Time to support the players and team?
- Thread starter UR80sfan
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Correct. We do. As do other teams. You are using a list based on one guy's opinion. He also has Rhode Island's 3rd guy at 16, and VCU's at 20, and has two Davidson guys in his top five. And Dayton is picked by many to be in the top four this year. Bottom line is plenty of teams have a lot of talent. Should be a good battle for top 4.
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yeah, I'm in no way being critical of our players. I just think the talk that "there's no way we shouldn't make the tournament" is a little much.
I agree, Eight, that Mooney has put together a pretty strong roster. you might be giving him too much credit though, in my opinion.
I agree, Eight, that Mooney has put together a pretty strong roster. you might be giving him too much credit though, in my opinion.
Eight giving Mooney too much credit? Now I've seen everything.
Not because any of it is wrong, but because I've never seen it together before...
If only we were competing for the Atlantic 10 two-on-two fistfight championship.
You mean the list the UR basketball program has promoted the heck out of? Seems UR staff thinks very highly of their opinion.
No issues with promoting that. But, as I said, plenty of other teams have a reason to promote that list as well.
That was a mistake on the prognosticators part. It was easy to miss that one based on the step back they took in Rhoades's first year. One thing they have that we dont have is a good athletic department. It's easy to overlook that.
I'd like to see Matt add a beard in solidarity for Grant's beard.
Each of us have our own expectations for this team. In looking at 3rd party forecasts for the conference, recent predictions for the Spiders are significantly better than ones that came out many months ago. Our terrible record the past 2 years is probably causing many people to hedge their expectations, which means there is a higher probability of upward than downward surprise on how the team finishes.
A lot of our expectations for the team are based on what we saw last year. I expect most of the players to have improved since then with a few that have improved significantly. My short term expectations are for the team to start out pretty strong, winning 7 of their first 9 games and hopefully if this happens most of the people on this board will be giving positive encouragement to the players. Over the next 6 weeks we will have a good idea of where this team is headed.
A lot of our expectations for the team are based on what we saw last year. I expect most of the players to have improved since then with a few that have improved significantly. My short term expectations are for the team to start out pretty strong, winning 7 of their first 9 games and hopefully if this happens most of the people on this board will be giving positive encouragement to the players. Over the next 6 weeks we will have a good idea of where this team is headed.
All I know is I am ready for the season to start so we can eliminate the ifs, buts, and shoulds. I will be going to the home games and the ticket office definitely decided to step up it’s game. This year we have an actual ticket book with individual player photos on each ticket. Gone are the tear your tickets apart days.
I don't think you are being very positive. 7 out of 9 isn't anything that strong. We'll be favored in all but 2. Probably the 2 you have us losing. If we start out strong that means 8-1 or 9-0. 7-2 is the minimum.
We should and WILL be in the NCAAs. Someone wrote saying that is unfair to the players. LOL. My guess is they are probably tired of people making excuses for them and would rather have people believe they'll kick ass.
NCAA or bust
Yes, our first 9 games are 6 home, 1 (a short bus ride) away and 2 neutral. 4 Quad 4, 4 probable Quad 3, and 1 Quad 1 game.
7-2 would be great relative to the last two years but won't get us on the at-large radar, and should be the minimum expectation against that slate.
Have you seen Blue Ribbon? It is out and it picked us 9th. Blue Ribbon is generally considered the best preseason publication although I think some online predictive models are better. I was surprised how low they had us.
They really f'd that one up.
The reality is that we have plenty of talent to win the league and make the NCAAs. And if we don't finish 1, 2 or 3 in the league this year, then there's very little reason for anyone to expect much better next year. This is the year – get it done.
I would expect most preseason polls to have us no higher than 5th, and anywhere between 5-9.
Reason being - we have had 2 losing seasons in a row. If we had just one 1 last year, you could chalk it up to injury and inexperience. But 2 years in a row is hard to do. Also - I think a big part of our success rests on Francis. Nothing against Francis - by all accounts so far he sounds like a superstar, but he transferred to UR from Wagner - so even though he put up good numbers and the hype is there, I think most publications will pump the brakes on him and see Wagner to UR as a big jump. I can't fault them for that - if Mooney was recruiting a kid right now and his final two schools were Wagner and UR, we would probably ask ourselves - what is Mooney doing? But let me be clear - I think and hope Francis will be as good as advertised.
So for those reasons - I can understand getting a 9th ranking. And I would not mind - its good locker room material and motivation for the team.
Reason being - we have had 2 losing seasons in a row. If we had just one 1 last year, you could chalk it up to injury and inexperience. But 2 years in a row is hard to do. Also - I think a big part of our success rests on Francis. Nothing against Francis - by all accounts so far he sounds like a superstar, but he transferred to UR from Wagner - so even though he put up good numbers and the hype is there, I think most publications will pump the brakes on him and see Wagner to UR as a big jump. I can't fault them for that - if Mooney was recruiting a kid right now and his final two schools were Wagner and UR, we would probably ask ourselves - what is Mooney doing? But let me be clear - I think and hope Francis will be as good as advertised.
