ADVERTISEMENT

Someone had to say it

The school definitely wants to be successful in athletics. Many steps have been taken as noted above. The way to get there is the issue. Mooney is clearly not the solution. The only thing be provides is player loyalty which helps us in the transfer portal era.
LOL. Clearly not the solution? Only provides loyalty? 24-7, 14-9, 24-13 the past 3 years. 34-18 in the A-10 the past 3 years. A-10 tourney title. 1st round win over Iowa. 7 wins against power teams, with wins over Wisconsin and Kentucky, the past 3 seasons. That sure is a lot of winning for someone who "clearly is not the solution and only provides loyalty". The way to get where, exactly? I think we just "got there" last year, maybe you were too busy hating to notice. While you keep hating, I will keep enjoying our fun, exciting, and talented team this year.
 
  • Like
Reactions: SpiderDogg
LOL. Clearly not the solution? Only provides loyalty? 24-7, 14-9, 24-13 the past 3 years. 34-18 in the A-10 the past 3 years. A-10 tourney title. 1st round win over Iowa. 7 wins against power teams, with wins over Wisconsin and Kentucky, the past 3 seasons. That sure is a lot of winning for someone who "clearly is not the solution and only provides loyalty". The way to get where, exactly? I think we just "got there" last year, maybe you were too busy hating to notice. While you keep hating, I will keep enjoying our fun, exciting, and talented team this year.
Cherry pick stats. Why focus just 3 years only because it fits your narrative? Great run last year, no doubt. But Kentucky was awful the year we beat them. The true story is 3 NCAA in 17 years. Your post is small thinking...We can do better with the right leadership. 3 in 17 is not acceptable and really very poor in a results driven business.
 
Mooney is a 55/45 coach. Stats over 18 years don't lie. Not a bad coach not a great coach, a slightly better than average coach that runs a clean program to the delight of an administration looking for exactly that. I hate that I've come to accept that's who we are.
Good post. Facts are accurate. Our admin / decision makers are complacent and ok with status quo. Going 10 or 11 years in between NCAA appearances was acceptable to them. Otherwise they would have made a change regardless of any variables that one would use as justification to the contrary.
 
I love cheering for our Spiders. I am one of our biggest fans, quite frankly. As such, I always want to see us achieve higher. It is quite obvious to me and many others that the coach is holding us back from bigger successes. The players determination and energy brought us the A10 championship and NCAA win last year. The fans were just as determined. It was awesome to experience it! However, it was in spite of Mooney. He doesn't coach that way.

All the successes Mooney has had from time to time would be magnified with a good coach. For instance, the NCAA run last year would have been extended to Sweet 16 or Elite 8 and we would have gotten in as an at-large.
 
Cherry pick stats. Why focus just 3 years only because it fits your narrative? Great run last year, no doubt. But Kentucky was awful the year we beat them. The true story is 3 NCAA in 17 years. Your post is small thinking...We can do better with the right leadership. 3 in 17 is not acceptable and really very poor in a results driven business.
Uh...maybe because the past 3 years is more telling for where our program is now than the ones before that? I think our program is in great shape. Some of you don't. Whatever.
 
I love cheering for our Spiders. I am one of our biggest fans, quite frankly. As such, I always want to see us achieve higher. It is quite obvious to me and many others that the coach is holding us back from bigger successes. The players determination and energy brought us the A10 championship and NCAA win last year. The fans were just as determined. It was awesome to experience it! However, it was in spite of Mooney. He doesn't coach that way.

All the successes Mooney has had from time to time would be magnified with a good coach. For instance, the NCAA run last year would have been extended to Sweet 16 or Elite 8 and we would have gotten in as an at-large.
When an A-10 title and 1st round NCAA win isn't good enough for those who expect sweet 16s or elite 8s, I think I will be done debating them. The timing of this thread is beyond ridiculous. Have fun being miserable this year. I will keep enjoying our fun, exciting, and talented team.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: SpiderDogg
When an A-10 title and 1st round NCAA win isn't good enough for those who expect sweet 16s or elite 8s, I think I will be done debating them. The timing of this thread is beyond ridiculous. Have fun being miserable this year. I will keep enjoying our fun, exciting, and talented team.
I'm excited about our team this year. I believe they are fun, exciting, and talented. I always have lots of fun supporting our team. I wouldn't travel to many away games and attend 20+ games every year if I didn't love our team. At the same time, I also always want to achieve higher. Shouldn't we all? And EVERYTHING is in place except for coaching. If you believe we have a very talented team (as I do), wouldn't you expect better than .500 so far? Wouldn't you expect an NCAA run? With a good coach, I guarantee we would be better than .500. Beilein or Tarrant would have us 5-1 or 6-0 with exactly the same team.
 
