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Random Thoughts Thread

Here are the top excuses and how I would debunk them.

1. Academics are holding us back - if that’s the case then why has Davidson been so successful since they joined the league 6 years ago?

2. Youth/inexperience - if that’s the case then how come 12 out of the 14 teams in the A10 right now have 0 or 1 senior in the top 8 rotation? And 8 of those teams are doing better in the standings than we are.

3. Transfers of key players has hurt us - If that’s the case then how come the transfer of Mike Lewis II of Duquesne (their best player) from December hasn’t impacted Duquesne that much?

4. We'll turn it around next year - On what basis? The same way we said that in Terry Allen, Deion Taylor, Trey Davis would turn it around their senior year when we missed the NCAA's? Or when SDJ or TJ were going to turn it around their senior year and we also missed the NCAA's? Mooney has a 0.549 record in 13 full seasons here so far. What makes anyone think we'll start suddenly winning 65+% of our games every year, which is what's needed to be an at-large NCAA team?

I bring up all of this because I want to highlight how many of these "excuses" that we have don't seem to be impacting other teams in the A10. Why is that? Don't get me wrong, if we perform very well and win the A10, I will happily want Mooney to come back another year. I'm just not in the position of a) lowering my definition of success because we have failed to meet them for almost a decade b) make excuses that don't seem to be impacting other programs in our league and c) Ignore history
 
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If you insist on comparing us to Davidson, Bob McKillup has a 63% winning percentage at Davidson for 30 years. The door swings both ways bro....
 
spiderstudent17 said:
Here are the top excuses and how I would debunk them.

1. Academics are holding us back - if that’s the case then why has Davidson been so successful since they joined the league 6 years ago?

2. Youth/inexperience - if that’s the case then how come 12 out of the 14 teams in the A10 right now have 0 or 1 senior in the top 8 rotation? And 8 of those teams are doing better in the standings than we are.

3. Transfers of key players has hurt us - If that’s the case then how come the transfer of Mike Lewis II of Duquesne (their best player) from December hasn’t impacted Duquesne that much?

4. We'll turn it around next year - On what basis? The same way we said that in Terry Allen, Deion Taylor, Trey Davis would turn it around their senior year when we missed the NCAA's? Or when SDJ or TJ were going to turn it around their senior year and we also missed the NCAA's? Mooney has a 0.549 record in 13 full seasons here so far. What makes anyone think we'll start suddenly winning 65+% of our games every year, which is what's needed to be an at-large NCAA team?

I bring up all of this because I want to highlight how many of these "excuses" that we have don't seem to be impacting other teams in the A10. Why is that? Don't get me wrong, if we perform very well and win the A10, I will happily want Mooney to come back another year. I'm just not in the position of a) lowering my definition of success because we have failed to meet them for almost a decade b) make excuses that don't seem to be impacting other programs in our league and c) Ignore history
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I don’t believe it as an excuse, but I do see it as a random fact about youth.
Am I right that only Johnson & Sherod have played in a losing game against VCU? While Oddo & Golden are the only ones who have seen one?
 
spiderstudent17 said:
Youth/inexperience - if that’s the case then how come 12 out of the 14 teams in the A10 right now have 0 or 1 senior in the top 8 rotation? And 8 of those teams are doing better in the standings than we are.
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I agree with most of your post except for this part. Youth and experience are absolutely crucial at the A10 level. Hence why our league as a whole stinks right now. Of course there are exceptions but thinking back over the last several years all the great A10 teams had great junior and senior leadership.

To your point, we are young and inexperienced largely because of Mooney's shortcomings as a recruiter and manager of personnel. But I think pointing to the rest of the league only proves you largely need that veteran presence to succeed at our level.
 
Of course. But the point is that when Mooney uses as an excuse "we are young," it doesn't work. Everyone is young. Most are still better than us. In order to make the tournament, our young guys have to improve at a more substantial rate than everyone else's because we're already behind everyone else.

