State of the Program

[PhillySpider]

Assuming our goal every year is Top 1/3 of the conference and at-large possibilities - - - We have some serious problems.

The main one is we have players who simply are not that good. SDJ and TA are both good enough to get major time on a "Top tier A-10, in the mix for an at-large" kinda team. After that we simply don't have the players. TD and DT have been discussed on here ad nauseum. Zero offensively every time out and not enough otherwise to come close to make up for it. TJ turns the ball over WAY too much and doesn't rebound or play very good D. MW is totally one dimensional. He can shoot - - but only sometimes. Not a good offensive player, just a shooter. Defense and rebounding and physicality are all poor. KF looks like a keeper and anything less than 28 minutes a night moving forward is criminal.. We can only assume the other freshman (and Paul) are even more deficient at least at this point. 2 players who are good enough ain't gonna get it done. One role player as a starter and 1-2 on the bench are fine. Three in the starting line-up (and to be clear - - TJ on a good, NCAA at-large level team is a strong role player, nothing more since he is totally one dimensional) and 1-2 on the bench are not going to get you where you want to be.

Second major problem - - coaches who coach "what they coach" and don't coach "who they have"! This group, to have any degree of success along the lines of what we want, needs a coach who can put them all in better positions to do what they do well and out of situations where they don't figure to be (and historically have not been) successful. Yet we run the same schemes on offense and defense year after year regardless of personnel and their capabilities. Now, if we had some track record of showing we could mold guys into the system and develop them in it etc. I might sing a different tune, but our track record is that with our players basically are who they are as freshman is who they are later. We see minimal growth generally and virtually no one who plugs a major hole and becomes something he wasn't early on. Even a good player like SDJ meets this description. Putting players in position to succeed is the hallmark of good coaching. We simply put players into systems and they sink or swim in those systems. We apparently can't recruit better (i.e. more complete) players, won't change the system to fit the players we do have and we apparently aren't able coach them into fitting it better. That's a lethal combination!

All that said, our players are not bad, our coaching not terrible - - just not good enough if our goal is Top 1/3 of the conference and in the mix for at-large. Its been this way for awhile and its gonna be this way for awhile more. Our hope now rests with the incoming class of DB, Sherrod, and Grant and that they simply are both good enough and a good enough fit such that we get a different result even as we do the same thing over and over again. .

 

[PhiDeltaSpider]

Assuming our goal every year is Top 1/3 of the conference and at-large possibilities - - - We have some serious problems.

The main one is we have players who simply are not that good. SDJ and TA are both good enough to get major time on a "Top tier A-10, in the mix for an at-large" kinda team. After that we simply don't have the players. TD and DT have been discussed on here ad nauseum. Zero offensively every time out and not enough otherwise to come close to make up for it. TJ turns the ball over WAY too much and doesn't rebound or play very good D. MW is totally one dimensional. He can shoot - - but only sometimes. Not a good offensive player, just a shooter. Defense and rebounding and physicality are all poor. KF looks like a keeper and anything less than 28 minutes a night moving forward is criminal.. We can only assume the other freshman (and Paul) are even more deficient at least at this point. 2 players who are good enough ain't gonna get it done. One role player as a starter and 1-2 on the bench are fine. Three in the starting line-up (and to be clear - - TJ on a good, NCAA at-large level team is a strong role player, nothing more since he is totally one dimensional) and 1-2 on the bench are not going to get you where you want to be.

Second major problem - - coaches who coach "what they coach" and don't coach "who they have"! This group, to have any degree of success along the lines of what we want, needs a coach who can put them all in better positions to do what they do well and out of situations where they don't figure to be (and historically have not been) successful. Yet we run the same schemes on offense and defense year after year regardless of personnel and their capabilities. Now, if we had some track record of showing we could mold guys into the system and develop them in it etc. I might sing a different tune, but our track record is that with our players basically are who they are as freshman is who they are later. We see minimal growth generally and virtually no one who plugs a major hole and becomes something he wasn't early on. Even a good player like SDJ meets this description. Putting players in position to succeed is the hallmark of good coaching. We simply put players into systems and they sink or swim in those systems. We apparently can't recruit better (i.e. more complete) players, won't change the system to fit the players we do have and we apparently aren't able coach them into fitting it better. That's a lethal combination!

