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Quality and Depth of players

Both of you guys post great information, although you have very different views. We all sometime make mistakes when we post info. No big deal. Let's just agree that Gilyard is a great player and some people think he should play a couple less minutes a game while others think he is fine at 37 minutes. Our opinions are not going to change anything.

Very well said. I think any player should be fine with 34-36 minutes, and I think Jacob would not be affected with 36 - 38 minutes.
 
Their players are arguably better and their coach knows where and how to get them rest. He also has guys on the bench that can play.

I don't know about you guys, but I'm pretty sick of a VCU guy coming on here telling us other team's players and coaches are better. Worry about your own stinking team.
 
Back to the topic at hand, I can very honestly say that a "B" squad in practice of Andre, Woj, Burton/Crabtree, Sal, and Grace is a much, much more plausible team to push our starters all year long in practice. In turn, my perception is that we are deeper than we have been in a number of years.

For that, I am excited.

Like 97, I am tempering my optimism until I see whether we have actually improved in defensive fundamentals before I become verifiably optimistic.
 
Back to the topic at hand, I can very honestly say that a "B" squad in practice of Andre, Woj, Burton/Crabtree, Sal, and Grace is a much, much more plausible team to push our starters all year long in practice.

Here we are again, being competitive in practice as a potential consolation for not being so in games.


#NoMoreMooneyTruthing
 
OK, I'll bite. How do you think all the sub 8 minute melt downs happened? It certainly isn't that the top guys all of a sudden became end-bench quality players and even Mooney can't screw things up that badly although he screws an awful lot of stuff up.

It was painfully obvious that the guys were gassed. That's the only way to explain it. Too many minutes for too many guys. Yes, VA had 3 playing a lot of minutes but they also were catching a blow here and there and the other two were plenty fresh. It's a rare team that can only go 6-7 deep and finish off games. Now will there be the necessary depth this year? No one really knows yet. It's all speculation about how the sophs will develop and if a freshman can be good enough for 15 minutes. We shall see.

You said starters can't be playing more than 30 minutes or the opponents wear them out.

Right because we really want Gilyard and Golden playing under 30 in close games. Some guys will get more rest this season but your 30 min qualifier was absurd. Virtually every team has their elite guys 30+. Nothing else to say.
 
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OK, I'll bite. How do you think all the sub 8 minute melt downs happened? It certainly isn't that the top guys all of a sudden became end-bench quality players and even Mooney can't screw things up that badly although he screws an awful lot of stuff up.

It was painfully obvious that the guys were gassed. That's the only way to explain it. Too many minutes for too many guys. Yes, VA had 3 playing a lot of minutes but they also were catching a blow here and there and the other two were plenty fresh. It's a rare team that can only go 6-7 deep and finish off games. Now will there be the necessary depth this year? No one really knows yet. It's all speculation about how the sophs will develop and if a freshman can be good enough for 15 minutes. We shall see.
You’re right that the depth depends on sophomores (Andre, Jake, Sal, Grace) developing. The 15 minutes a game for a freshman is completely out of left field, though. No one on here has said Burton will/needs to give 15 quality minutes a game.
 
You’re right that the depth depends on sophomores (Andre, Jake, Sal, Grace) developing. The 15 minutes a game for a freshman is completely out of left field, though. No one on here has said Burton will/needs to give 15 quality minutes a game.
What I'm saying is that there are many freshmen capable of 15 minutes, but Burton's not one of them. Two of the above three must make large jumps to be effective in the role.
 
You said starters can't be playing more than 30 minutes or the opponents wear them out.

Right because we really want Gilyard and Golden playing under 30 in close games. Some guys will get more rest this season but your 30 min qualifier was absurd. Virtually every team has their elite guys 30+. Nothing else to say.
I'm saying that the starters don't need to be gassed after 30 minutes are gone. If there are decent alternatives to spell them the team will be much more successful. Not a good recipe for success at our level. There's no other way to explain so many melt downs at the end of games.

Mooney's bad, but he's not that bad.
 
What I'm saying is that there are many freshmen capable of 15 minutes, but Burton's not one of them. Two of the above three must make large jumps to be effective in the role.

How the heck do you know Burton's not one of them? Another day, another post from you criticizing our players. Doesn't VCU have a message board you can bad mouth us on?
 
I'm saying that the starters don't need to be gassed after 30 minutes are gone. If there are decent alternatives to spell them the team will be much more successful. Not a good recipe for success at our level. There's no other way to explain so many melt downs at the end of games.

