Mooney's best recruiting class
- Thread starter CarolinaSpider
- Start date
Have to agree. Our recruits from this past year, Jacob, Nathan and the others, may turn out to be his second best class. The Spiders are on the move. Go Spiders!
Agree, that is a tremendous class. He does have it in him, just needs to put some of these type of classes back to back or three in a row. Seems to lose motivation or ability to do so. Maybe Hardt will pressure him to do so, but I don't think so from his public actions and generic statements to the public.
I think I'd go with the class that included KA and Justin Harper.
MO thought about that class also, but I was thinking about the early part of their career stage. Kevin Anderson, Justin Harper and Kevin Smith I believe were stronger in their Junior and Senior years, and quieter in the first two years. Of course bench depth at the time of these two classes have a huge impact to as far as playing time and experience. Hodve and Geriot came in year before but were redshirted and a walk on.
Harper, KA and Smith were more athletic overall but can you imagine if you had these two recruiting classes together: Golden at center, Harper at the 4, Sherod at the 3, Buck at the 2 and KA at point. Smith would come in for the 4-2 position. I think Buck and Smith are a toss up as to who would start, but Buck may be a better shooter at this point where Smith was more offensive threat from what I remember in his later years. This group could play with anyone in the country.
I depressingly just went through them all.
I agree, it’s definitely KA’s and Harper’s (2007). It also had Kevin Smith who was a solid role player for the sweet 16 team (about 28 mins a game). KA is the last player to have his number retired and Harper is the last player to be drafted in the NBA. Don’t think it’s much of a contest.
Buck, Sherrod, and GG have potential (sadly there’s no other class with 3 impact starters in it), but they have a long way to go until they catch up to the achievements of 2007.
I agree, it’s definitely KA’s and Harper’s (2007). It also had Kevin Smith who was a solid role player for the sweet 16 team (about 28 mins a game). KA is the last player to have his number retired and Harper is the last player to be drafted in the NBA. Don’t think it’s much of a contest.
Buck, Sherrod, and GG have potential (sadly there’s no other class with 3 impact starters in it), but they have a long way to go until they catch up to the achievements of 2007.
Its obvious how recruiting in a multi-year window got us into the situation we were in this year, we had too many classes where we got 1 a10-level player:
2015
Jesse Pistokache
Julius Johnson
KoVien Dominaus
2014
Dievkoss
Fore
Friendshuh
Smithen
2013
J. Jones
S. Jones
Singleton
2015
Jesse Pistokache
Julius Johnson
KoVien Dominaus
2014
Dievkoss
Fore
Friendshuh
Smithen
2013
J. Jones
S. Jones
Singleton
First of all we all can disagree with any Spidernation fan, but what you don't do is call a loyal Spider fan DUMB, no matter
whether they are right or wrong. If that is going to be your attitude towards someone on this board, then I hope 05 may look at
giving you a break from the board for a while till you mature and can come back on with a more professional approach.
I agree Carolina. I think we are comparing older Smith and Harper to younger Sherod, Buck and Golden. Just from my recollection Smith and Harper did very little until their last two years. In my opinion the Golden, Buck, Nick class is far ahead of the Anderson, Smith, Harper class at this point in their careers. We will have to wait and see. We also had a decent bench back then.
I also agree with you Carolina that VT needs a serious timeout to cool his jets.
He may be Ulla, but he's OUR Ulla, and he's got more ranches than the rest of us combined!
Fixed that one for you.
I don't need any kind of break. I am tired of people (mostly ulla) coming out with these moronic statements about how much better we're gonna be next year or in two years or how great our coach is or how great our recruits are. I've been hearing that for 7 years! I haven't seen any results over all this talk about how great we are gonna be. The results and facts I do see speak for themselves, one of just four teams in the A10 over the last seven years to not go to an NCAA tournament. That group includes Duquesne, gmu and Fordham. That is unacceptable to be in that group. Hell even la salle has gone to an NCAA more recently than us. This has been a miserable season and it will be better for everyone for it to just end.