All that said, our players are not bad, our coaching not terrible - - just not good enough if our goal is Top 1/3 of the conference and in the mix for at-large. Its been this way for awhile and its gonna be this way for awhile more. Our hope now rests with the incoming class of DB, Sherrod, and Grant and that they simply are both good enough and a good enough fit such that we get a different result even as we do the same thing over and over again. .

Fantastic post.
+1, +1, and +1.

 

[97spiderfan]

Too many recruiting misses, plain and simple.

Diekvoss, Smithen, Singleton. That's 3 players in the past 2 years who had no business being recruited to play in the A-10. Our roster would look a lot different if we had just recruited average, Josh Jones type recruits instead of those 3. Imagine if just one of those 3 actually were A-10 starter material, perhaps we wouldn't be stuck running TD and DT out there 30 minutes per night as we are now.

Those 3 had zero chance of making an impact on our roster from the moment they stepped on campus and I think even the average message board poster like myself could have said as much when we signed them because no other legit D-1 program was even sniffing 2 of those 3.

 

[Marley13]

Kinda like Wesson. May turn out to be a good player but we are definitely the best school interested.

 

[SpiderHoops32]

Too many recruiting misses, plain and simple.

Diekvoss, Smithen, Singleton. That's 3 players in the past 2 years who had no business being recruited to play in the A-10. Our roster would look a lot different if we had just recruited average, Josh Jones type recruits instead of those 3. Imagine if just one of those 3 actually were A-10 starter material, perhaps we wouldn't be stuck running TD and DT out there 30 minutes per night as we are now.

Those 3 had zero chance of making an impact on our roster from the moment they stepped on campus and I think even the average message board poster like myself could have said as much when we signed them because no other legit D-1 program was even sniffing 2 of those 3.

Probably can add Kovien to that list

 

[97spiderfan]

Wesson has several MAC offers and two other A-10 offers, so he does have some other quality program interested in him, but yes, we are probably the best of the group.

Diekvoss had 1 other offer, Northern Kentucky, as did Smithen, Siena. Kovien had 1 offer from UT Martin.

 

[Spiders10]

The 10 year contract extension in 2011 was too generous coming off a Sweet 16, and apparently a knee jerk reaction to possibility of Mooney leaving for P5. Team hasn't made the ncaa's since, and that's the benchmark to many in D1 college hoops.

There are some here that are satisfied with 15-19 wins and a tourney bid once every 5 years. Glad those folks aren't running my company.

 

[Spideroldie]

Philly, Does one game really make us "bad" after we were being projected to make it to the dance (by several) before this game? Could it be a bit premature to "bury" this team? You said (bold and underline are mine):

"All that said, our players are not bad, our coaching not terrible - - just not good enough if our goal is Top 1/3 of the conference and in the mix for at-large. Its been this way for awhile and its gonna be this way for awhile more. Our hope now rests with the incoming class of DB, Sherrod, and Grant and that they simply are both good enough and a good enough fit such that we get a different result even as we do the same thing over and over again."

In my view we are still very likely to finish in the top 1/3 of our conference and be in the mix for an at large, STILL!!!!! One close loss does not radically change our projected finish. Chill, have a tall one, and watch some great UR games the rest of this season...We do have some great kids on this team, and they also play some great basketball. And, yes, they are human and don't always hit the key shot at the key time or mange to defend a very good player at a critical time. We need to get over it and move on.

 

[Spider B]

You can certainly argue that it has been way to long since we have been to the NCAA tournament. However, we are 0-1 in the A10 and have put together a solid OOC resume this year. This year isn't over yet. We lost to a decent team yesterday. It's a game we should win at home, but we still have plenty to play for this year. Let's not totally overreact to one loss.

