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97spiderfan

97spiderfan

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Feb 2, 2005
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I have to say I have been really impressed with some of our players recently taking accountability/responsibility/leadership during this losing streak.

It started with Burton after the VCU loss, really giving a great mature, reflective postgame remarks. Bigelow followed that up after the Dayton loss with some really reflective remarks as well. This of course stands in stark contrast to the postgame comments from Mooney, which are rarely insightful, reflective, or accountable.

I listed to the Mike Walz interview last night. First of all, for an 18 year old freshman, he is incredibly well spoken, clearly intelligent, and just a really well rounded mature individual. If you have a minute give it is listen, this is what makes you proud to be a Spider.

Walz also noted that they the seniors called a players only meeting after the Dayton loss, which gave me a bit of hope, that maybe our players who seem to know and understand leadership and accountability, might be the ones who provide the direction this team needs right now.
 
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spider23 said:
It is an amazing contrast to teflon mooney.
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Such a strange thing to say. Mooney takes accountability all the time. I guess we hear different things because I don't hear a lack of accountability from him at all. And, he never throws his guys under the bus. Never. He would rather say things like, "yes, I should play him more", ( which gets him criticized all the time on here) instead of saying a guy didn't playing well, or isn't ready. I think many on here think just because a coach credits the other team and doesn't bad mouth his own team means he doesn't take accountability. Could not be farther from the truth.
 
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97spiderfan said:
I have to say I have been really impressed with some of our players recently taking accountability/responsibility/leadership during this losing streak.

It started with Burton after the VCU loss, really giving a great mature, reflective postgame remarks. Bigelow followed that up after the Dayton loss with some really reflective remarks as well. This of course stands in stark contrast to the postgame comments from Mooney, which are rarely insightful, reflective, or accountable.

I listed to the Mike Walz interview last night. First of all, for an 18 year old freshman, he is incredibly well spoken, clearly intelligent, and just a really well rounded mature individual. If you have a minute give it is listen, this is what makes you proud to be a Spider.

Walz also noted that they the seniors called a players only meeting after the Dayton loss, which gave me a bit of hope, that maybe our players who seem to know and understand leadership and accountability, might be the ones who provide the direction this team needs right now.
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Seniors, along with coaches, should provide direction and leadership. I think players only meetings, if done right, can be very beneficial, especially at the right time, and if you don't have too many of them. I think any coach would welcome that.

Tyler is a class act and a great interview. Just like Jacob and Grant, and the many great leaders before them.
 
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Honestly - I don't care a whole lot about accountability and leadership at this point, I care about wins and losses.

Its like when a guy throws a bad pass or makes a mistake and looks at his teammate or coach and pats his chest and says "My Bad". Thats great and all - you took accountability for your mistake, but lets not make the mistake in the first place, especially when were 20+ games into the season. I can only take so many "my bads".
 
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VT4700 said:
Such a strange thing to say. Mooney takes accountability all the time. I guess we hear different things because I don't hear a lack of accountability from him at all. And, he never throws his guys under the bus. Never. He would rather say things like, "yes, I should play him more", ( which gets him criticized all the time on here) instead of saying a guy didn't playing well, or isn't ready. I think many on here think just because a coach credits the other team and doesn't bad mouth his own team means he doesn't take accountability. Could not be farther from the truth.
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I agree w u re: not throwing players under bus. But not about his personal accountability. I listen to Moon a lot, tho never on Philly Bob show (how much Eagles talk 97?), but postgame & pregame press conferences for long time I’ve tried to. Objectively I don’t hear it. I don’t think once he’s ever acknowledged how crappy we do vs VCU. 1 example.
 
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97spiderfan said:
I (listened) to the Mike Walz interview last night. First of all, for an 18 year old freshman, he is incredibly well spoken, clearly intelligent, and just a really well rounded mature individual. If you have a minute give it (a) listen, this is what makes you proud to be a Spider.
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Obviously not the intent of this thread, but I was also very impressed with Mike Walz. Definitely sounds more mature than a typical freshman and many upperclassmen for that matter. He definitely aces the public speaking class. Also love the fact that CM pointed out that Walz is a much more physical player than big men of the past and that Walz indicated a good grasp of what the Spider offense is all about. Looking forward to solid contributions from this player.
 
