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NCAA Tournament "at large" candidate University of Richmond Women

Extremely, extremely well deserved and appropriate 8 seed. I wonder how close they were to getting a 7.... presumably if we won the conference tourney?

The reward, of course, as everyone is mentioning, is to get shipped to LA to line-up to play the #1 overall seed. Seems a bit underhanded in a multitude of ways. I don't know.

On a personal note, I was able to see women's tennis play in Vegas a couple days ago .... and I guess.... am now going to LA for a couple days. Congrats ladies... and good luck. Time to shock the world.
 
I've had some time to think about this.... and I got this dead wrong. Of course, we want to see them advance as far as possible and make a Sweet 16, but they actually deserve no less than the ultimate spotlight this year. 100% agree with you GKiller. They handle their business.... and they get to play the #1 overall seed in the country at Pauley Pavillion. They deserve nothing less than that.
 
Looking ahead UCLA only lost 2 this season, both to USC. They have 3 players that went to Sidwell Friends in DC, have we ever had anyone from Sidwell Friends?
 
Mike Jones got his start coaching there before breaking into the college ranks and spending a few years at UR with Beilein.

Roussell also offered Ava Yoon from there out of the 2026 class, but she committed to Princeton.
 
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nothing to worry about. mortal lock. those r bubble games, we're solidly in field.

btw William & Mary 1st ncaa basketball bid, men or women. won CAA as 9 seed. beat the odds. going into NCAA with losing record.
If W&M gets by High Point, then they get a spider opponent Texas.
 
Looking ahead UCLA only lost 2 this season, both to USC. They have 3 players that went to Sidwell Friends in DC, have we ever had anyone from Sidwell Friends?

Only weird people and presidential children used to go there.

Although Matt Henry, Odom’s top asst did & he seems normal. I think when Sidwell started focusing more on basketball that it got better.
 
Is anybody here planning to go to the game? I’ve been waiting for the Spiders to come to LA for a decade. I’m not missing this chance.

Richmond men played out there at UCLA not too long b4 that must have just missed.

Enjoy. Recommend going to the official open ncaa practice/shoot around. I assume the women have that too.
 

Roussell gets it & hit on on all the key things as expected.

Sounds like everyone associated w team genuinely very excited to go to LA. And why not. Who wouldn’t. Adds juice. I replied to SF when he wasn’t a big fan of such a potential trip. Said I didn’t mind it great trip for team. & besides Raleigh not sure it matters for fans. We get good night time slots too. 7:30 Friday is our game.

Yeah it’s a business trip we need to win 1st game but honestly we have a few girls on team we can market LA. We should. Play it up.

We wear white that’s something too as Coach mentioned. Means nothing at tip but right now it’s cool. The “at large” really has some cachet too. That’s another reason I was keen on locking up bid early rather than student17’s lose late in reg season model.

Btw student17 check out what Roussel said re: scheduling. top 50 top 50 games more more. Meanwhile u want to avoid top50ish for the men. He would be same way if coaching men.

Go Spiders. Beat LA.
 
Playing another East Coast team out there mitigates the time zone issue, and it sounds like they’re going to try to get out there fairly early to get adjusted. 7:30 Eastern not a terrible tip time either.
 
Richmond men played out there at UCLA not too long b4 that must have just missed.

Enjoy. Recommend going to the official open ncaa practice/shoot around. I assume the women have that too.
This was during my senior year of highschool, before I had been admitted so was not yet following the Spiders.

I’m definitely planning on getting there early, I’m really looking forward to it.
 
This was during my senior year of highschool, before I had been admitted so was not yet following the Spiders.

I’m definitely planning on getting there early, I’m really looking forward to it.

It would be on Thursday. Free.
 
Out of respect for this team and their accomplishments, I’m going to try and keep my MBB talk limited on this thread but re: scheduling. My whole point is that you schedule for the team you have. Our women’s team was good enough to win those games so I’m all for scheduling 10 Q1s/Q2s for them. I understand your point in another thread is that scheduling hard is the only way you can get an at-large. I partially agree with that. Scheduling hard + winning those games = at large chances.