 

[SpiderK]

I think losing Adoda has been much more costly than we all thought. He was another reluctant scorer, but did protect the rim and would have given us an 8 man rotation. Probably could have gotten 6 to 8 points out of him his senior year, more than DT and TD combined. He could also shoot free throws. I understand it is a mute point, but it has been a huge loss.

 

[Not-A-Homer]

State of the program: MEDIOCRITY. Everyone knows this; few will admit it.

PhillySpider summed it up well. The facts scream middle of the pack year after year. Those who understand the game of basketball see it played out on the floor. This is why many are calling for change, it has nothing to do with anger or hatred.

 

[bongturk]

What Philly said has been said for the last couple of years and quite a bit this year as well. I saw no anger here at all. That is, however, one emotion I would like to see Mooney show once in a while because it might indicate that he realizes that he needs to make some changes, something he apparently has no clue is necessary.

 

[TBSpyder]

Hard to describe my disappointment with this season. Firstly, if we hadn't scheduled the usual 4 cupcakes, we'd have a losing record now. This isn't about anger about one game. And anger is not the emotion, I think most of us feel. We lost to JMU on our homecourt to begin the season. We played a good game against Cal, who evidently is not as good as previously thought. We played a competitive game against West Virginia, maybe our best game of the year. And we were thouroughly outclassed at Florida and Texas Tech. Lots of excuses, but we are not as good as we thought we'd be. Maybe we miss Alonzo a little, but last year we beat St. Joes, there, without him. It appears that Kendall Anthony may have been much more important to this team, than many of us thought. Even with the addition of some new players, last year's team appeared stronger. That's so far, but we're nearing mid season. What is going to change? Maybe an 8th or 9th player?

 

[spideroo]

We played a good game against Cal, who evidently is not as good as previously thought.

Cal has won every game but one since losing to UR. That one loss was in OT on the road at UVa. They are projected to win 20+ games and be among the top 35-40 teams in the country.

 

[Eight Legger]

Yeah, we would be 4-5 without those four cupcakes, but we'd probably have an RPI in the 30s or low 40s. Our losses are to the RPI #s 4, 16, 24, 34 and 122 teams in the nation. The JMU game is the only one of those we "should" have won, based on RPI status alone, although obviously I think we "should" have won the WVU game. We had umpteen chances and just couldn't do it.

We have wins against RPI #s 50, 56 and 70. More than half our games have been against RPI top-70 teams. We've gone 3-4 against that group, and that's pretty good. I'd prefer being 4-3 or 5-2, but look at teams on the bubble at the end of the year (and even those that are somewhat comfortably in), and you'll see that most do not have records even that good against top-70 teams.

I'm disappointed with HOW we have lost a few of these games, but not THAT we lost them. TB, I think you need to step back a bit and look at the bigger picture. We have one of the best OOC resumes among potential bubble teams, and we're only one game into the conference season.

I've been very critical of Mooney in the past and will be again as needed, but I don't know that it is quite as justified overall at this point in this season, as compared to this point last season.

 

[KE Spider]

The Hoos, playing at home, trailed virtually the entire game against Cal, but pulled out an OT win 63-62 on a three point shot by Perrantes in the waning seconds. The Hoos are #5 and Cal "not as good as previously thought". Really?

 

[TBSpyder]

California was ranked number 14 in nation, when we beat them. They are now unranked. I think that meets my description, of not being as good as thought. It was a good victory as Cal is a good team.

 

[Eight Legger]

Us beating them is a big reason WHY they are unranked. After all, they lost to an unranked team – us!

 

[Ulla1]

TB, believe by the end of ghe season Cal will once again be ranked. They are perhaps the best team in the Pac 12. OSC

 

[PhillySpider]

I won't single anyone out because I think its pretty widespread, but the reaction on here is symptomatic in many ways of the problems. We look at the good things and highlight them and pump them up and ignore and/or downplay the bad things. Let's just look at the team and ask a few questions. Are you satisfied with the team's performance this year (or last year or the year before)? Do you have any reason to think it will get better as the year goes on? Will we be better next year? I can solidly answer all of those as emphatically no!