Mooney's bad, but he's not that bad.

No other way to explain it? What about the numerous teams who play mainly 7 guys who do just fine the last 10 minutes of a game? What about the games we have actually won at the end the past several years? What about 2 seasons ago when our "lack of depth" beat your "great depth" twice? You criticized Burton 2 posts ago, and now Mooney with this one. Why a VCU guy is allowed to come on here and do this is beyond me.
 
Jacob is the only guy who played over 32 minutes a game last year. This "our whole team was gassed at the end of games" talk is beyond ridiculous.
 
Whataboutism. Classic.

There must be some reason we lost so many games late. (3 standard deviations worse than in-game probabilities)
At least the VCU guy is proffering a theory.
 
Whataboutism. Classic.

There must be some reason we lost so many games late. (3 standard deviations worse than in-game probabilities)
At least the VCU guy is proffering a theory.

And his theory is that too many guys played too many minutes. Those were his words. We had one guy who played more than 32 minutes. So do you agree with him that too many guys played too many minutes? Should we not play Grant 31 minutes a game? Was Nate's 31 minutes a game too much? Was it because we played Jacob too much? So, you really think if we would have played these guys less, we would have had a better chance to win more games? Really?

With 353 teams, you will find some teams that did well late and teams that did not do well late. Unless you think all 353 teams should play the same the final 10 minutes, I don't know why we are reaching for reasons that are not there.
 
Whataboutism. Classic.

There must be some reason we lost so many games late. (3 standard deviations worse than in-game probabilities)
At least the VCU guy is proffering a theory.

I think we lost so many late time games late because of preparation. Bad preparation for strategy, bad preparation for game situations, and bad preparation for player game condititioning. All of these I think were very much worse for 2 seasons we have been losing many games
 
I've got a theory. Teams will play their best guys the final 5-10 minutes and the best guys on those teams will take the most shots down the stretch. Each possession becomes more crucial, and we couldn't stop anybody. You want the problem, there you go. Defensively, we could not get enough stops, and when we did get stops, we could not get the defensive rebound.
 
I don't know about you guys, but I'm pretty sick of a VCU guy coming on here telling us other team's players and coaches are better. Worry about your own stinking team.
if you're talking about who I think, I put him on ignore a long time ago and my life is better for it. I may miss some wonderful pearls of wisdom ... but I can live with that.
 
if you're talking about who I think, I put him on ignore a long time ago and my life is better for it. I may miss some wonderful pearls of wisdom ... but I can live with that.

Thanks for the reminder. I should have added him to my list a long time ago.
 
He's not the only person making the observation that guys looked gassed at the end of games. Bob Black and Greg Beckwith come to mind.

Coach Fezz's theory sounds pretty good. Lack of preparation. However, the guys practice a lot; Oddo said they were in the gym "24/7."

As pointed out in another thread, the probability of us failing late in games at the rate we did last season is < 0.15%. Or, less than 1/353 if you prefer fractions.
 
I'm saying that the starters don't need to be gassed after 30 minutes are gone. If there are decent alternatives to spell them the team will be much more successful. Not a good recipe for success at our level. There's no other way to explain so many melt downs at the end of games.

Mooney's bad, but he's not that bad.
Actually there is another way to explain all the meltdowns. If you read the posts after each debacle the "explanation" reveals itself.
 
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Fezz hit it with "player game conditioning." That includes off season and pre season conditioning and "routines" day of and day before games.
 
There was a nice article in the Times Dispatch with a number of updates.

Looks like the team is off until the end of August.
Golden practicing in Houston with former NBA Guard, John Lucas.
Coach very high on Burton may get a fair amount of playing time. I wonder whose minutes he will be taking away and does that impact Sal.
Very experienced team despite no seniors for the 1st time in 20 years.
Only looking for one more game to be played at neutral site.
 
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Thanks for the update 80s. I’m glad grant is getting some tutelage, interesting that it’s from a guard. Free throw shooting emphasis maybe? Lucas’ career 77.6% FT average.

Very disappointed that we’re only contemplating one more game. I believe that puts us two under the max which is just very poor scheduling in my estimation.

EDIT: just read that they added Hampton and USA so one more would put us at max. So good job with the count at least, USA is a decent option, Hampton not so much. Hoping the last game is a tourney worthy midmajor or mid tier P5 type.
 
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Thanks for the update 80s. I’m glad grant is getting some tutelage, interesting that it’s from a guard. Free throw shooting emphasis maybe? Lucas’ career 77.6% FT average.

