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Reload or Rebuild.....

SpiderTrap

Graduate Assistant
Nov 6, 2007
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As UR enters the summer coming off a historic run to the A10 title and first round upset in NCAA tourney, there is no question they need to capitalize on this run to keep the ship moving. There is a difference between reloading in the offseason and rebuilding - and I am curious to see what people think is the key to making sure we RELOAD, and don't fall into 3-4 year REBUILD (or more) like we did last time after our back to back NCAA appearances.

Recruiting will be key and the transfer portal should help us (I Hope) here with admissions. Maybe there are kids we didn't recruit or couldn't recruit who go elsewhere, play well, and looking to transfer and now they have a year or 2 under their belt of college classes - they can be admitted to UR, whereas right out of HS - that would have been more difficult. Or maybe there is a kid we didn't recruit because didn't think was good enough for A10 level and now is playing at that level and looking to move up. Or someone we lose to bigger school - doesn't get minutes and looking to start over. I think portal helps us in this regard and by all accounts - I think we can all agree our portal pickups have been good.

BUT - we can't survive on portal landings, and will need to continue to get better and better HS recruits as well.

Player development - we need guys like Grace to continue to get better each year, even with limited minutes. Even a guy like Goose - we will need him to get better offensively over the summer. So player development needs to continue to improve.

Scheduling - we need to get a big game or two on TV in our OOC and win some of these games. We need to be talked about not only when and if we make our run at end of the season, but also early in the year as well. This helps with current team confidence and also recruiting.

Meaningful post-season. We need to make NIT or NCAA. Not saying the NIT replaces the NCAA - but rebuilds, I see you making nothing. NIT - your close, and maybe a year away from getting back to NCAA. Make no post-season 2 years in a row - not looking good.
 
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Does anybody know what the recruiting class looked like the year after the Sweet 16 run? That was before my time
 
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Does anybody know what the recruiting class looked like the year after the Sweet 16 run? That was before my time
So you really have to look two years ahead when talking about freshmen, since most of them are already committed and maybe signed before the previous season is played.

So the incoming 2011 class would have been influenced by our 2009–10 NCAA appearance....that class was Kendall Anthony, Trey Davis, Alonzo Nelson-Ododa, and Luke Piotrowski.

The incoming 2012 class is where the back-to-back NCAAs with a Sweet Sixteen should have really had an impact, and yet we only landed Terry Allen and Deion Taylor. (Davis and Piotrowski had redshirted the previous year as well.) Incredibly, I think we had two additional slots that went unfilled. Utter disaster.
 
The incoming 2012 class is where the back-to-back NCAAs with a Sweet Sixteen should have really had an impact, and yet we only landed Terry Allen and Deion Taylor. (Davis and Piotrowski had redshirted the previous year as well.) Incredibly, I think we had two additional slots that went unfilled. Utter disaster.
Terry was a nice pick up - 6'8, athletic, with ball skills and had a good career. Deion looked like a study athlete, was looking to be on pace for stellar career - which IMO was derailed by back surgery, shot worsened and never fully blossomed.

As for the strikeouts, if my recollection is close - we were going after the oft mentioned AWIII, and Terry Henderson(?) - who was highly recruited and choose NC State - we were a finalist. But it seemed Mooney had all his eggs in these two baskets and no back up plan. So agree with SF - disaster. Kind of set the tone for us getting some good players, but always having a major hole or two.

I am optimistic that Mooney has turned the corner and seems to be picking things up - from Burton, to Dji, to these transfers, to Trevor Smith, I am optimistic.
 
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Terry was solid. I was never totally sure whether he was actually a great player or if he partly just seemed so because we had no one else.

And yes, Deion was a good athlete and was supposed to be a solid shooter, but he was never the same after that back surgery.

Your recollection on our misses agrees with mine. Mooney simply had no backup plan after those guys fell through.
 
