against a D2 team??? How is it possible to be that wrong about the impact that guys are going to have for you?
I quickly checked out box score. Walz only played 7 mins and didn’t take a shot. On balance, his lack of shooting is consistent. He needs to contribute, and no reason he couldn’t find a few shots against a D2 school. Question - is CM limiting his play due to prior concussion, or has he basically benched him and gone with Beagle? At least Beagle looks to score and getting points.
Dont know about Neptune, but was fortunate to attend a lot of Wright practices - - they were generally more intense than games. His stated philosophy was that practice had to be harder than the games. And he was't too big on pumping the team or anyone on the team up either. Rather rip you up one side and down the other and see how you react. That said, he seemed to know when to back off a bit too!