Had you simply not put the "dumbest" comment in there, your comment would've stood on its own. No need for the insult.
i rarely agree w/ you but I do in this case. Harper was a tease for 2 years, before he really became a force. If memory stands correct, the first two years of KA/Harper featured loses to Norfolk, UMBC and VMI.
the hyperbole about the past 7 years never stops. when did you start complaining? the day after we were in the sweet 16 7 years ago?
I get the frustration of not dancing but the "we've sucked for 7 years" talk is over the top.
we were 22-13 (13-5 A10) last year.
21-14 (12-6 A10) 3 years ago.
I know it's not dancing. I agree we're not and should not be satisfied in the NIT.
and I know you want a new coach. I get it. seriously. I didn't get it the 1st 100 times you posted it, but I do now.
this is by far our worst year, yet I feel good about where we're heading. I might be wrong. I know that. but you might be wrong too and you don't see that as possible.
I knew something was wrong and began thinking that we needed to make a coaching change late in the 2014 season. So no I haven't complained this entire 7 year period. I see know why I can be wrong about where this program is headed, we are still recruiting subpar players so depth will not improve, we still have a coach who will not change his strategies or adjust anything that might help with winning and more importantly we have an athletic department that is fine with complacency and will not push Mooney to make changes or be fired.
I strongly disagree with you saying we have a coach who will not adjust his strategies. Do you not see how much the offense has changed from the days of Kendall Anthony to now? We used to know going into games that our 3 point shooters gave us an advantage in every game. We no longer have that. Instead of jacking up a ton of 3s now we rely a lot more on back-cuts than we did 4 seasons ago. I'm not going to go into whether the coaching is effective or not but saying the coach will not change his strategies or adjust anything is wildly inaccurate.
There is a reason that you won't go into if the coaching is effective or not, because it isn't. Seems like we still take a good amount of threes and the fact that we rely less on threes doesn't really matter because we are trying to run an inside game with only one guy over 6'4. And why do we have only one regular player over 6'4?' Oh that's right because of mooneys piss poor recruiting, you have to agree with me on that.
Hey little boy, the point was about name calling not what you are tired of hearing and for the record I am one who said Fire Mooney but it does not mean I can not have opinions of our players just like any other Spider fan. You were wrong in calling someone Dumb and that is uncalled for on this board. I have disagreed with FRS, Ulla and others on statements they have made many times, but I have never made reference to their intelligence level or loyalty to the Spiders. I played a sport at Richmond also and my son was a Div I Soccer player, I never went to the NCAAs or won a championship, but I never complained. My son went to the NCAAs 3 times and advanced to the quarterfinals his senior year with a losing record and seeded 7th in the SoCon. Yea they won the SoCon Tournament as a 7th seed, then proceeded to beat two ranked schools on the road before losing in a shootout to the #2 seed in the NCAA tournament. Top it off I thought the coach was lacking and sometimes the biggest jerk there was.
So as bad as we may think Mooney is and how poor our depth is, there is always hope and an outside chance that the 1980s Miracle on Ice can pop up in 2018 in Washington, DC on the basketball court. If you want to stay with us, treat your fellow Spider Fan with respect, please.
Just as a PSA...
Look - I can't honestly say I'm a fan of everyone on the board (as I know not everyone is a fan of me) but everyone has a right to post, even luvsbugs (I'd actually love to have her swing by and pay us a visit at some point!). Debate the opinions, debate the facts, debate each other but if you start going at each other, you can sit on the side.
VT is enjoying a vacation until April 3rd.
Look - I can't honestly say I'm a fan of everyone on the board (as I know not everyone is a fan of me) but everyone has a right to post, even luvsbugs (I'd actually love to have her swing by and pay us a visit at some point!). Debate the opinions, debate the facts, debate each other but if you start going at each other, you can sit on the side.
VT is enjoying a vacation until April 3rd.
VT has a point with all that he said here. He also was the only one on here who at the beginning of the season who said we would win 10 games. The rest of us "experts" predicted anywhere from an NIT birth to an NCAA bid for this team.
Now, VT, you throw a lot of invective around and that ultimately hurts some very valid points that you do make. This is why 05 sat you down for a while and why many posters have chosen to put you on ignore.