Scheduling - we need to get a big game or two on TV in our OOC and win some of these games. We need to be talked about not only when and if we make our run at end of the season, but also early in the year as well. This helps with current team confidence and also recruiting.
Good point. We had talked after the season and I think Mooney even made a point of saying our OOC would be lightened up this year. That was before we went out and I think we all thing reloaded via the portal. I hope our scheduling philosophy has changed as a result of these results as well. I was never a fan of scheduling light, it benefits no one (except for Mooney and his record), but with the roster we have now, we need to look at developing a schedule that will give us the opportunity to be in NCAA bubble discussions next year.
 
It helps in 2 ways I think 97 and both go together. As you said - 1) Helps build your OOC for NCAA bubble discussion. 2) Helps recruiting when you can show you play big name teams, or big name events, or just get games on national TV (ESPN). And of course - win a couple of these games, and you not only help your NCAA resume, but also helps recruiting as well.
 
where/when did mooney say going lighter on ooc? It wouldn’t shock me if he did but I don’t remember that.
 
where/when did mooney say going lighter on ooc? It wouldn’t shock me if he did but I don’t remember that.
Honestly, I don't remember. I know it was discussed on here and I thought it was referenced in article by JOC where he had either talked with Mooney or maybe Hardt. SF, is the purveyor of all such things, so I bet he will answer more definitively. That was my recollection though.
 
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Honestly, I don't remember. I know it was discussed on here and I thought it was referenced in article by JOC where he had either talked with Mooney or maybe Hardt. SF, is the purveyor of all such things, so I bet he will answer more definitively. That was my recollection though.

ok thx that article was just JOC take but he does get off the record stuff sometimes too. I don’t see Mooney saying that b/c the company line is we always play a tough competitive schedule. But last year schedule was not super tough. I can see us playing an extra home game this year esp early in year but with our transfer adds I don’t see reason to go lighter. People will say well A10 will be tougher, and it could be, but to me that is a risky reliance from watching A10.
 
Thanks SF. We all know JOC provides cover for information the staff won't say on the record. Highly doubt he wrote an article that says we will likely look to downgrade our OOC schedule just on his own speculation, particularly in article where Mooney is quoted extensively about the OOC schedule this year.
 
I have no problem downgrading a little in years we are supposed to be down. But scheduling too remember is done years in advance. So sometimes - you may need to sign a 2-3 year deal with a team and know - we will likely lose this game this year and maybe next, but in that 3rd year - it could be a nice win for us. So yes - okay with downgrading a bit, but you can't downgrade too far, because when your team is good - you might be locked into too many cupcake games.
 
I have no problem downgrading a little in years we are supposed to be down. But scheduling too remember is done years in advance. So sometimes - you may need to sign a 2-3 year deal with a team and know - we will likely lose this game this year and maybe next, but in that 3rd year - it could be a nice win for us. So yes - okay with downgrading a bit, but you can't downgrade too far, because when your team is good - you might be locked into too many cupcake games.

We don't get into many long term scheduling deals anyway. ODU seems to be only 1. Wake in past. We get into a few H&H's. But the 2 we know (Drake/Toledo) are expiring this year. Have decent amount of flexibility year to year. But if we're expecting to be good next two years - of course why wouldn't you be, but on paper we seem to be able to back up that expectation right now - then that's not a recipe for downgrading at all. The minimal H&H's we get r solid enough. I'd like to get some other good ones of course. But to me that is not what could hurt us because we don't seem to get into a long term bad series. The only cupcake H&H I see potentially is W&M, which I def expect if we do that we give them a H&H. So I don't think locking into cupcakes is that relevant. The other cupcakes come from buy games or tourneys. That is what we don't need too many of, but that is a year to year deal. I'm not sure if the 4 team neutral tourney we got comes with 2 of the lower tier home games we often see with those.
 
Do you think H&H are not the norm anymore? Or is it simply we have not been able to secure them lately - maybe with NCAA success comes the ability to schedule more higher level H&H. I look across town and I think VCU nevers have trouble scheduling and I don't know their H&H deals.

But maybe this is the new scheduling norm - less H&H and more year to year games????
 