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97spiderfan said:
I listed to the Mike Walz interview last night. First of all, for an 18 year old freshman, he is incredibly well spoken, clearly intelligent, and just a really well rounded mature individual. If you have a minute give it is listen, this is what makes you proud to be a Spider.
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I should be able to figure this out but I'm striking out. where can I find this?
 
GKiller said:
I agree w u re: not throwing players under bus. But not about his personal accountability. I listen to Moon a lot, tho never on Philly Bob show (how much Eagles talk 97?), but postgame & pregame press conferences for long time I’ve tried to. Objectively I don’t hear it. I don’t think once he’s ever acknowledged how crappy we do vs VCU. 1 example.
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I mean the convo on the coaches show, you would have thought you thought they were broadcasting from Philly with all of the Eagles talk, also probably not uncoincidently helped them avoid talking about the twin disasters of UMass and Dayton.

What always amazes me is that Bob and Chris will talk lovingly all day about the Eagles and their pride as Eagles fans. The Eagles, a franchise that was always on the outside looking in, but over the past two decades has developed a great winning culture and then the cognitive dissonance they display when it comes to looking at their own house and the lack of results in our building over that same time period.

Bob likes to make fun of the Commanders on his talk show (I mean they are an easy talk target) but then failing to realize that UR basketball is many ways run similar to the Commanders.
 
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spiderman said:
I should be able to figure this out but I'm striking out. where can I find this?
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I don't know. I don't always listen to the coaches show but was in the car, when Walz was on and I sure as heck can tell you that I was not that mature or composed as a college freshman. Shoot, I don't know if could give that good of an interview now. Really impressive.
 
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97spiderfan said:
I don't know. I don't always listen to the coaches show but was in the car, when Walz was on and I sure as heck can tell you that I was not that mature or composed as a college freshman. Shoot, I don't know if could give that good of an interview now. Really impressive.
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He was impressive for sure and answered all Bob’s bozo questions easily.
 
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It seems it takes 6 years to learn Mooney’s system. We are going to need Covid-24 to compete.
 
GKiller said:
I agree w u re: not throwing players under bus. But not about his personal accountability. I listen to Moon a lot, tho never on Philly Bob show (how much Eagles talk 97?), but postgame & pregame press conferences for long time I’ve tried to. Objectively I don’t hear it. I don’t think once he’s ever acknowledged how crappy we do vs VCU. 1 example.
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Agree. Mooney is good about not throwing players under the bus in public. Which I think in general most coaches avoid these days. But also agree that Mooney in general is poor about acknowledging shortcomings or taking responsibility. Seems maybe one or two think he does, but majority do not hear it. And lets not get started on our softball media.
 
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really enjoyed that Behind the Web! thanks for the heads up. Walz was terrific. and all prejudices aside ... Bob conducted a great interview. Chris was really good talking about Mike too.
 
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Wood Hall said:
No great fan of Mooney, but if that's so, then where were they all season?
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Hard to say for sure. Personally I believe that they bought into the "we are right where we want to be" BS all last season and then once reality hit that their college careers were about to be over and they had nothing to show for it that lit a fire under them that wasn't there before.
 
8legs1dream said:
Hard to say for sure. Personally I believe that they bought into the "we are right where we want to be" BS all last season and then once reality hit that their college careers were about to be over and they had nothing to show for it that lit a fire under them that wasn't there before.
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the whole reason for coming back for the bonus year was that their college careers were about to be over and they had nothing to show for it.
 
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Another interesting thing from the Walz BTW interview is that he says flat-out "We had a couple of awful practices last week" and then Mooney right after says"We had a bad practice on Friday...Friday in particular was not good." Seems like the team knew going into the Dayton game that they weren't in a good state.

As others have noted, extremely impressive interview from Walz, especially when he mentions the standard of Richmond basketball and how they have to show up each game to meet that standard.
 