So for those reasons - I can understand getting a 9th ranking. And I would not mind - its good locker room material and motivation for the team.
I hope you're right. we do have talent, more than recent Spider teams. I can't help but think though that you're looking at our talent in a vacuum without regard to the rest of the league.
?? A10Talk judged it in comparison to everyone in league. With regard, not without and isn't that what Eight Legger was referencing.
Right, I mean I don't know as much about the rest of the league as I have in recent years because frankly I've lost a lot of interest in things because of how bad we've been. But A10 Talk thinks we are the only team in the league with three top-15 players, so I'll take them at their observation. I'm not sure why we are trying to make excuses in advance for the team. We have as strong a chance of winning the league as any team in the A10, period.
Wow - did not realize that message board posters had so much power. If that is the case I command the team to go undefeated and win the national championship. Surely all agree with that directive.................
you're still talking about A10Talk's player rankings?
I haven't seen us ranked AS A TEAM above 5th, and we've been ranked as low as 9th. that's looking at the talent of the whole team and the whole league. I hope those rankings are wrong, but I assume those guys know more about the rest of the league than I do. they think 4-8 other teams are more talented than us.
Having 2 top 10 players per A10Talk is great, but we had Golden and Gilyard last year too and lost 20.
I like our roster a lot and hope we dance, but nobody in the entire basketball prognosticating world other than a couple guys on this board thinks we're so loaded that we're some kind of lock for the NCAA tournament. there are a bunch of good teams in the A10. if we dance then we surprised some people.
Hmmm, I wonder why we have some many highly ranked players in our league, yet our ranked low as a team as to where we might finish. Maybe unsure how our coach is going to coach up all of his talent and teach them to defend and rebound properly.
And S-man, as a truther aren't you supposed to be the positive one on our program?
It's because they think the coach is crap. You aren't just picked on talent. Nor finish on talent. It's a good factor of course but I'm sure you agree there are others. We also have 5 players in top 28, not just 3 in top 15. We aren't being picked higher primarily because of Mooney. Who btw says the NCAA is a reasonable expectation.
NCAA or bust
Except for the fact that we would have everyone back, and the teams likely in front of us would lose some very key pieces. Doesn't mean I don't think dancing is very possible this year. Just means that next year should be even better.
I'm saying the A-10 prognosticators think we have Top 3 A 10 talent but then pick us from 5-9th and that is because of Mooney coaching ability. The talent evaluation of players is largely on their offensive abilities and everyone knows that we collectively are not very good defensively and I think that is the reason for the disparity. Coaches job to get individual players and the team as a whole to play better defense. Plus Mooney is not a good in game adjustment coach either, people that watch the A-10 regularly know all of this about Mooney.
That's far from a fact. Everyone on our team has eligibility next year that's all. We have 3-4 possible grad transfers next year. The sharks will be out. It is a tough rule for mid major basketball. Anyone who blindly assumes everyone is coming back hasn't been following college bball close enough imo.
Go to NCAA this year then you increase your odds all are back (all the ones you want back at least). Don't go to NCAA those decrease. Way it is. I don't want want to hear this buy in bs, they love Mooney etc. I hope that's all true, nobody but them and those very close to them know for sure however. Because it's a lot of faith to put in a coach & program who at that point would be 0-9 in meeting kids dreams of making the NCAA. And a couple would have The Sure Thing offered. Are you gonna go with Daphne Zuniga or the hot blonde in Cali Nicollete Sheridan? Tough call. Half go one way half the other.
I agree that 2020-21 can be great, but got to have a close to equally great (NCAA minimum) 2019-20 first.
I don't think many non-Spider fans have as strong a negative opinion of Mooney as you. Not strong enough to take top 3 talent and finish 9th anyway.
Agreed. Unless their defensive skills improve, some of our players might be a little overrated as all-around players by A10Talk. defense is half the game. I'm glad we seem to be focusing on it.
If we don't finish in the top echelon this year, we won't return everyone next year. That's my point.
I think they do. Or they have forgot about him. Higher opinion is probably coming in third in this race.
And a blood thirsty desire to win. They dont accept losing like their one time rivals.
You're being ridiculous. Of course the message board has no bearing whatsoever on scheduling, coaching, the level of effort that the kids put in, their shot selection, what defense we play, etc. But, conversely, of course it DOES has some level of effect on the "atmosphere" around the program--the players, recruits, recruits' parents, players' parents, coaches, and our play by play people have all either explicitly or obliquely referenced the "chatter" or the "outside voices" or whatever other turn of phrase they used.
So, again, I personally think it is a worthy cause for the people on this board to make an effort to create a strictly positive "atmosphere" in the short time between now and the beginning of the season, as a show of solidarity.
S-man is a truther?
There are several on here that keep using that moniker, and I keep asking, "who are the truthers?" So s-man is officially a truther?
My perspective is that sometimes he calls out Mooney and the players, and sometimes he praises them. Is the litmus test "have you, now or in the past 2 years, said anything remotely positive about Chris Mooney?"
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