Do you think H&H are not the norm anymore? Or is it simply we have not been able to secure them lately - maybe with NCAA success comes the ability to schedule more higher level H&H. I look across town and I think VCU nevers have trouble scheduling and I don't know their H&H deals.

But maybe this is the new scheduling norm - less H&H and more year to year games????

That's a good question. My feeling is historically yes H&H contracts have trended down in college bball. Mainly driven by P6 refusal, for most part, to do them any longer., especially outside other P6s.

VCU has gotten in better OOC tourneys, driven by their success. That's where they have made up ground in their scheduling, again for the most part, imo. They also had that clause in coaches contracts that left that it triggered a H&H, good clause & it got them some automatic H&Hs. But otherwise I don't think their schedules are much better. We fill out our schedules better than many (& we should we have $, we have a great venue), but that doesn't mean there isn't room for improvement.
 
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Quick look at VCU to search for H&H. Looking at previous 2 year schedule to look for H&H - looks like only Penn State, ODU, and Jacksonville state were possible H&H.

But correct - the big issue is with consistent NCAA appearances, you probably get better OOC Tourney appearances. They got 3 good games on neutral floor in Battle for Atlantis and we UR just got 2 games with Maryland and Miss. St. and maybe throw in NC State game as well.

But I agree - the key, if your going to rely on these OOC events to booster your OOC rankings is to get into good events, and the only way to do that is be a consistent NCAA team. But I am guessing these tourney's are booked close to year in advance, so I am sure our lack of NCAA appearances hurt us in this regard, but if we can string together NCAA appearances, even with an NIT here and there - it should booster our invites to these events.

Looking ahead to next season - VCU is playing in Legends classic with other teams being - Michigan, Pitt, and Arizona State. They will need Michigan to bounce back to top 15 team, and Arizona State to improve back to top 3 Pac12 team.

UR is in Empire Classic with Syracuse, Temple, and St. Johns. Hopefully Syracuse is good again, but will need Temple and St. Johns to improve to make this good event for us.
 
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I think they’re trying to set this up as a reload, thanks to the good portal gets we got this window. I don’t think it matters marketing wise. The fan base has shown that they’ll come to the RC no matter what the team is like as long as the tickets are cheap.

Don’t they do 2 or 3 for 1 series anymore? We may have to bite the bullet and schedule some of these, especially for P5 bubble teams.
 
I have to go with rebuild even though I can understand why some would go with reload. To me, reload is when you expect to get to the same point at the end of the year with different players. I am not expecting that the Spiders will get to the NCAAs next season and definitely did have that expectation for the past season (granted that belief wavered throughout the season). In addition, since the team is so inexperienced, I really don’t see how there can’t be a significant period of adjustment, which will definitely make at least the beginning of the year feel like a rebuild. In any case, I am looking forward to the start of the next chapter.
 
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I'm saying reload, because with the additions we have and assuming Burton comes back, I do think the goal should be an NCAA appearance and the pieces are there to make it happen. I think we will have a deeper roster and could have more consistent production (best case) than we did this year.

1 - Gilyard to Nelson/Bailey – slightly worse
2 - Goose/Wilson to Roche/Goose - significantly better
3 - Burton/Sherod to Burton/Crabtree - equal or slightly better
4 - Cayo to Grace/Bigelow/Noyes - equal or slightly better
5 - Golden/Grace to Quinn/Grace - slightly worse to slightly better

At the 1, of course we will get "worse" because Jake was an all-timer. But within the context of next year's team, I expect very solid production from Nelson and Bailey. Probably less scoring and fewer steals than Jake at his best, but not such a huge dropoff that we are doomed.

We'll be far better at the 2 with Roche/Goose. And unless Burton doesn't come back or somehow gets worse, we're either equal to or better than last year at the 3.

Cayo was hit or miss this year – some great games, some where he disappeared. I expect the rotation of guys here to be more consistent, though probably with less upside.

And in some ways, we'll get worse at the 5 but I think we could get better there in other ways, depending how Mooney uses Quinn and Grace.
 
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