1. Satisfied - - - I have to chuckle at the sentiment that we have a solid performance so far etc. We have a good win against Cal. We have a bad loss (at home) to JMU. Outside of Cal, we have lost to every team we have played that will be in the discussion for at-large if they don't take auto bids. I would agree that some of these teams are really good and some just good, but you have to win games against the similar teams (e.g. Texas Tech, St. Joe). The "We have no horrible losses" attitude epitomizes the problem. We do have a horrible loss and more importantly, we have been at best decent. Forget RPI and good wins/bad losses - - Do you like what you see? I don't! We look just like we have looked for too many years. Not bad - - just not real good. And given history, no I don't think its too early to express grave concern over the season. Will play some more good games this year? I am sure we will. But enough to make the outcome different than the past several years? Don't see it I'll still watch/listen to every game and root for us for sure, but its my opinion we are what we are and what we have been and that's middle of the pack in A-10 and outside real consideration for the dance. I work the numbers pretty hard - - I believe to make the Dance we'll need either 21 regular season wins plus 1 A-10 tourney win or 20 and 2 to make it. That means we need to go 14-5 in the next 19 and I just really have a really hard time seeing it.

2. Better as year progresses? Don't see that. KF getting more time is the only thing that might push us there but that impact will likely be minimal (not a knock on him - - just the depth of our issues). Do I expect TD and DT to suddenly change? Our rebounding to improve? Changes to our systems take hold and click? No, no and no. There is very little in the past few years to indicate that we have the capacity for change. We broke down several years ago when Ced went down and since then its been the same all the time (all the while folks pointing to a next year that never comes) - - we are OK, decent, solid, and we show a flash now and then, but then we settle into being who we are - - both as a team and as individuals. We can hope that we break that trend - - but that's all it is is hope - - there is no tangible evidence to support an expectation that we will.

3. Next year? Ummm. . . next year looks more than a little scary to me. We lose our best player and while I like what I have seen from KF I don't see much else and while we are not deep this year, we'll be even less deep next year and we'll for sure be considerably younger and/or less experienced when we look at the rotation. We'll all look to Nick and DB and Grant and talk about how great they will be, but that's been the sentiment for last bunch of classes and here we are.

That's just where I see us - - and to single out a Cal win or point out that most of the teams we lost to are pretty good teams doesn't make it look a lot better on the whole to me, especially since I can point to things every year for the last 3-4 seasons that had us hopeful and then point to the end result every time and see that the hope was perhaps a little misguided.

I am not mad or angry about this. More just tired of it. I like CM personally and fully recognize he a class act and a fine representative of our University. In many ways, I like him as a coach, but his glaring weakness to me is his inability/unwillingness to change or to effect change in others. As I watch the same things play out over and over again and leave me disappointed (no doubt because I let my hopes get raised when there really wasn't any good reason for that hope), I have grown weary. Here is a great way to summarize how I feel - - - it sucks that one of the first things I check in the box score every game is to see how much we got out-rebounded by. Not IF we got out-rebounded - - but how many did we got out-rebounded by. I know we did, I am just checking to see how bad it was. But not one thing has changed with that in years and its cost us numerous games, even seasons. Change in recruiting philosophy? No. Change in rebounding philosophy? No! Change in defense to try and offset it? No! Change in practice habits to just get better at it within our existing philosophy? Apparently not! This is frustrating because to me it hasnt worked and it hasn't worked for awhile.

Unless of course, 6th in the A-10 and being a Top 60 --100 team every year is good enough.

 

[wr70beh]

Yeah, we would be 4-5 without those four cupcakes, but we'd probably have an RPI in the 30s or low 40s. Our losses are to the RPI #s 4, 16, 24, 34 and 122 teams in the nation. The JMU game is the only one of those we "should" have won, based on RPI status alone, although obviously I think we "should" have won the WVU game. We had umpteen chances and just couldn't do it.