You may ask, how do you know you will win the games if you don’t play them? You can’t 100% but you base it off historical data. Same way you don’t know 100% if a team anticipated to be Q1 at the beginning of the season, will be. When was the last time our men’s team had stellar chances of an at-large after our OOC? We hardly ever capitalize on our OOC chances, often losing to teams we shouldn’t or not winning enough games against good competition. It’s like wanting to ski down the double black diamond mountain, before you can comfortably ski down the lower level mountains. Same with basketball, let’s first actually see if this team can consistently perform to the schedule they’ve been given before ramping up the difficulty. Rather than starting off with all Q4s, I felt a good starting point is 1-2 Q1s, 2-3 Q2s. I think that’s more than reasonable based off our lack of OOC success in the past. If we get to the point like our women’s team who actually wins these games a decent amount and then goes on to have a great regular season then sure, let’s schedule all Q1 games in OOC for MBB.
 
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Women got screwed with the seeding and location. BUT - one argument could be, win the A10 tourney, and maybe we don't get this game. Only good news is Georgia Tech has to make the trip out west as well. So both will be dealing with the travel and time zones. Could have been really bad had we matched up with a Cal or Utah. And then getting by first round - getting overall 1 seed. Again - maybe if we won the A10 tourney - we move up to a 7 seed, which again matches you up with a 2 seed anyways.

Key here is - win 1 game. Not sure our women have ever won an NCAA game? So take that first step, win a game and build on that.
 
It's way too hard to schedule for the team you think you have. You have to get every good game you can and build momentum. It's really contingent on having some kind of consistency of success because we are not able to get games now bc we are an anchor and our coaches are not well connected. VCU, St Mary's, SDSU get games bc they will help your ncaa resume and have been winners.
 
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It's way too hard to schedule for the team you think you have. You have to get every good game you can and build momentum. It's really contingent on having some kind of consistency of success because we are not able to get games now bc we are an anchor and our coaches are not well connected. VCU, St Mary's, SDSU get games bc they will help your ncaa resume and have been winners.
I’m surprised you and GK advocate for this type of scheduling because it can only be seen as a win-not lose situation for the UR administration. We win these games it’ll be glowing comments about Mooney and beating the best. If we don’t win the games, it’ll be spun as us willing to go out and play the best, so “kudos to the staff for doing that even though the record doesn’t reflect the effort” and more moral victory comments like that. Similar to Mooney and how he made comments this year about “seeing improvement” despite not winning. This can be made even more easily when it’s against top teams in the country.

Notice how no one is buying any of these moral victory/excuse comments this year? Including myself who has advocated for Mooney this past year. Maybe somewhat excuses about injuries on the team, but really not played up as much in years past. This is because everybody knows we stunk this year before/after injuries and with a cream puff schedule. If this happens again next year, there will be pressure and if it happens a 3rd year in a row, then maybe there will be change.

Now, if UR goes out and crushes it with a weak OOC schedule next year, that’s not to say this team is fantastic and Mooney has turned things around completely, but it lends more credence that we can win if we increase the difficulty the year after.
 
"and if it happens a 3rd year in a row, then maybe there will be change."

Just kill me now.
SpiderTrap put it well in the coaching carousel thread and it’s similar to comments I have been making the last year. The administration isn’t viewing Mooney’s tenure as 20 years but smaller stretches of time and the past 5 years have been pretty good all things considered. But the street goes both ways and if we continue to stink, the window of time where we can harp on our A10 tournament championship gets smaller and smaller. Mooney realistically has 2 if not 3 more years here before the thought of letting him go is seriously considered. The other option is he gets tired of this and retires beforehand.
 
The administration will use whatever time frame is required in order to justify his continued employment.

You think the 24–7 year falls off the radar for evaluation next season? And yet a single good season erases any impact of previous bad seasons. He succeeds just often enough to continually reset the clock.
 
You might be right. I don’t have any insider information with the department, but I do believe that even as flexible as UR admin has been with Mooney that they have their limits. I was told that if Mooney didn’t make the NCAA tournament in 2022 with that team, he would be gone. Don’t know how reliable the source was but I believed it. Regardless, Mooney won and the clock reset. But in this case, the last 5 years have produced solid results, even though our lows have been very low. That limit will be reached again by 2027-2028.
 
Congratulations to the Rousell and the Spiders WBB program. This is a huge accomplishment. Wearing home jerseys, getting an at large in the NCAA's. I could care less about location and the fact that we have to play UCLA in the second round. Go beat Georgia Tech. Win or lose, this program is the flagship right now at University of Richmond.
 
It's way too hard to schedule for the team you think you have. You have to get every good game you can and build momentum. It's really contingent on having some kind of consistency of success because we are not able to get games now bc we are an anchor and our coaches are not well connected. VCU, St Mary's, SDSU get games bc they will help your ncaa resume and have been winners.

