Mens: NET '24-'25 Rankings

[MrTbone]

We finished 15-3 A10 and 23-10 in the year. We had a very good season for 90% of the season and fizzled out at the end.

I have to correct this. We had a good season for (23/33=69.7%) of the season. We had a soft start and no chance to make the tournament going into conference and had only autobid hopes in spite of a fairly miraculous conference run.

I’m not taking anything away from winning the conference, it was great and fun. But this is the kind of thinking that I find sort of maddening because I care about making the tournament. We had only one path to get there and didn’t even win one conference tourney game to do so. That’s a fail.

None of this matters to the CM contract. He will be coach until he decides to leave, so we should all stop hemming and hawing about it. UR is fine with what he brings, including losing seasons 40% of the time.

 

[spider23]

Excellent points on last season. The BC loss wrecked any at large hopes and thud at Norhtern Iowa. Great run thru the A10, until the thud again at season end.

 

[97spiderfan]

And bad seasons do not get rewarded. The reality in college athletics is that no program can convince coaches to sign a contract stipulating that if the coach has a bad season they would lose years on their contract or have to pay back money. There are no “punishable” bad seasons in college athletics in that sense. That’s not how it works. So at worst, a bad season means no extension/raise and enough consecutive bad seasons means getting fired.

Bad seasons get you fired in coaching. Look at Ryan Day right now. He is on the hot seat, not because he is having "bad" seasons but because they can't be Michigan and crapped the bed against a bad Michigan team at the end of the year. So Ohio State had by most metrics a great regular season, but I think there is a fair chance that if they go one and done in the playoffs this year, he could be gone.

Obviously, we are different world than Ohio State but a similar principal applies to our flagship sport. We should have an expectation that we are competing for NCAA bids. Last year, great in conference regular season but crapped out in every meaningful OOC game and big time bed wetting at the end and we were no where near an NCAA bid.

So, is that a good season for us? You say yes, 4700 says yes, Mooney and our administration says yes, I and others say no Our reality is that we have higher expectations for our MBB program, which is our flagship sport, to be competing for NCAA bids and that was not what happened last year. And that is the disconnect with many in our fanbase is that our coach and administration do not have very lofty expectations for success.

This is why quite frankly, I've grown tired of Spider athletics in many capacities, despite it being my alma mater and I have been a regular season ticket holder for 20 years now. If I can't feel that our leadership has aspirations for greatness (and they don't, they tell us that all of the time in so many ways) than it just becomes exhausting as a fan to be super invested in something that its leadership isn't even 100% bought into to making in great.

 

[spider23]

This is why quite frankly, I've grown tired of Spider athletics in many capacities, despite it being my alma mater and I have been a regular season ticket holder for 20 years now. If I can't feel that our leadership has aspirations for greatness (and they don't, they tell us that all of the time in so many ways) than it just becomes exhausting as a fan to be super invested in something that its leadership isn't even 100% bought into to making in great.

💯 Makes it harder and harder to stay invested. As I mentioned on other threads here, been doing a guys weekend with some UR buddies last few years. Very little discussion of Spiders sports on these. Football moving to Patriot league. Hoops is always my main interest and obviously the folks on this board are all in, but I have first hand experience that other UR cronies are not. It's just same ol same ol, with the rare peaks, but more often valleys.

 

[97spiderfan]

Most people that I correspond with that is a Spider alum, fan, feels largely the same way, I do. So, when I hear, folks like 4700 and Spider17 with their takes on the state of our program and Mooney as our coach, I'm genuinely perplexed that as a committed follower/fan of our program that the best you want is 55%. 20 years, 55% winning percentage, who as a fan would sign up for that?

I think anywhere else except maybe some Ivy schools, Patriot League or the small D-1 would never accept that. But here, some revere it and certainly our administration rewards it via continued extensions and pay increases. It honestly just makes me sad that this is best we will have until Mooney decides to retire.

 

[SpiderTrap]

This is why I think in a few years, all UR sports will be joining the Patriot League. As NIL progresses even more, and the NCAA case gets settled, which will likely result in players being paid by the schools in addition to NIL and setting salary cap restrictions - I think you will see a break in all college sports - mainly by league affiliation, where leagues try to level the playing field among themselves. Similar to how the Ivy league currently does so by not offering full scholarships and by not allowing eligibility past 4 years - those are rules specific to the Ivy League in order to keep them fair between themselves, in the Ivy League. I see this trickling down to smaller leagues as they know they can't compete with bigger leagues and don't want 1-2 outlier schools in their own league to gain an advantage and always win.