I’ve been in the move on camp for 5+ years now but I believe the run last year will prove to be valuable for two reasons:
1. It reignited the belief that we can make the tournament.
2. It helped us get on the map as a decent transfer destination (and hopefully with recruiting).

The danger herein is that we fall back into the mode of “we’ll get ‘em next year.” Hopefully the renewed tournament experience will remind coaches, players, administration and fans that we can’t accept multi-year ncaa tournament droughts.
 
Nobody said this. They said that they expect to make the NCAA tournament more than once every 10 years. Stop inventing a false narrative and arguing against it
Uh....this was posted on this very page a few posts ago:

"All the successes Mooney has had from time to time would be magnified with a good coach. For instance, the NCAA run last year would have been extended to Sweet 16 or Elite 8 and we would have gotten in as an at-large."

Stop accusing me of inventing a false narrative when you didn't read the previous posts. And, stop pretending the only negative Mooney posts say they expect to make the NCAA tournament more than once every 10 years, as if that is the only thing people get on our coach for. Have you even read a few posts on this thread before responding to mine? Or, do you just look for mine so you accuse me of "inventing a false narrative"?
 
Last edited:
With a good coach, I guarantee we would be better than .500. Beilein or Tarrant would have us 5-1 or 6-0 with exactly the same team.

It's easy to make statements that are impossible to prove.
 
I love cheering for our Spiders. I am one of our biggest fans, quite frankly. As such, I always want to see us achieve higher. It is quite obvious to me and many others that the coach is holding us back from bigger successes. The players determination and energy brought us the A10 championship and NCAA win last year. The fans were just as determined. It was awesome to experience it! However, it was in spite of Mooney. He doesn't coach that way.

All the successes Mooney has had from time to time would be magnified with a good coach. For instance, the NCAA run last year would have been extended to Sweet 16 or Elite 8 and we would have gotten in as an at-large.

Frankly, Mooney has benefited from the fact that there aren’t more real fans like you. If he coached at a program with a large, vocal fan base that valued winning and results he would’ve been gone a long time ago.

The Richmond Athletic Director, Board and Administration clearly have more important criteria they use to evaluate Mooney such as his ability to fundraise and graduate players. I value these as well but think it’s possible to have a head coach that recruits well, gets the most of of his players on the court, and is a good steward/leader in the community.

Everybody on this board, a small but very knowledgeable contingent, knows our team grossly underperformed in each of the last two seasons. However, the casual fan only sees the A10 tournament win and Iowa victory, and thinks we had a great season. I wouldn’t trade this outcome for Mooney’s job as I always cheer loudly for our Spiders, but you have to not have been watching to think it was a great season.

I won’t even get into the decade prior to this, but we all know it was a period defined by mediocrity. It’s criminal that TJ Cline didn’t make an NCAA tournament, which is ironic since he blindly supports Mooney lately (I find that admirable but still misguided).

We will never know if our program would’ve been better off if we made a coaching change five or 10 years ago. But you will never convince me Mooney is a good coach that gets the most out of his players. I’m burdened by the fact I’ve watched basketball my entire life and have watched every Spider game for the past several years.

Reality is the start of this season is just a continuation of the last 10 years. Eventually you realize it’s not just the players missing the shots or not working hard enough to get rebounds, they’re part of a system where bad losses and average overall records are seemingly acceptable and common.

I still think this team has a tremendous amount of potential and hope we can turn this season around. After all, even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while. :)
 
Last edited:
Those that hate him are the ones that had their lack of ability pointed out to them.

Year after year there are posters on here that sat on their h.s. basketball bench, and have only opinions, which
are negative and correspond with what I said about players that “hate” Mooney.
Yea Mooney is the best!!! His record speaks for itself. How could anyone complain with record like that? Its amazing.
 