We have wins against RPI #s 50, 56 and 70. More than half our games have been against RPI top-70 teams. We've gone 3-4 against that group, and that's pretty good. I'd prefer being 4-3 or 5-2, but look at teams on the bubble at the end of the year (and even those that are somewhat comfortably in), and you'll see that most do not have records even that good against top-70 teams.

The JMU loss hurts, but they'll probably take the CAA Auto-Bid barring injury. Something to be said about that.

 

[SpiderGuy]

The JMU loss hurts, but they'll probably take the CAA Auto-Bid barring injury. Something to be said about that.

True but the fact that JMU has beaten us two years in a row (including our home opener this year) leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I don't think it's an ego thing to think that JMU is a team we should be expected to beat whenever & wherever.

 

[whampas]

I won't single anyone out because I think its pretty widespread, but the reaction on here is symptomatic in many ways of the problems. We look at the good things and highlight them and pump them up and ignore and/or downplay the bad things. Let's just look at the team and ask a few questions. Are you satisfied with the team's performance this year (or last year or the year before)? Do you have any reason to think it will get better as the year goes on? Will we be better next year? I can solidly answer all of those as emphatically no!


1. Satisfied - - - I have to chuckle at the sentiment that we have a solid performance so far etc. We have a good win against Cal. We have a bad loss (at home) to JMU. Outside of Cal, we have lost to every team we have played that will be in the discussion for at-large if they don't take auto bids. I would agree that some of these teams are really good and some just good, but you have to win games against the similar teams (e.g. Texas Tech, St. Joe). The "We have no horrible losses" attitude epitomizes the problem. We do have a horrible loss and more importantly, we have been at best decent. Forget RPI and good wins/bad losses - - Do you like what you see? I don't! We look just like we have looked for too many years. Not bad - - just not real good. And given history, no I don't think its too early to express grave concern over the season. Will play some more good games this year? I am sure we will. But enough to make the outcome different than the past several years? Don't see it I'll still watch/listen to every game and root for us for sure, but its my opinion we are what we are and what we have been and that's middle of the pack in A-10 and outside real consideration for the dance. I work the numbers pretty hard - - I believe to make the Dance we'll need either 21 regular season wins plus 1 A-10 tourney win or 20 and 2 to make it. That means we need to go 14-5 in the next 19 and I just really have a really hard time seeing it.

2. Better as year progresses? Don't see that. KF getting more time is the only thing that might push us there but that impact will likely be minimal (not a knock on him - - just the depth of our issues). Do I expect TD and DT to suddenly change? Our rebounding to improve? Changes to our systems take hold and click? No, no and no. There is very little in the past few years to indicate that we have the capacity for change. We broke down several years ago when Ced went down and since then its been the same all the time (all the while folks pointing to a next year that never comes) - - we are OK, decent, solid, and we show a flash now and then, but then we settle into being who we are - - both as a team and as individuals. We can hope that we break that trend - - but that's all it is is hope - - there is no tangible evidence to support an expectation that we will.

3. Next year? Ummm. . . next year looks more than a little scary to me. We lose our best player and while I like what I have seen from KF I don't see much else and while we are not deep this year, we'll be even less deep next year and we'll for sure be considerably younger and/or less experienced when we look at the rotation. We'll all look to Nick and DB and Grant and talk about how great they will be, but that's been the sentiment for last bunch of classes and here we are.

That's just where I see us - - and to single out a Cal win or point out that most of the teams we lost to are pretty good teams doesn't make it look a lot better on the whole to me, especially since I can point to things every year for the last 3-4 seasons that had us hopeful and then point to the end result every time and see that the hope was perhaps a little misguided.