Could that happen? I guess so. Would I count on it, especially with Mooney in charge? Hell no.
 
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I think I mentioned this previously, but speaking from the heart here, you know what saddens me the most about our program right now? It’s not that we lost to teams like Oral Roberts or Longwood. It’s not that we lost to a St. Joe’s team that had 7 scholarship players playing when we were up 15. It’s not that we went nearly 2 months without winning a home game. It isn’t even that we got embarrassed by VCU on national TV.

The saddest thing is that I have zero faith in our athletic department to actually do the right thing and fire our coach. If I knew that as a program we didn’t tolerate this kind performance and held our coaches accountable for failing to meet expectations, I would still be excited about our future because I know legitimate efforts are being made by us to move this program forward. Instead, the real pit in my stomach from all of this comes from seeing us do things like hire Lunardi as a scheduling consultant as ways to deflect from the real issue that is our coaching. That's because to me, it shows that those in charge either don’t actually recognize the actual issue being our coaching or won’t admit it. When I read JOC saying that Mooney’s superiors want Mooney to stay simply because he represents the school well, my brain confirms my worry that our school won’t actually do what’s necessary for our program to reach its potential. Yet, maybe foolishly, my heart still has this tiny shred of hope that maybe things will change this year even though my brain tells me it won’t.

I will always root and love my Spiders but it gets harder to do, not because we lose. It’s because we are 1 month away from the season being over and rather than being excited about our future and what we can achieve under new coaching, I think that we’re just going to do the same thing over again next year.
 
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@spiderstudent17, great post. I am worried that our athletic department and administration view Mooney just like all these tv announcers who we have to suffer through telling us that Mooney has just "hit a rough patch" and "he's a great ambassador and fit for UR". They keep spewing out the same talking points about how we still use the Princeton system, how we will hit you with a backdoor layup, that we compete despite our lack of size or athleticism. It's almost like they are getting fed a company line.
 
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spiderstudent17 said:
The saddest thing is that I have zero faith in our athletic department to actually do the right thing and fire our coach. If I knew that as a program we didn’t tolerate this kind performance and held our coaches accountable for failing to meet expectations, I would still be excited about our future because I know legitimate efforts are being made by us to move this program forward. Instead, the real pit in my stomach from all of this comes from seeing us do things like hire Lunardi as a scheduling consultant as ways to deflect from the real issue that is our coaching. That's because to me, it shows that those in charge either don’t actually recognize the actual issue being our coaching or won’t admit it.
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17, You have been spot on with your observations. This is a huge concern. Great, we keep spending money on improvements. However, the number 1 problem is obviously the coach, and hiring a good coach would be much more impactful than Lunardi/practice facility/improvements, etc. put together. It does not seem Hardt or the powers pulling the strings get this, or care. Come about March 20 if we are not discussing new coach candidates, or have one in place - we could be in for a "nuclear winter" of Spiders basketball.
 
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spider23 said:
17, You have been spot on with your observations. This is a huge concern. Great, we keep spending money on improvements. However, the number 1 problem is obviously the coach, and hiring a good coach would be much more impactful than Lunardi/practice facility/improvements, etc. put together. It does not seem Hardt or the powers pulling the strings get this, or care. Come about March 20 if we are not discussing new coach candidates, or have one in place - we could be in for a "nuclear winter" of Spiders basketball.
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I’m not to the point of saying the atheltic department doesn’t get it. I didn’t expect Hardt to come in last year and fire a a 13 year head coach after 2.5 months. However, I’ll jump on the #FHM bandwagon if there isn’t a change this year.
 
nathanw19 said:
I’m not to the point of saying the atheltic department doesn’t get it. I didn’t expect Hardt to come in last year and fire a a 13 year head coach after 2.5 months. However, I’ll jump on the #FHM bandwagon if there isn’t a change this year.
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I get this but it should not have taken a rocket scientist of an Athletic Director to see where the program was headed under Mooney and see that this year was going to be another disaster for our program.