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GKiller said:
I agree w u re: not throwing players under bus. But not about his personal accountability. I listen to Moon a lot, tho never on Philly Bob show (how much Eagles talk 97?), but postgame & pregame press conferences for long time I’ve tried to. Objectively I don’t hear it. I don’t think once he’s ever acknowledged how crappy we do vs VCU. 1 example.
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Fair, but I guess I look at it differently. You guys want him to say to the media " we were really bad tonight, no one played well, it was unacceptable, and we have lost way too much over the years to VCU", and get all mad while doing it. Mooney knows the overall record against VCU stinks.
I do think he often tells the team things we don't hear pre and post game, gets on them when he feels he needs to, and takes accountability with them. The players have mentioned more than once there were some choice words in the locker room. I just don't think you will get that in the media, and maybe I accept that because that is how I am, in sports and in life. Keep it as positive as you can, don't throw anyone under the bus, and get on people when you need to, but not in public. He is not alone with this style (Tony Bennett comes to mind), and other coaches will do it differently (Jim "blame the players" Boeheim comes to mind). I don't think it really matters much either way, but I never like when coaches blame players. To me, by not blaming players, you are taking accountability because if you lose and don't blame your players, think who will get blamed?
 
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Wood Hall said:
No great fan of Mooney, but if that's so, then where were they all season?
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That was Mooney's fault for not getting them to play better, even though we already heard that 10-8 is good when Schmidt does it. :)
 
spider23 said:
Agree. Mooney is good about not throwing players under the bus in public. Which I think in general most coaches avoid these days. But also agree that Mooney in general is poor about acknowledging shortcomings or taking responsibility. Seems maybe one or two think he does, but majority do not hear it. And lets not get started on our softball media.
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I get it, and I am not saying you are wrong. I think it is very fair to have different opinions of what we hear, and what we think it means.
 
I don’t know what I’m looking for CM to say when we crap the bed, but it’s safe to say that what he does say isn’t encouraging.

There are only so many times you can hear the “I thought we competed” line without hearing some tangible course correction he feels needs to be made.

The real answer is to win at a higher clip and then a lot of these complaints go away. A rising tide lifts all boats.
 
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VT4700 said:
Fair, but I guess I look at it differently. You guys want him to say to the media " we were really bad tonight, no one played well, it was unacceptable, and we have lost way too much over the years to VCU", and get all mad while doing it. Mooney knows the overall record against VCU stinks.
I do think he often tells the team things we don't hear pre and post game, gets on them when he feels he needs to, and takes accountability with them. The players have mentioned more than once there were some choice words in the locker room. I just don't think you will get that in the media, and maybe I accept that because that is how I am, in sports and in life. Keep it as positive as you can, don't throw anyone under the bus, and get on people when you need to, but not in public. He is not alone with this style (Tony Bennett comes to mind), and other coaches will do it differently (Jim "blame the players" Boeheim comes to mind). I don't think it really matters much either way, but I never like when coaches blame players. To me, by not blaming players, you are taking accountability because if you lose and don't blame your players, think who will get blamed?
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I don’t think people are saying he needs to blame the players to take accountability. I think by taking accountability he would be saying he and the coaches didn’t prepare the team well enough, or manage the game well enough, or something along those lines.

I would say the best coaches aren’t positive all the time and obviously don’t blame their players. At the end of the day it ends with them, and they take accountability for how they failed to get their team across the finish line.
 
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VT4700 said:
Fair, but I guess I look at it differently. You guys want him to say to the media " we were really bad tonight, no one played well, it was unacceptable, and we have lost way too much over the years to VCU", and get all mad while doing it. Mooney knows the overall record against VCU stinks.
I do think he often tells the team things we don't hear pre and post game, gets on them when he feels he needs to, and takes accountability with them. The players have mentioned more than once there were some choice words in the locker room. I just don't think you will get that in the media, and maybe I accept that because that is how I am, in sports and in life. Keep it as positive as you can, don't throw anyone under the bus, and get on people when you need to, but not in public. He is not alone with this style (Tony Bennett comes to mind), and other coaches will do it differently (Jim "blame the players" Boeheim comes to mind). I don't think it really matters much either way, but I never like when coaches blame players. To me, by not blaming players, you are taking accountability because if you lose and don't blame your players, think who will get blamed?
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Jim's W-L record is 1112-436...72% winning %....he may be well past his prime but with that record, he can blame his players when they don't execute.....
 
ur2K said:
That’s when Gilly turned on the FU switch.
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I'm sure they were motivated.