Bottom line, if you want to get your points across, do so with respect and in a manner that does insult your fellow posters. I disagree with Ulla all of the time, but would buy that man a beer if we ever met, because he bleeds red and blue. We are all Spider fans here, we all want this team to win and win on the biggest stage. Don't ever forget that.
And not to derail this any further (okay, so I'm lying), but '97 and I obviously had some back and forth earlier this year on a couple of points, but I love running into him at games. It's about having respect. Completely cool to disagree (frankly, that's what makes a message board great), but keep the petty crap saved for the occasional VCU fan that slithers this way (respect to a couple of the good ones that swing by from time to time, as Mite does on their board).
VT shouldn't call anyone names, obviously, and he's a bit brash for many people here, but he is a passionate Spider fan despite attending a different school, and he has been right about a lot, gotta give him that.
It would appear that our current class of DB, NS, and GG is ahead of the class of KA, JH, and KS at the same point, but at the end of the day, the older group went to 2 NCAA's, Harper was drafted, and KA had his number retired as one of our all-time greats. Let's see how many NCAA's the current group has, and whether or not one of them is an all-time great or drafted by the NBA.
I don’t agree. KA was rookie of the year his first season then 2nd team all A-10 his second season. Buck didn’t make that same jump (yet). Grant is in his first year playing but is also kind of a sophomore. We’ll see if he makes the jump like KA did. Also, KA was first team all A-10 his last 2 years (Harper joined him as first team his senior year).
I guess it’s a question of whether you want depth or high end talent. In basketball, I’ll take the 1 special guy with 1 developing and another role player over 3 good to very good guys. 1 guy just makes such a diffference, especially when he’s other worldly like KA.
It was obviously the only word he could find to describe that post but shouldnt have gotten personal.
I just completely dont understand the logic of this..."at this stage" these men are 10-19 in their second year. Saying Best Class really speaks volumes about CM's recruiting ability. Jeez
Good thread here and obviously some strong feelings about which recruiting class may have been our best under CM.
My position is that it looks like the 3-man class of Buck, Nick and Grant will likely go down as CM's best ever, in part because it has already yielded three very solid starters, with "star" potential. However, the "Let's wait and see" perspective is clearly valid, because the Anderson/Harper/Smith class would not have looked like a great one at the end of their first seasons here, or even at the end of their second seasons (which would be an "apples-to-apples" comparison. Were all three starting and contributing well as sophomores? Somebody can look that one up...
To me the key here is whether we are able to follow-up that Buck/Nick/Grant class with a solid class or one that looks like some of the truly weak classes we had a while back. Take a look at the classes posted above (and re-posted here) and you see how to truly KILL a program, with 3 straight years (2013-2015) of very weak recruiting.
"2015
Jesse Pistokache
Julius Johnson
KoVien Dominaus
2014
Dievkoss
Fore
Friendshuh
Smithen
2013
J. Jones
S. Jones
Singleton
7 ur2K, Yesterday at 11:10 AM
So, a very important related question is how will this year's 5-man class rate, in the overall scheme, and will it build on our "potentially great" 3-man class from 2016, or will it undermine that class?
I feel good about Jake and Nate, (and they even remind me of Anderson and Smith) but very uncertain still about Bryce, Tomas and AJ/Phoenix. If all three of our red-shirts turn into solid contributors/role-players, then we will have two very good classes in a row, and the stuff that NCAA teams are built from. If the three red-shirts do not turn into real contributors for us, then we have a class that may look a bit more like the 2013-2015 classes above. How our 3 red-shirts develop, or whether they remain in the program, will very much help to answer the question of how good we will be in 2 years. And that is the real question we are debating here.
My position is that it looks like the 3-man class of Buck, Nick and Grant will likely go down as CM's best ever, in part because it has already yielded three very solid starters, with "star" potential. However, the "Let's wait and see" perspective is clearly valid, because the Anderson/Harper/Smith class would not have looked like a great one at the end of their first seasons here, or even at the end of their second seasons (which would be an "apples-to-apples" comparison. Were all three starting and contributing well as sophomores? Somebody can look that one up...