So, his lack of decision to pull the trigger last year, has delayed the needed rebuild for a year and also created even more animiousity between the University, the fan base, season ticket holders, and donors.

All will be forgiven though if he does what he needs to do come mid-March.
 
I think our athletic department needs to apply the Occam's Razor theory. It's the coach stupid!

Coach got the NCAA in 2011. Coach did not have charters, renovated RC, salary bumps for himself and assistants, new practice facility, looser academic restrictions, etc. Keep losing, and our AD keeps thinking it must be items b,c,d, e, f and g, or some combo, and bad luck and youth and injuries.

It cannot be point A, the coach is just not that good and has regressed year after year.

Occam's Theory Mr. Iowa.
 
Another concern is that if we don't fire Mooney this year, then the same argument for keeping him for next year (we are young, team is getting more experienced) can also apply for the year after that since our players will be Juniors next year and Seniors in 2 years.

The time to fire Mooney is now. If we get a great coach for next year, I am excited to see what that person does with Gilyard, Golden, Sherod, Cayo, and Francis as well as having 1 or possibly 2 scholarships to work with for transfers this summer.
 
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Regardless of what may seem like the right decision (fire Mooney), can we add a little bit of common sense and pragmatism to this thread? We can't afford Mooney's buyout unless a donor steps up. PQ just committed $7.5m to the practice facility. He is probably the only donor that has the pockets and the conviction to do something about Mooney's current contract. Hardt can't make $2.5m - $3.0m show up out of nowhere -- he inherited a bad contract and it is what it is. Odds are Mooney is back next year -- not because he should be, but because its probably the right call financially.
 
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SpideRVA said:
Regardless of what may seem like the right decision (fire Mooney), can we add a little bit of common sense and pragmatism to this thread? We can't afford Mooney's buyout unless a donor steps up. PQ just committed $7.5m to the practice facility. He is probably the only donor that has the pockets and the conviction to do something about Mooney's current contract. Hardt can't make $2.5m - $3.0m show up out of nowhere -- he inherited a bad contract and it is what it is. Odds are Mooney is back next year -- not because he should be, but because its probably the right call financially.
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If we are truly committed to being an A10 championship caliber team, we can get the funds. We have over a $2 billion endowment. Granted, the majority of that money is to keep day-to-day operations and are used for other things. However, I am sure that the school has several millions of dollars of "spending money" a year that can be used for anything. Again, if as a school we are committed to top-level basketball, it would be a no-brainer for Hardt, Hale, Dr. Crutcher, the BOT to use $2 million in buying out the contract because it can be seen as an investment to this University. As noted before, athletics - especially basketball for us - has tremendous value in helping bolster our University's image and reputation.

As JOC stated in his article and is obvious to many people at this point, many fans including big-donors are not happy with the direction Mooney is taking this program. I feel confident in saying that if Hardt went to the top 10 donors of our athletic department who are unhappy with Mooney as a coach and told them behind the scenes that he would fire Mooney if he could collectively raise $2 million dollars, that the money would be raised.
 
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SpideRVA said:
Regardless of what may seem like the right decision (fire Mooney), can we add a little bit of common sense and pragmatism to this thread? We can't afford Mooney's buyout unless a donor steps up. PQ just committed $7.5m to the practice facility. He is probably the only donor that has the pockets and the conviction to do something about Mooney's current contract. Hardt can't make $2.5m - $3.0m show up out of nowhere -- he inherited a bad contract and it is what it is. Odds are Mooney is back next year -- not because he should be, but because its probably the right call financially.
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This is penny wise and pound foolish.

First of all, we have a $2,400,000,000 endowment and a nearly $300,000,000 annual operating budget and we somehow are worried about $2,500,000 basketball coaches contract buyout.

