The Official "We have great kids" Thread
- Thread starter MolivaManiac
- Start date
Don't think I have - I follow football. Attended the home playoff game last week, but honestly its hard to get fired up about our football program because at the end of the day - is still 1-AA. We have a great program, a great stadium, and a decent following - but from a national scene, on what sports can do for a University - I am willing to bet most kids out there when they look at UR don't know UR has a football program or that we were "National Champions".
Cause especially in the South - football is dominated by the big boys of the ACC, SEC, etc. Which is somewhat of a shame, because we have a good football product, but all anyone cares about around here is Va Tech and UVA.
Cause especially in the South - football is dominated by the big boys of the ACC, SEC, etc. Which is somewhat of a shame, because we have a good football product, but all anyone cares about around here is Va Tech and UVA.
just to set the record straight, sit in my black, all wood, frat, chair but do wear leather gloves while typing.
personally, do not like to nit pick, micro-manage, all of the schemes, player performance, moves, rotations, etc., etc. don't feel am qualified to really do that but do think "big picture" wise, so make comments on where we are, where we have been and where we are going program-wise. yes, i do have feelings and opinions on all of the above but only discuss them with others off this medium. in football, our goals should be conference championships and playoff participation, basketball, conference championships and ncaa dance apperarances. obviously that does not always happen, we have struggled for various reasons in both sports. expectations are a huge burden but if one does not have any expectations then why even care to buy season tix or show up to home or away games or listen on the radio or watch on tv, or give money to the SPIDER CLUB.
personally, do not like to nit pick, micro-manage, all of the schemes, player performance, moves, rotations, etc., etc. don't feel am qualified to really do that but do think "big picture" wise, so make comments on where we are, where we have been and where we are going program-wise. yes, i do have feelings and opinions on all of the above but only discuss them with others off this medium. in football, our goals should be conference championships and playoff participation, basketball, conference championships and ncaa dance apperarances. obviously that does not always happen, we have struggled for various reasons in both sports. expectations are a huge burden but if one does not have any expectations then why even care to buy season tix or show up to home or away games or listen on the radio or watch on tv, or give money to the SPIDER CLUB.
obviously I'm not saying take down the board. been here many years since day 1 and have enjoyed it immensely, posting mostly positive drivel with many other pollyannas, and reading both the positive and increasingly negative views. just enjoying it less lately.
we all, myself included, find our opinions are so important that they need to be heard. sometimes every thought doesn't need to go in print. that's one reason I never post on in-game threads. it gets too emotional with every play. it's not realistic to think every basket should be made or that we'll never turn the ball over. so I may scream at the TV or computer like any fan, but I'm not putting it in ink where a player or a mother of a player will eventually see it.
I don't give a damn about talk radio or redskin fans. I've got my pro sports teams, too, but I'm more invested in Spider hoops. I'd like this place to be better than other sites. I don't think we should lower the bar to that level for ourselves just because other sites suck. I'd like our team to feel they have fans. that they aren't just out for themselves. because if I was them and read the crap here, I'd say "screw them all. I play for my teammates, my coaches, and my family. because we don't have fans behind us. just fair weather fans who only appreciate us when we win".
Bingo. We've lost a lot of good posters with real insight over the years.
This post was edited on 12/2 12:57 PM by Spiders05
Is it the board material ... or is it that after 3 years of CBI or worse, only those of us that go to a Psychologist regularly have the stomach to keep coming back?
We've been through worse patches of basketball during this board's existence and it wasn't like it is these days.
05, you're right. We have been through worse patches. During those patches, however, one could understand why we were in that patch and rationalize that we were 'building'.
I follow this thing pretty closely and I struggle to see meaningful progress.
It amazes me how many fans tell me (unsolicited) that they like CM but they are sick of our systems and our soft play. I would wager that for every poster that has 'left' the board because of the discourse, there are 2 that have left because they have grown exhausted by the mission.
I truly want the Mooney-led Spiders to have great success and will gladly be the punching bag for the Mooney stalwarts if and when it occurs. Absent a major change in philosophy or finding another golden lottery ticket like Kevin Anderson, I'm not sure I see it.