But this contention that multiple players can just turn on a switch and suddenly play at a much higher level for six games in row and win games without any input from the coaching staff is ridiculous.

And in some of those games, Gilly was not good. He was 1-for-7 on 3s vs. Dayton and 0-for-7 vs. Providence.
 
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VT4700 said:
Fair, but I guess I look at it differently. You guys want him to say to the media " we were really bad tonight, no one played well, it was unacceptable, and we have lost way too much over the years to VCU", and get all mad while doing it. Mooney knows the overall record against VCU stinks.
I do think he often tells the team things we don't hear pre and post game, gets on them when he feels he needs to, and takes accountability with them. The players have mentioned more than once there were some choice words in the locker room. I just don't think you will get that in the media, and maybe I accept that because that is how I am, in sports and in life. Keep it as positive as you can, don't throw anyone under the bus, and get on people when you need to, but not in public. He is not alone with this style (Tony Bennett comes to mind), and other coaches will do it differently (Jim "blame the players" Boeheim comes to mind). I don't think it really matters much either way, but I never like when coaches blame players. To me, by not blaming players, you are taking accountability because if you lose and don't blame your players, think who will get blamed?
Click to expand...

I agree certainly he can be hard on guys privately which is fine as long as there is respect & honesty which there is, tho some parents may disagree idk. I’ve seen it personally b4 in practices & games, unless he’s changed more recently. But we know the cup the mouth to tear into a player in game is gone.

But to be clear I think he does put it on players w media. He just doesn’t specifically call out a player individually. But there’s plenty of “we didn’t shoot well enough” or “we dug ourselves too big a hole” things like that. Which is fine. But not accurate to say he doesn’t “blame” players if that is the right word. But plenty of coaches say those things. He doesn’t throw any 1 player under bus but to say he doesn’t put it on players (team) plural is inaccurate imo. & I got no issue w it. But plenty of coaches call out themselves. And I’m not sure he knows his vcu record stinks. How would we? That record clearly transcends all teams & players & reflective of only 1 - Mooney.

When u r the worst rivalry coach of ALL time I’d think u do that it’s human nature. still waiting on any coach at our level or higher even other core sports who has equivalent games w worse record, please share if u know I’m genuinely curious. Until then he’s worst of ALL time. Frankly we play so tense & afraid of vcu enough it would probably help if he took that on him. The players have to bear the burden that monkey on their back of past teams.
 
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8legs1dream said:
Ok? You have all the answers then why were we an average team up until halftime of the Rhode Island game in the A10 tournament?
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if I had all the answers I could be a head coach.
we got on a run and played to our potential. tough to see what changed. we played hard all year. to me, we were always better when Gilyard chose to be more aggressive offensively. and during our run, he was.

but the "FU switch" belief makes no sense when Jacob speaks so glowingly about Mooney. CM never held him back. he often talked about Gilly needing to be aggressive. but Jacob is a true PG who prefers to get his team involved. unselfish to a fault sometimes. there's not a player around who wouldn't love to play with Jacob Gilyard.
 
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Mooney is the leader of the MBB program. Good leaders take responsibility when things go wrong and share credit when things are going well. Mooney has never had issue with the latter but has significant issues publicly doing the former. What he does behind closed doors we don't know but we all see the public side of how Mooney handles adversity and safe to say it is not a master class in leadership.

And yes, if he was throwing players under the bus after losses, that is not great leadership either, so I don't think anyone is looking for him to do that.

I think a little self introspection after a losing streak about what he and the coaching staff need to improve change is both needed from both a leadership and a public relations perspective.
 
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