Secondly, how much lost revenue are we losing annually in ticket revenue, TV money, NCAA money by not having a competitive team? Probably not 2.5 million but also not an insignificant sum. For example, we are giving free tickets or $5 tickets away to nearly every home game to draw maybe an average of 5,000 fans. If we had a winning NCAA caliber team, we could sell those tickets for $12 and $20 a piece and probably draw closer to 6,500 fans per game. Add that up to the 15 or so home game we play each year and that you get about $500,000 just in extra ticket revenue. That doesn't include food, beer, and other concession sales.

Finally, how many donors/ticket holders have pledged not one more dime until Mooney left. There are quite a few of these people out there and that number is going to grow if we retain him after this year. Their pocketbooks open back up once he is gone.

I think a better statement is we can't afford to keep Mooney on contract. He is costing us a lot of money, a lot of potential future revenue. Sometimes businesses have to eat some costs for bad business decisions they made and bear the short term financial hit, so that long term they are in a better financial position.
 
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spiderstudent17 said:
I feel confident in saying that if Hardt went to the top 10 donors of our athletic department who are unhappy with Mooney as a coach and told them behind the scenes that he would fire Mooney if he could collectively raise $2 million dollars, that the money would be raised.
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I feel confident we've already gone to the top 10 donors to ask for the other $7.5M we need to match the Q's start up gift for the practice facility. our donors are very generous but it's not a bottomless well.
 
97spiderfan said:
I get this but it should not have taken a rocket scientist of an Athletic Director to see where the program was headed under Mooney and see that this year was going to be another disaster for our program.

So, his lack of decision to pull the trigger last year, has delayed the needed rebuild for a year and also created even more animiousity between the University, the fan base, season ticket holders, and donors.

All will be forgiven though if he does what he needs to do come mid-March.
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I don't think this is realistic. At end of last season, we had reason to believe five starters were returning. Lose KF and DMB and then the poopshow materializes but at that point it's too late to go coach hunting.

Even without this, I still think Hardt wasn't in any kind of spot to fire CM even if he had all the datapoints he needed to do so. Too much buyout to make that call when he doesn't yet know the landscape at UR and what is expected.
 
SpideRVA said:
Regardless of what may seem like the right decision (fire Mooney), can we add a little bit of common sense and pragmatism to this thread? We can't afford Mooney's buyout unless a donor steps up. PQ just committed $7.5m to the practice facility. He is probably the only donor that has the pockets and the conviction to do something about Mooney's current contract. Hardt can't make $2.5m - $3.0m show up out of nowhere -- he inherited a bad contract and it is what it is. Odds are Mooney is back next year -- not because he should be, but because its probably the right call financially.
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This is a big assumption everyone out here continues to make. UR isn't going to have an unfunded liability on its books for a contractual obligation, they just won't. Folks keep thinking that the only finances we keep are a checking account and a trust. Believe me, we have a savings account folks.

Also, Wood pointed out that buyouts are paid out over the life of the contract, not lump sum. So it's not a big number that we advance the day it happens.

I don't disregard the importance of the buyout, it obviously sucks. But if I'm Hardt, I'm not taking that albatross when I'm going to be judged on my performance. That's someone else's mistake to own.
 
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spiderman said:
I feel confident we've already gone to the top 10 donors to ask for the other $7.5M we need to match the Q's start up gift for the practice facility. our donors are very generous but it's not a bottomless well.
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All the donors who were generous enough to donate to the practice facility cannot be thanked enough. It is a tremendous gift and will make an incredibly positive impact for our basketball program (and other programs) for the future. So if they don't want to donate anymore because they contributed to the practice facility, that is completely understandable.

My first thought is that Hardt shouldn't even go to donors to raise the money. He should go to Hale, Dr. Crutcher, and the BOT and get the funds from our annual operating budget since this money will go as an investment to building a top-tier basketball program, which as I've mentioned before has tremendous upside with building our image and reputation. However, if that's not how this stuff works and the school won't spend its own money to buyout Mooney's contract, Hardt should then go to the top 50 donors, top 100 donors, top 200 donors, or whoever is willing to donate money to help buyout the contract and see if he can get $2 million collectively. There is a majority of fans who don't think Mooney can move this program forward, that collectively substantial money can be raised for the sole purpose of buying out his contract.