Very disappointed that we’re only contemplating one more game. I believe that puts us two under the max which is just very poor scheduling in my estimation.

EDIT: just read that they added Hampton and USA so one more would put us at max. So good job with the count at least, USA is a decent option, Hampton not so much. Hoping the last game is a tourney worthy midmajor or mid tier P5 type.
I wonder if both of those were H&H from last year? If so wonder why it took so long to announce?
 
Probably because we had the option for the return games to be this year or another year, and when we couldn't get any better games this year we just slotted them both in.
 
There was a nice article in the Times Dispatch with a number of updates.

Looks like the team is off until the end of August.
Golden practicing in Houston with former NBA Guard, John Lucas.
Coach very high on Burton may get a fair amount of playing time. I wonder whose minutes he will be taking away and does that impact Sal.
Very experienced team despite no seniors for the 1st time in 20 years.
Only looking for one more game to be played at neutral site.
I would imagine Wojo will see a lot less minutes. Maybe shave 3 or 4 minutes off Gilyard also.
 
I really enjoyed the game last night.The level of play was much better than expected, where both teams would destroy most college teams. I loved seeing our old players, which brought back great memories. TJ Cline is a super star. 10 for 13 shooting, 24 points, 10 rebounds in 25 minutes. Each of these guys improved significantly their last 2 years at U of R. Just think how good TJ was at the end of the sophomore year compared to his A10 player of the year senior season. We currently have a lot of really great players and it is going to be exciting to see how much they improve over the next 2 years.
 
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Thanks for the update 80s. I’m glad grant is getting some tutelage, interesting that it’s from a guard. Free throw shooting emphasis maybe? Lucas’ career 77.6% FT average.

Maybe he's also working on his tennis game......how many of you know that John Lucas was also an All-American tennis player while at Maryland?
 
I know Lucas worked extensively with DeAndre Jordan on his FT shooting. But great to see Grant going outside of the gipe/jones/mcconigal team to work on his game. I know it worked wonders for Harp and TJ getting the hell away from moOnEy for a summer and working with some pros. Hope the same applies for Grant. Be wary of the pool boy Mooney.
 
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Probably because we had the option for the return games to be this year or another year, and when we couldn't get any better games this year we just slotted them both in.

Actually my understanding is these 2 games were always on schedule for this year. JOC's tweet a couple weeks back was right about needing 1 game, just as it is now. But he missed those 2 games originally. As a result the needing 1 game part a couple weeks ago made no sense. The first schedule tweet came after he caught up with Mooney at the Diamond for HR derby. Mooney told him 1 more game to go. But when reviewing the teams, either Mooney neglected to mention those 2 (likely) or JOC missed it. Probably didn't have much time to go over it in detail with the festivities. JOC just got around to filling in the blanks and added S. Alabama and Hampton.

Yes you're right we've seen games deferred to another year but I always thought strange S. Alabama had never been listed until now. It would have been colossally stupid if Lunardi recommended taking S. Alabama in 2020 instead of upcoming season.

By the way Broc, where's that NCAA team Bob Black said we'd have? Still don't have it. If we still need a game then we don't know who that team will be (whether it's a NCAA from last year or not). Now maybe we end up getting NCAA team as last game on OOC schedule - and we need it badly - but clear Bob didn't have justification for stating it like that.

Personally I just think it's more evidence of an intentional bait and switch strategy coming out of this AD. And that's why Bob put it out there like that. Appease the fans then don't follow through b/c they don't feel they have to be accountable. It's tiring really. best class ever, toughest schedule, another NCAA team will be on schedule. They've either walked those back or had no intention of meeting, both a sign of a leadership void in AD.
 
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Actually my understanding is these 2 games were always on schedule for this year. JOC's tweet a couple weeks back was right about needing 1 game, just as it is now. But he missed those 2 games originally. As a result the needing 1 game part a couple weeks ago made no sense. The first schedule tweet came after he caught up with Mooney at the Diamond for HR derby. Mooney told him 1 more game to go. But when reviewing the teams, either Mooney neglected to mention those 2 (likely) or JOC missed it. Probably didn't have much time to go over it in detail with the festivities. JOC just got around to filling in the blanks and added S. Alabama and Hampton.

Yes you're right we've seen games deferred to another year but I always thought strange S. Alabama had never been listed until now. It would have been colossally stupid if Lunardi recommended taking S. Alabama in 2020 instead of upcoming season.