Man, I hope I just need new glasses.
I follow this thing pretty closely and I struggle to see meaningful progress.
It amazes me how many fans tell me (unsolicited) that they like CM but they are sick of our systems and our soft play. I would wager that for every poster that has 'left' the board because of the discourse, there are 2 that have left because they have grown exhausted by the mission.
I truly want the Mooney-led Spiders to have great success and will gladly be the punching bag for the Mooney stalwarts if and when it occurs. Absent a major change in philosophy or finding another golden lottery ticket like Kevin Anderson, I'm not sure I see it.
Man, I hope I just need new glasses.
I am one of those that left. The board did have some obnoxious posters, but I just couldn't watch the team play any more. Mooney and staff are recruiting really high quality players now. But they are doing nothing with them. Heck, give him Shack and he will have him jacking 3's and playing on the top of the zone. I quit watching the team and check in on this board to see how the team is doing. Unfortunately, same stuff different day.
Moliva, I fear the worst, and that is that you are 100% correct in your assessment. And Octapod, you hit the nail on the head with your analogy of Mooney and had Shaq. I root for CM and the team, of course, but I fear that if another Kevin Anderson isn't on the horizon, we are in for the same thing every year: decent teams but generally on the outside looking in when it comes to post season opportunities. We may even make an NIT or an NCAA every now and then, but if we are looking to consistently challenge the top 25's, forget it.
I would argue ths inpatience and frustration stems from two things.
1) Our inability to be anywhere close to the NCAA tourney the last 3 years.
2) Our biggest rival just miles down the road thriving and making the tourney and national rankings each year, when it seems like only yesterday Richmond as a whole was in the news for both teams being in the Sweet 16.
I would be willing to bet if VCU was going through the same struggles as us - we would all be a little more patient and less frustrated. But fact of the matter is - we both came from the same conference - CAA - and moved up to the A10. We thought we were better than VCU when we first did it in 2002, several years before they made the jump. Then we both make significant runs in the tourney and both keep our respected coaches with big raises and long term deals. So everything was pretty much the same - but since then, everything has been different. We have been rebuilding and made one CBI appearance. They have reloaded and made the NCAA each year and won a first round game twice. We think our recruiting is getting better. There recruiting top 100 players and being ranked nationally for their recruiting efforts. They are getting solid OOC games in their home arena (UVA) and good OOC tournament games, and all we can muster is Radford and Pepperdine.
1) Our inability to be anywhere close to the NCAA tourney the last 3 years.
2) Our biggest rival just miles down the road thriving and making the tourney and national rankings each year, when it seems like only yesterday Richmond as a whole was in the news for both teams being in the Sweet 16.
I would be willing to bet if VCU was going through the same struggles as us - we would all be a little more patient and less frustrated. But fact of the matter is - we both came from the same conference - CAA - and moved up to the A10. We thought we were better than VCU when we first did it in 2002, several years before they made the jump. Then we both make significant runs in the tourney and both keep our respected coaches with big raises and long term deals. So everything was pretty much the same - but since then, everything has been different. We have been rebuilding and made one CBI appearance. They have reloaded and made the NCAA each year and won a first round game twice. We think our recruiting is getting better. There recruiting top 100 players and being ranked nationally for their recruiting efforts. They are getting solid OOC games in their home arena (UVA) and good OOC tournament games, and all we can muster is Radford and Pepperdine.
I think both of your point are accurate. I also wouldn't want to shy away from local competition. Competition shows you what you're made of. Are we up to the challenge or not? I'd rather see an example 7 miles away that keeps us grinding every day and night until we have achieved what we want. We have everything we need to succeed, we just need to do it.
We actually have academic standards for our student athletes unlike VCU (we didn't except Vassalo or Avila despite them both being very good basketball players, we don't take partial qualifiers, etc.) We also hold our athletes to a higher moral standard, just look at how each school deals with criminal behavior. VCU also has a much larger fan base due to pumping out much more alumni (32,000 students vs 4,000 students.) There just aren't any schools that fit our profile that are perennial basketball powerhouses since schools like us have such huge disadvantages compared to schools like VCU.