I am not mad or angry about this. More just tired of it. I like CM personally and fully recognize he a class act and a fine representative of our University. In many ways, I like him as a coach, but his glaring weakness to me is his inability/unwillingness to change or to effect change in others. As I watch the same things play out over and over again and leave me disappointed (no doubt because I let my hopes get raised when there really wasn't any good reason for that hope), I have grown weary. Here is a great way to summarize how I feel - - - it sucks that one of the first things I check in the box score every game is to see how much we got out-rebounded by. Not IF we got out-rebounded - - but how many did we got out-rebounded by. I know we did, I am just checking to see how bad it was. But not one thing has changed with that in years and its cost us numerous games, even seasons. Change in recruiting philosophy? No. Change in rebounding philosophy? No! Change in defense to try and offset it? No! Change in practice habits to just get better at it within our existing philosophy? Apparently not! This is frustrating because to me it hasnt worked and it hasn't worked for awhile.

Unless of course, 6th in the A-10 and being a Top 60 --100 team every year is good enough.

I agree with everything that you said. I have been a Mooney supporter since the beginning but something really needs to change. Can you imagine how confused the opposition would be if he slapped a straight man to man on them and then switched to a 2-3 zone two possessions later then hit them with his trademark matchup. I get confused thinking about it.

 

[Eight Legger]

Philly, I can't say that I disagree with much that you said. I have felt similarly the past few years. For whatever reason, my pessimism has been tempered a bit this year because I think we have looked better on offense, overall, and we have played high-level teams and done ok. I agree that it would have been nice to win at Florida or Texas Tech, to go along with what should have been a home win against JMU. If we are the team I think we can be, we should have found a way to win yesterday, too.

But I guess it's hard for me to tell in some of these close games when we just lost to a better team, as opposed to when we made stupid coaching decisions that cost us the game, as opposed to when we just were unlucky. We could watch yesterday's game from St. Joe's perspective and probably come away feeling like they did a ton of things wrong, too. Sometimes it is the lens through which we view things that clouds our perspective a bit.

In general, though, I do feel like we have enough talent this year to have started 11-2 or 12-1. It would be nice to actually do that once.

 

[Stonewall D]

No way. You all need to be realistic. The basketball program is in excellent shape. We will make the Sweet 16 once a generation. We will make the dance sometimes. That is fine. You should be realistic.

 

[Eight Legger]

Cal takes down No. 21 Utah, 71-58...

 

[bongturk]

Except for that second sentence you are probably right, unless you forgot to include the sarcasm icon.

 

[SpiderK]

PhillySpider pretty much says it all for me too. We have all been to enough games to get that gut feeling Saturday afternoon around the 15 minute mark in the second half that we were in serious trouble. I yelled and screamed and cheered my butt off, but I could feel it slipping away. Our guys were so tired they couldn't leave the floor on jumps shots and were just slow to the ball all around. I am sure you guys noticed that Fore seems to be moving at light speed compared to the rest of the tired team, because they are worn out by the 30-35 minute mark. TJ has to have some rest, it's just his make up. PF has to be able to come in for 3 or 4 minutes. Pistol is certainly good enough to help Fore and TD to spell SDJ a few minutes also. All in all I think that this is a simple thing that can be fixed very quickly and help give these guys a better chance to succeed. My 75 year old mother even commented on how tired TJ and TA looked with 5 minutes to go.

 

[Spideroldie]

The past three years or so I have been one of the most frustrated posters on here. Part of that frustration was based on the fact that we not only did not have a very good record, but we also were not a lot of fun to watch. We looked disjointed on offense, and gave up a lot of uncontested dunks and lay-ups defensively. And, we let weak teams stay with us, and we were really weak in the last 7-minutes of games. That all led to some criticism, and most of it was about why we did not get some "flow" to our offense, and why we did not teach our guys any alternative defenses (like a 2-3, or box and one, etc). I have never understood why we don't teach alternative defenses, so that we can confuse the 90% of other teams that get really CONFUSED by defensive changes.