So I could see schools like VCU, Dayton, St. Louis, St. Bonaventure, etc - going all in when these changes occur, but UR not willing to do so. And therefore - they will likely search out a league that fits us better from a competitive and more important in their minds - academic point of view, and I think the Patriot League will be the ultimate landing spot.

I hope it doesn't happen. And all the reasons - such as money, exposure, competing for NCAA bids are all good reasons not to make that type of move - but does this administration care now about any of those things? If they don't care much about that now, why care about in the future???

 

[RichmondNative]

This is why I think in a few years, all UR sports will be joining the Patriot League. As NIL progresses even more, and the NCAA case gets settled, which will likely result in players being paid by the schools in addition to NIL and setting salary cap restrictions - I think you will see a break in all college sports - mainly by league affiliation, where leagues try to level the playing field among themselves. Similar to how the Ivy league currently does so by not offering full scholarships and by not allowing eligibility past 4 years - those are rules specific to the Ivy League in order to keep them fair between themselves, in the Ivy League. I see this trickling down to smaller leagues as they know they can't compete with bigger leagues and don't want 1-2 outlier schools in their own league to gain an advantage and always win.

So I could see schools like VCU, Dayton, St. Louis, St. Bonaventure, etc - going all in when these changes occur, but UR not willing to do so. And therefore - they will likely search out a league that fits us better from a competitive and more important in their minds - academic point of view, and I think the Patriot League will be the ultimate landing spot.

I hope it doesn't happen. And all the reasons - such as money, exposure, competing for NCAA bids are all good reasons not to make that type of move - but does this administration care now about any of those things? If they don't care much about that now, why care about in the future???

I have said this same thing many times in the past, but my latest thought on this is that UR won’t have to leave the A10 because the A10 will become one of the “lower leagues”, otherwise known as non-professional college sports.

All of this has been driven by football and that seems like the logical place to “split” the colleges. Those with D1 “premium” football are in the Super League and the rest form some sort of “old fashioned” NCAA league (the world prior to NIL, portal, etc).

I don’t know if there will be a “premium” basketball only league. Seems like the Big East may be left out on the sidelines and the ACC may not be far behind. Would colleges really need to keep spending big money when all the large public schools are no longer participating with them?

 

[SpiderTrap]

I have said this same thing many times in the past, but my latest thought on this is that UR won’t have to leave the A10 because the A10 will become one of the “lower leagues”, otherwise known as non-professional college sports.

All of this has been driven by football and that seems like the logical place to “split” the colleges. Those with D1 “premium” football are in the Super League and the rest form some sort of “old fashioned” NCAA league (the world prior to NIL, portal, etc).

I don’t know if there will be a “premium” basketball only league. Seems like the Big East may be left out on the sidelines and the ACC may not be far behind. Would colleges really need to keep spending big money when all the large public schools are no longer participating with them?

That is a likely scenario as well and I would expect if A10 becomes that type of league - schools like Dayton, VCU, St. Louis, and maybe even the Bonnies would look to move elsewhere and stay relevant in a league hyper focused on basketball.

 

[GKiller]

If I can't feel that our leadership has aspirations for greatness (and they don't, they tell us that all of the time in so many ways) than it just becomes exhausting as a fan to be super invested in something that its leadership isn't even 100% bought into to making in great.

You treat the flagship sport differently. REGATTA. But yeah that is my top frustration too. Because I've thought & think our program has higher ceiling but UR admin does not. That's why we moved to A10 or so we were told. & I'm not talking about some super crazy unreasonable ceiling, there are legitimate reasons r ceiling is higher. and where is the real progress to that ceiling. I know UR admin and the student17s and 4700s will say well the school thinks Mooney is the guy to get us to that ceiling. But when you've had 20 years and then extend him to 24 years with our metrics, there's a rather unbelievable and laughable premise.

Most people that I correspond with that is a Spider alum, fan, feels largely the same way, I do. So, when I hear, folks like 4700 and Spider17 with their takes on the state of our program and Mooney as our coach, I'm genuinely perplexed that as a committed follower/fan of our program that the best you want is 55%. 20 years, 55% winning percentage, who as a fan would sign up for that?

I think anywhere else except maybe some Ivy schools, Patriot League or the small D-1 would never accept that. But here, some revere it and certainly our administration rewards it via continued extensions and pay increases. It honestly just makes me sad that this is best we will have until Mooney decides to retire.

I guess we all must run in different circles. Have lot of UR friends and connections, nobody is pro Mooney. I don't know 1 any longer. And honestly I think that hurts us too. In sports u will always have some criticism but if most r behind the coach there's an energy that comes w it. spider23 would call it palpable.