Exactly. Look at 23-24. If we could have that back we'd want better schedule too even tho we didn't perform well (that's a coaching thing primarily and different topic).

It's a culture and mentality u r establishing. year to year. and if u have any desire for at large it's the only way to get in.

Roussell gets it.
 
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I’m surprised you and GK advocate for this type of scheduling because it can only be seen as a win-not lose situation for the UR administration. We win these games it’ll be glowing comments about Mooney and beating the best. If we don’t win the games, it’ll be spun as us willing to go out and play the best, so “kudos to the staff for doing that even though the record doesn’t reflect the effort” and more moral victory comments like that. Similar to Mooney and how he made comments this year about “seeing improvement” despite not winning. This can be made even more easily when it’s against top teams in the country.

Notice how no one is buying any of these moral victory/excuse comments this year? Including myself who has advocated for Mooney this past year. Maybe somewhat excuses about injuries on the team, but really not played up as much in years past. This is because everybody knows we stunk this year before/after injuries and with a cream puff schedule. If this happens again next year, there will be pressure and if it happens a 3rd year in a row, then maybe there will be change.

Now, if UR goes out and crushes it with a weak OOC schedule next year, that’s not to say this team is fantastic and Mooney has turned things around completely, but it lends more credence that we can win if we increase the difficulty the year after.

word vomit. Not sure what all that meant. Not rooting against Moon to not win big games. never have. He thinks we are one of the best basketball programs in the nation, right?
 
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I’m surprised you and GK advocate for this type of scheduling because it can only be seen as a win-not lose situation for the UR administration. We win these games it’ll be glowing comments about Mooney and beating the best. If we don’t win the games, it’ll be spun as us willing to go out and play the best, so “kudos to the staff for doing that even though the record doesn’t reflect the effort” and more moral victory comments like that. Similar to Mooney and how he made comments this year about “seeing improvement” despite not winning. This can be made even more easily when it’s against top teams in the country.

Notice how no one is buying any of these moral victory/excuse comments this year? Including myself who has advocated for Mooney this past year. Maybe somewhat excuses about injuries on the team, but really not played up as much in years past. This is because everybody knows we stunk this year before/after injuries and with a cream puff schedule. If this happens again next year, there will be pressure and if it happens a 3rd year in a row, then maybe there will be change.

Now, if UR goes out and crushes it with a weak OOC schedule next year, that’s not to say this team is fantastic and Mooney has turned things around completely, but it lends more credence that we can win if we increase the difficulty the year after.
Just listened to a Brian Dutcher interview following their NCAA selection yesterday. He said a few times that every program in the country's goal is to make the NCAA. They schedule to make the NCAA every year. They will play anyone, anywhere, any time. Repeated this mantra about scheduling a few times. And yes, they have a lot more cache than us right now. BUT, LIKE VCU, they had opportunities to slide (when Fisher retired) It's a mentality, you can't just try to pick and choose every year - you don't get it. VCU I'm sure has the same mentality. We won't have it with the Moon, Hardt, PQ triumvirate unfortunately.
 
Women got screwed with the seeding and location. BUT - one argument could be, win the A10 tourney, and maybe we don't get this game. Only good news is Georgia Tech has to make the trip out west as well. So both will be dealing with the travel and time zones. Could have been really bad had we matched up with a Cal or Utah. And then getting by first round - getting overall 1 seed. Again - maybe if we won the A10 tourney - we move up to a 7 seed, which again matches you up with a 2 seed anyways.

Key here is - win 1 game. Not sure our women have ever won an NCAA game? So take that first step, win a game and build on that.

Didn't get screwed at all. Team and staff loves LA. 8 seed. we want high seeds. whats wrong with that. Yeah 7 was possible didn't win A10 tourney. u could say they showed us lot of respect with 8 next.

Like u said our opponent is east coast too and same travel. No, 0 ncaa wins in history. I've been harping on that for weeks, that's priority #1, and then u r really in the spotlight. Market this trip. Take em to the beach.

Go Spiders. Beat LA.
 
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You might be right. I don’t have any insider information with the department, but I do believe that even as flexible as UR admin has been with Mooney that they have their limits. I was told that if Mooney didn’t make the NCAA tournament in 2022 with that team, he would be gone. Don’t know how reliable the source was but I believed it. Regardless, Mooney won and the clock reset. But in this case, the last 5 years have produced solid results, even though our lows have been very low. That limit will be reached again by 2027-2028.
2019, 2021, 2023, 2025 not the best…
2020, 2022, 2024 much better…
2026? Let’s see what the Portal brings if anything…
 
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