This season I have been very happy with what I have seen, with the exception of the single, unchanging defense. This team appears to me to be significantly stronger than the UR teams of the past 2-3 years, and I believe that will show up in our record. So long as we can be respectful, I also have no problem with voicing the things that we might like to see the team do, like change up the defenses. I even say (sadly) that VCU changed up their defense, at a crucial point, and won their season-opener, in part due to the defensive switch. It hurts all the more when your #1 rival is doing things, in the coach's FIRST SEASON, that we are not even trying to do. That is a change that the coaches should at least be trying out in our practices...Count me as happy overall, but frustrated at our lack of flexibility in our defense. Also, count me as overjoyed about the incoming class for next season. I see two guys who could easily start as freshmen, and that would probably be a first for us in the last decade.

 

[SpiderRick]

Phily +1. Spideroldie I agree with what you say about changing defenses, we need to keep our opponents guessing and confused. As for possibly starting two freshmen next year, well, that doesn't say much about our current team (except of course Terry Allen). We don't get 5 star recruits at Richmond, so having two inexperienced 18-year-olds starting right away, tells me we are in trouble. And if next year is supposed to be a rebuilding year, then this year should be THE YEAR. I am not optimistic, but gosh I certainly hope I am wrong.

 

[SpiderK]

We have been rebuilding since 2011, we should have a 36,000 sqft mansion in Goochland by now.

 

[SpiderFan]

Let's take a look at some math, i chose not to post anything negative after the Texas Tech game and the OOC schedule wrapped up because I wanted to see how the team opened up the conference season with St. Joe's on Saturday at home. I was concerned for SDJ's ankle but he obviously had no problem fighting through any sensitivity he had with that dropping 22 points.

The basic fact is that the team couldn't afford to lose that game--the OOC record was OK, not great at 8-4. The reason I say that is coming into the A-10 schedule with an 8-4 record, we had to go 12-6 in conference just to get to 20 wins. You can forget about getting into the NCAA's with less than 20 as our resume right now is just not strong enough. We've already lost 2 home games this early in the year which is not good since everyone, and us especially with our rebounding and free throw issues, will have a hard time going .500 on the conference portion of our road schedule. Our true road record is already 1-2 (credit to Mooney and staff for only scheduling 2 true road games in the OOC portion of the schedule).

So now we are 0-1 after a game we should have won. We had 3 players who combined for 72 minutes (Wood, Davis, Taylor) and got only 3 points out of them--and a paltry 10 rebounds if they were in there strictly for that. Saturday could have also been a real eye opener for our lack of depth as well (as T Tech game was with lots of foul trouble) if SDJ had to sit the whole game. We play 7 guys and no one else has much experience to fill in for long stretches if we suffer even one injury to someone like Cline, Allen or SDJ.

I say we need to go 3-0 over the next 3 (at URI, at Fordham, home against La Salle) to get back on a realistic postseason track. That would make us 11-5 and 3-1 in conference with VCU coming in. If a lot of fans think that's unrealistic then please tell me where we're going to pick up wins to make up for the St. Joe's game. We're hitting approx 63% of our FTs so you cannot count on us hitting those in close games during the grind of Jan/Feb. I don't think we're all of a sudden going to get better there.

I see the team finishing at somewhere around 19-13 or 18-14, most likely missing out on an NCAA berth unless we really run the table in the conference tourney. I am hoping the team proves me wrong just like football did.

“If you want to separate in the Atlantic 10, win on the road,” said Hawks coach Phil Martelli.

 

[Eight Legger]

I don't think 20 wins is a magic number in and of itself, but at this point I think we do need to go 12-6 in league play to make it in, simply because 11-7 probably puts us 6th or worse in the league and it would be harder to justify taking the 6th place team from the A-10 this year.

But if you compare our OOC wins to any other potential bubble team, I think you would find that we stack up quite nicely. If we beat Rhody and Dayton and split with Davidson, GW, VCU, that will give us enough good wins.

 

[97spiderfan]

I agree the St. Joes came puts us behind the eight ball. However, I think it is tough to look at schedules and predict wins and losses.

If we are an at large worthy team, you have to beat good teams like St. Joes on their home court. Since we didn't, it now requires us to go on the road and beat a wounded Rhody team. And obviously losses to Fordham or LaSalle in the next two would be pretty devastating. I wish we didn't have to always be walking the finest of lines but it is the situation that we have put ourselves in.