To me the key here is whether we are able to follow-up that Buck/Nick/Grant class with a solid class or one that looks like some of the truly weak classes we had a while back. Take a look at the classes posted above (and re-posted here) and you see how to truly KILL a program, with 3 straight years (2013-2015) of very weak recruiting.
"2015
Jesse Pistokache
Julius Johnson
KoVien Dominaus
2014
Dievkoss
Fore
Friendshuh
Smithen
2013
J. Jones
S. Jones
Singleton
7 ur2K, Yesterday at 11:10 AM
So, a very important related question is how will this year's 5-man class rate, in the overall scheme, and will it build on our "potentially great" 3-man class from 2016, or will it undermine that class?
I feel good about Jake and Nate, (and they even remind me of Anderson and Smith) but very uncertain still about Bryce, Tomas and AJ/Phoenix. If all three of our red-shirts turn into solid contributors/role-players, then we will have two very good classes in a row, and the stuff that NCAA teams are built from. If the three red-shirts do not turn into real contributors for us, then we have a class that may look a bit more like the 2013-2015 classes above. How our 3 red-shirts develop, or whether they remain in the program, will very much help to answer the question of how good we will be in 2 years. And that is the real question we are debating here.
I've called people on this board morons (or categories lower downstream on the retardation scale) in some of my posts. I am just glad that I didn't use the word "dumb." For sure, a new PC trigger word (Spinner, where are you when I need you?).
I have an unpopular opinion, to-wit:
I have had my differences with VT_Spider, but it appears to me that '05 may have been a little bit harsh...or premature...or just assuaging the hurt feelings of a friend who did not agree with VT_Spider's posts when he temporarily suspended him from posting on this board. Therefore, I question the questioning of the opinion, candor, and boldness of VT_Spider, and I have a hard time reconciling the recent banishment of VT_Spider when I look at the tolerance of others whose opinions are just as negative.
At least that is how it looks to me.
We need all the support for our programs that we can obtain, including (especially) the support of non-alums. Differences of opinion may occur. It's all part of any program, especially when there seems to be an outpouring of opinions which think that it is time to make a change at head coach. But take a look at the cross-section of demographics in fans at all of the successful basketball programs across our state (Commonwealth). If they depended upon just alumni, their gyms would be half empty. We need the help of all supporters that we can muster up as long as they are sincere, regardless of how young, immature, or ill-guided their comments may appear from time to time.
Personally, I think that VT_Spider has always bled as much if not more red and blue than many of our alumni.
It is time now, please come over to HighlanderNation. I feel the threads of blue and red unraveling. It is time.
I have a day job running finance for a global company, a family with two kids and help facilitate the general decorum on the board here; I can't read every word of every post.
If I see something pop up from spiderman or 97 or URMite, etc., I generally gloss over it unless it's on a topic I care to read more into. I do tend to focus more on posts from people that have historically toed the line and had violations in the past.
VT & I have had plenty of direct message conversations about and I've edited plenty of posts he's authored. It has nothing to do with negativity; hell, if that were the standard, we'd be left with Ulla talking to himself. Continue to not abide by the rules, you're going to sit (as he did for a week previously). Continue to ignore the asks, you're going to find yourself sitting for longer. At some point, you're going to lose the ability to post completely.
If I see something pop up from spiderman or 97 or URMite, etc., I generally gloss over it unless it's on a topic I care to read more into. I do tend to focus more on posts from people that have historically toed the line and had violations in the past.
VT & I have had plenty of direct message conversations about and I've edited plenty of posts he's authored. It has nothing to do with negativity; hell, if that were the standard, we'd be left with Ulla talking to himself. Continue to not abide by the rules, you're going to sit (as he did for a week previously). Continue to ignore the asks, you're going to find yourself sitting for longer. At some point, you're going to lose the ability to post completely.
Father(weird feel like I should be in a confessional booth when writing this), I am looking at the three as themselves and not the surrounding parts and the same situation with KA, Harper and KS. Their play could
be affected by the other players on the roster. I believe KAs group had a stronger nucleus around them, thus
greater success in their latter years. This current group may or may not reach the same level of success based on their current and future teammates.