By the way Broc, where's that NCAA team Bob Black said we'd have? Still don't have it. If we still need a game then we don't know who that team will be (whether it's a NCAA from last year or not). Now maybe we end up getting NCAA team as last game on OOC schedule - and we need it badly - but clear Bob didn't have justification for stating it like that.

Personally I just think it's more evidence of an intentional bait and switch strategy coming out of this AD. And that's why Bob put it out there like that. Appease the fans then don't follow through b/c they don't feel they have to be accountable. It's tiring really. best class ever, toughest schedule, another NCAA team will be on schedule. They've either walked those back or had no intention of meeting, both a sign of a leadership void in AD.
Now we’re going to conspiracy theories? Please...
 
Coach very high on Burton may get a fair amount of playing time. I wonder whose minutes he will be taking away and does that impact Sal.
I don't expect Nick to play as many minutes as before coming off the injury. Burton makes a lot of sense as his backup. he's a good size for the 3 and he's looked great in the little bit of video we've seen.

Woj & Goose are guards who can play the 3 if necessary, but if Burton is ready than it won't be necessary. they can back up the 1 and 2 ... even if there aren't a ton of minutes available there.
 
There is a lot of discussion on other post of: 1. Which players will improve the most? 2. Our players are worse than we think, because their stats are over inflated due to Mooney playing them too many minutes. 3. What will the minutes allocation of players be for next year. Here are my thoughts:

1. None of us know what players will improve the most, because we are not attending practice. What we do know is that most players get better every year they play in college and that is especially true for rising sophomores and juniors, which is most of our team. We should expect one or two players to show significant improvement.

2. We currently have 2 starters that should be selected for one of the 3 preseason all A10 teams. I would expect one of them to move up a team from where they finished last year. Among our 5 starters, I would be disappointed if 2 of them were not eventually selected to first team A10 and a 3rd starter selected for either 2nd or 3rd team A10. I also think our bench is very strong and would be disappoint if at least 2 none starters are not eventually selected to one of the 3 all A10 teams after our Juniors graduate.

3. It will be interesting to see how Mooney allocates minutes, because we are not going to have as big a drop off in talent between starters and bench as we have had in previous years. My best guess is that the starter's average minutes will be a lot less than previous years allowing us to finish games much stronger.

My expectations for next year are that we will be by far the most improved team in the league. Unfortunately, VCU's team is going to be very good and potentially better than any team Richmond has ever put on the floor. Davidson is also a potential top 25 team. We are probably headed to the NIT, although we do have an small chance of winning the A10 tournament.

The comments of "greatest class ever" I believe are true and as mentioned before, should not only get us to the NCAA, but a top 25 ranking the following year.
 
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If they make 1 ncaa, they’re not even Mooney’s best class at Richmond.
 
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There is a lot of discussion on other post of: 1. Which players will improve the most? 2. Our players are worse than we think, because their stats are over inflated due to Mooney playing them too many minutes. 3. What will the minutes allocation of players be for next year. Here are my thoughts:

1. None of us know what players will improve the most, because we are not attending practice. What we do know is that most players get better every year they play in college and that is especially true for rising sophomores and juniors, which is most of our team. We should expect one or two players to show significant improvement.

2. We currently have 2 starters that should be selected for one of the 3 preseason all A10 teams. I would expect one of them to move up a team from where they finished last year. Among our 5 starters, I would be disappointed if 2 of them were not eventually selected to first team A10 and a 3rd starter selected for either 2nd or 3rd team A10. I also think our bench is very strong and would be disappoint if at least 2 none starters are not eventually selected to one of the 3 all A10 teams after our Juniors graduate.

3. It will be interesting to see how Mooney allocates minutes, because we are not going to have as big a drop off in talent between starters and bench as we have had in previous years. My best guess is that the starter's average minutes will be a lot less than previous years allowing us to finish games much stronger.

My expectations for next year are that we will be by far the most improved team in the league. Unfortunately, VCU's team is going to be very good and potentially better than any team Richmond has ever put on the floor. Davidson is also a potential top 25 team. We are probably headed to the NIT, although we do have an small chance of winning the A10 tournament.

The comments of "greatest class ever" I believe are true and as mentioned before, should not only get us to the NCAA, but a top 25 ranking the following year.

So we have 2 1st team A10 players, another 2nd or 3rd all A10, two bench guys that will be all A10 1st - 3rd in future, the best class ever in Richmond history is true, and that doesn’t even count 2 other very good starters.

And that just gets us to NIT? Man you must think Mooney is an awful coach.
 
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