Hopefully, Mooney sees the lost opportunity of the past 2 games and possibly makes some adjustments to personnel as a result. The most obvious would be playing Khwan more minutes than Trey Davis. Khwan should be starting but you know that is not happening, but Khwan and Trey can and should flip-flop there minutes. Khwan just does far to many things really well on the court right now to not have him on the court as much as possible.

 

[LongTimeLurkerFirstTimePoster]

one out of 18 A-10 games has been played. We lost a hard fought game against a good team. We had one bad stretch in the 2nd half, where ironically our three based players all missed very makeable shots and/or FTs.

Threads like "State of the Program" after one conference game, are typical of the instant gratification/24 hour news cycle world we live in today. I find it ironic that people aren't even mentioning the WF (very strong OOC) and No Iowa victories any more.

I also know that on this board the last 48 hours the world has been divided among you either are in the "Remain calm, all is well" camp or the "Fire Mooney and strip DT's scholarship" camp. I'm in neither. I've seen more good than bad this year--always room for improvement--but a long, long way to go.

 

[72Spider]

Very good post, Lurker. Don't understand the crazy bashing of Mooney, et al after just one game. Especially this game. I have been critical in the past and may be critical in the future but this was not the game for such criticism in my opinion. I looked closely at the replay after I got back from the game. STJ just made shots, and many were contested 3's, not wide open looks. Bembry's step-back deuce near the end was a hell of a shot that put them up 2 with inside a minute to go. We had our chances, just missed shots at the end.

 

[kneepadmckinney]

Before the season started, I divided the schedule into three categories:

Games we should win (13): JMU, Stetson, Bethune, Longwood, Presbyterian, St. Joe's, at Fordham, LaSalle, George Mason, UMass, Fordham, at Duquesne, at George Mason

Games we should lose (6): West Virginia, Cal/SDSU, at Florida, at URI, at Davidson, at VCU

50/50 games (11): at Wake, Northern Iowa, ODU, at Texas Tech, VCU, Davidson, at GW, at St. Bonny, at St. Louis, GW, Dayton

I told myself, if we lose two or fewer out of the first category, steal one out of the second category, and win at least 6 out of the third, we would have a rather good shot at the NCAA tournament. We're still on track, but the St. Joe's loss took away a lot of the slack we may otherwise have had. On the other hand, St. Joe's could continue to surprise and ride Bembry to 20 wins and a top 70 RPI, in which case, you can argue it shouldn't have been in the first category in the first place. I also feel better about our ability to steal one at URI, Davidson, or VCU based on what I have seen of those teams this year as well.

 

[Ferrum Spider]

one out of 18 A-10 games has been played. We lost a hard fought game against a good team. We had one bad stretch in the 2nd half, where ironically our three based players all missed very makeable shots and/or FTs.

Threads like "State of the Program" after one conference game, are typical of the instant gratification/24 hour news cycle world we live in today. I find it ironic that people aren't even mentioning the WF (very strong OOC) and No Iowa victories any more.

I also know that on this board the last 48 hours the world has been divided among you either are in the "Remain calm, all is well" camp or the "Fire Mooney and strip DT's scholarship" camp. I'm in neither. I've seen more good than bad this year--always room for improvement--but a long, long way to go.

+1 you nailed it right on the head.
I know we're only 4 days in but this is the post of the year! You and your logic! State of the program? Cmon guys we were in worse shape last year at this point, everyone claimed the sky was falling and we were a GMU loss away from making the NCAAs.

Conversly, that next big win doesn't mean we've fixed everything either. A10s a big boy league, no ones going through this schedule without a black eye or two. Sit back relax and enjoy some basketball.

 

[HoosFan05]

Meanwhile, that school down Broad Street has a 2016 commit who may be upgraded to a 5* soon if he keeps his current performance up....

 

[Eight Legger]

Meanwhile, that school down Broad Street has a 2016 commit who may be upgraded to a 5* soon if he keeps his current performance up....

Congrats to them. No one cares.