My bigger point in all of this is that between donations and moreover the endowment this school has, money is not a factor to keeping Mooney. These are more excuses. At the end of the day, if we are truly committed to being an A10 championship caliber program that strives for frequent NCAA tournament appearances, we will find a way to buyout his contract and get a good coach for next year.
 
have we even collected the additional $7.5M needed yet? I thought we were still working on that.
 
MrTbone said:
This is a big assumption everyone out here continues to make. UR isn't going to have an unfunded liability on its books for a contractual obligation, they just won't. Folks keep thinking that the only finances we keep are a checking account and a trust. Believe me, we have a savings account folks.

Also, Wood pointed out that buyouts are paid out over the life of the contract, not lump sum. So it's not a big number that we advance the day it happens.

I don't disregard the importance of the buyout, it obviously sucks. But if I'm Hardt, I'm not taking that albatross when I'm going to be judged on my performance. That's someone else's mistake to own.
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Very true. Although it depends on what his contract states. I suspect it's not a lump sum either but some are written that way. This can be converted to a yearly operational expense like so many expenses. OpEx vs. CapEx. But for UR it might make more sense as capital expenditure b/c not only can they can find the $ if they wanted but because they can buy it out at a lower number if it was due to be paid out over time. Mooney would go for this just like a lottery winner takes the lump sum payout - time value of money. Plus it would remove any offset language Mooney has in there for his next job and that's a benefit to Mooney. He would be incentivized to take some lesser amount.

Not ideal but I agree with Tbone this is not an albatross to overcome either. It also doesn't even factor that maybe UR put in a buyout figure anyway when they senselessly extended it by 1 year a couple years ago. That is only way the extension really made sense. I know Eight Legger has theorized that, but it's probably giving our admin too much credit.

The decision to keep Mooney rests MORE with just the decisionmaking abilities and desires of the AD & PQ. That worries me much more than the accounting on a bad contract.
 
spider23 said:
A. What does academic vs athletic mean in this case. B) Thought Hardt stated this funding was matched or close?
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The new building is serving multiple purposes (believe it’s also functioning as a wellness center). So I’m guessing that’s why they split the funding into athletics vs academics
 
SpideRVA said:
Regardless of what may seem like the right decision (fire Mooney), can we add a little bit of common sense and pragmatism to this thread? We can't afford Mooney's buyout unless a donor steps up. PQ just committed $7.5m to the practice facility. He is probably the only donor that has the pockets and the conviction to do something about Mooney's current contract. Hardt can't make $2.5m - $3.0m show up out of nowhere -- he inherited a bad contract and it is what it is. Odds are Mooney is back next year -- not because he should be, but because its probably the right call financially.
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SpiderRVA -are you really Hardt? Lol. I agree with you, UR doesn’t have the money or balls to fire Mooney. I will be surprised if they have the balls to not extend his contract the next two years.
 
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MrTbone said:
I don't think this is realistic. At end of last season, we had reason to believe five starters were returning. Lose KF and DMB and then the poopshow materializes but at that point it's too late to go coach hunting.

Even without this, I still think Hardt wasn't in any kind of spot to fire CM even if he had all the datapoints he needed to do so. Too much buyout to make that call when he doesn't yet know the landscape at UR and what is expected.
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Agreed. "No contract extension" was the best realistic action we could have expected in the 2018 off-season.
 
The question really is not whether we have the money to buy out Mooney -- it's how much money are we willing and able to commit to a new coach? Mooney is getting paid for the rest of his contract either way, and not in a lump sum.

When you approach it that way, the amount of money we need is less, because we aren't going to be paying the next guy $1.3M a year. So realistically we just need to come up with an additional $600-$700k a year for five years. As 97 points out, Mooney has cost us a decent amount of money this year, and we'll make a good chunk of that back next year and in the years to come with a new coach.
 
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