  • Haha
Reactions: 8legs1dream
If by "mostly everyone", you mean the 15 or so people on this board who are so miserable they complain non stop about everything, and are negative even when we win, you are correct.
I think by “mostly everyone” he means people who are able to do math. 1 success in 10 attempts sure feels like a flash in the pan. Even Shaq made free throws with more regularity than that
 
Uh....this was posted on this very page a few posts ago:

"All the successes Mooney has had from time to time would be magnified with a good coach. For instance, the NCAA run last year would have been extended to Sweet 16 or Elite 8 and we would have gotten in as an at-large."

Stop accusing me of inventing a false narrative when you didn't read the previous posts. And, stop pretending the only negative Mooney posts say they expect to make the NCAA tournament more than once every 10 years, as if that is the only thing people get on our coach for. Have you even read a few posts on this thread before responding to mine? Or, do you just look for mine so you accuse me of "inventing a false narrative"?
You twisted it again. The message was that we could have done better with a good coach, even on years where we had success. No one said making the NCAAs and winning a game was not a successful season or that anything short of a Sweet 16 or Elite 8 run was a fail. We just could have been even better last year and every year with a good coach.
 
  • Like
Reactions: spider23
I think by “mostly everyone” he means people who are able to do math. 1 success in 10 attempts sure feels like a flash in the pan. Even Shaq made free throws with more regularity than that
Yes exactly. just because we are a liberal arts school doesn’t mean we should discount the power of math. :)
 
  • Like
Reactions: SpiderGuy
With a good coach, I guarantee we would be better than .500. Beilein or Tarrant would have us 5-1 or 6-0 with exactly the same team.

It's easy to make statements that are impossible to prove.
I completely get your point Wood. But, but, I will say - I just have never had the same feeling going into a big game with Mooney that I had with JB and Tarrant. Always felt with those two, if our talent was a level below the competition, we still had a great shot to win. If the same - I felt we should win. With Mooney, too many times it seems that was not the case. I get it was a great run last season, which I thoroughly enjoyed. Just think that he has not shown greatness per se compared to those two.

I do think this year is a big litmus test. He did a really good job re-loading. Only SLU and Dayton are better on paper IMO, and not levels above us - so if he can pull off the NCAA bid this year I will say he took a huge step to be on the level with JB and Tarrant. I am pulling for it.
 
There's no argument for 55/45. No debate. Numbers don't lie. 18 years of just above average. That's who we are and who we will be under Mooney.
The personification of Neil Young's song "Long May You Run".
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: whampas
I’ll say it loud for the people in the back.

You don’t have to be good at a sport to be able to understand it and critique those who coach it.
But when your critiques show an incredible lack of knowledge, and a lot of remarks made on here do,
iI must be a lack of understanding.
 
  • Like
Reactions: VT4700
Not going to take the bait and waste my time looking up your uninteresting and uninformed posts.
But you seemed so sure of yourself. And to attack me personally, says a lot about you.
I don’t doubt for a second that over the years I have been mistaken. But I don’t think I’ve
ever attacked you personally, about your fascinating and totally informed posts.
 
Last edited:
Ok, just did a quick search on your posts, they are almost all negative and/or attacking anyone that attacks a coach, and I did not find one talking about the actual players or games , etc. Yes, I get in some passing matches, like now , I admit it. But you are not adding any discussion about teams, players , strategy, etc. But keep on bitching.
 
  • Haha
Reactions: 8legs1dream
We really need another game. Tensions get high when we go 8 days between game days. When there’s nothing to unite us we can get a bit…antagonistic
 
  • Like
Reactions: Gallipoli
Ok, just did a quick search on your posts, they are almost all negative and/or attacking anyone that attacks a coach, and I did not find one talking about the actual players or games , etc. Yes, I get in some passing matches, like now , I admit it. But you are not adding any discussion about teams, players , strategy, etc. But keep on bitching.
This post sums up a lot of issues with this board. So, his posts are negative because they get on someone who attacks a coach? So, I guess you think anyone should be able to attack the coaches without having to worry about anyone disagreeing on here? That is all too common around here. People bitch and complain about our team, our coaches, sometimes even our players, but if anyone takes up for them, all heck breaks loose. The haters have an "agree with me or you are stupid" attitude.
 
ADVERTISEMENT

Latest posts

ADVERTISEMENT