What schools that fit our profile have sustained success?
This post was edited on 12/3 5:18 PM by fan2011
What schools that fit our profile have sustained success?
This post was edited on 12/3 5:18 PM by fan2011
Gonzaga, Butler, and Xavier are as close as it gets to our profile along with history of hoops success.
And those are regional schools with much lower academic standards (they all accept ~70% of applicants) and bigger student bodies (besides Butler) than us.
By my count out of the top 50 national liberal arts colleges (as ranked by us news and world report), only 7 compete in D1 basketball:
Richmond
Davidson
Bucknell
Army
Navy
Holy Cross
Lafayette
These are schools with similar missions, similar student bodies and similar resources to us and we are a vastly better program than the majority of them. In fact, we arguably have the strongest program of the group. It is interesting that all these teams except for us and Davidson are in the Patriot League.
This post was edited on 12/3 6:53 PM by fan2011
here we go again. we cannot continue to make excuses due to who we are as a university. dare say, we spend lots more money to be better than any of those schools listed. at some point, we either have to win big, dance and not have to rebuild but reload consistently or just go back to the caa where we would have a better chance of dancing regularly. one reason we danced a lot before, the conference we were in and if david robinson had not come along at navy, we would have done even better.
Everyone needs to calm down. It is one game. Wisconsin lost to Rutgers (who was worse than JMU) last year and made it to the championship game. It happens. We had a pretty good offense and a horrendous defense. Mooney's teams are traditionally good at defense, so hopefully he can fix this. If we can fix the defense soon we will be good.
I appreciate your reason and your optimism but it doesn't make me want to go dig a hole in my backyard and jump in any less.
The one thing I will say about this board is that its fans are very passionate and very quick to OVER-react to a loss. If we had just lost our opening game to Stetson, then maybe some strong criticisms would be more sensible. But, we just lost to a very good team (my opinion) that I see making it to the NCAA tourney, in our opening game. If I were the AD I believe I would cut our coach (and team) some slack, until we see how they perform in the next 5-10 games. My guess is that the tone of this board will change pretty quickly, as the season progresses. Final thought though: I really hope that our players are NOT reading this thread, because I have not read anything so far that would help to motivate me to play better, to be more confident, or to gain in respect for my coaches. There should probably be a Personal Rule for message boards that requires that passionate posters wait 24-hours before posting, after a loss. We might provide a more "readable" (and positive) discussion board for our players and coaches, if we held back, and reflected a bit more, before criticizing.
If Dalembert had been available for JMU, I think they would have won by 20. If we have players, who need a supportive message board to motivate them, we have even bigger problems. They played poorly tonight. I'd hope that that would be sufficient motivation. There were a lot of poor performances tonight. Unexpected from most of us here, who thought we had good reason to be optimistic about the season. I don't expect this team to accomplish much, but will still follow the team, and hope I'm wrong. After all, it was just one game. I don't expect to learn much from the Stetson game, we should do well against them. Wake will tell us more. They are very shorthanded, but they will play with a lot of effort and determination. I hope to see the same from our guys.
I completely agree that the team can easily turn this around and get back on track. But let's be real this board exists in part to voice our concerns at the moment. And at the moment I honestly believe our players and coaches should look in the mirror and criticize themselves. That was a terrible performance and completely unacceptable for this team. It's not the loss itself but the way in which it occurred.
was out celebrating an anniversary with the bride and then caught up in the paris deal and checking with friends who live there to make sure they were OK.....what happened, did we lose or something or just not win by enough?
Mooney will not adjust his style of play based on the players skills. We have virtually no three point shooters, yet we still don't hit the offensive boards. We have two starters who simply can't score. Is Mooney just incapable of doing anything different?
Mo, I agree 100%. CM may be a great guy but he is not a great coach or even a very good coach.
We're at 85 now just below Stony Brook and 34 spots below VCU. W&M is ahead of us and climbing.
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