Top 25 ranking
- Thread starter UR80sfan
- Start date
The Spiders can’t have great or even very good things. We can have average things and apparently that’s enough of a standard.
we have an opportunity to get the numbers a little better w our first 3 A10 games. So we r in position when we face SLU Dayton VCU a bit later. It’s key.
The team is good enough to overcome but with this team we really shouldn’t be in a position of weakness like we r now. With all these weapons? All these guys w stats. 1000 pt scorers across the board. The D has gone bye bye tho. We give up 1000 pts per man too. Doesn’t translate to best team ever. Let’s not be a team of potential.
And we have a whole week to chew on this which sucks. Mooney gave us coal in our stocking for Xmas. Not sure if the team gets to go home for Xmas at all this year but our “get away” game prior to Xmas bites us again.
Pressure is on. But with unnecessary contract extension maybe it’s not.
The team is good enough to overcome but with this team we really shouldn’t be in a position of weakness like we r now. With all these weapons? All these guys w stats. 1000 pt scorers across the board. The D has gone bye bye tho. We give up 1000 pts per man too. Doesn’t translate to best team ever. Let’s not be a team of potential.
And we have a whole week to chew on this which sucks. Mooney gave us coal in our stocking for Xmas. Not sure if the team gets to go home for Xmas at all this year but our “get away” game prior to Xmas bites us again.
Pressure is on. But with unnecessary contract extension maybe it’s not.
Radford again. Defense, rebounding, free throws. Same as last year, the other guys were/are a better basketball team. Mooney’s teams don’t jell until late January or February. Too late for a bid, with one exception.
Yep it was the dreaded "get away" game. Change things up Mooney, handle this one differently it's not working. Unfortunately it's over and might bite us just like Radford last season.
Golden acknowledges haven't been good enough. That team is not meeting expectations. So good to recognize it. Right attitude. I didn't see what Mooney had to say postgame but I'd be surprised if along these lines, he usually doesn't go there. I think Grant realizes making waves nationally is lost at least for a good while.
I would quibble with "still 6-2" stuff. While I think a few of these teams can do well in their own conf play, still 6-2 has a lot of issues. It's not as good as you think with the schedule. With likely the most veteran team in the country with our ability across the board falling back on 6-2 is fool's gold. We are in a dangerous spot and we need to come out gangbusters in league play boys.
Regroup for a few days, ok to be pissed off, enjoy family time at Xmas as much as possible but come back with an urgency off the charts please.
Golden acknowledges haven't been good enough. That team is not meeting expectations. So good to recognize it. Right attitude. I didn't see what Mooney had to say postgame but I'd be surprised if along these lines, he usually doesn't go there. I think Grant realizes making waves nationally is lost at least for a good while.
I would quibble with "still 6-2" stuff. While I think a few of these teams can do well in their own conf play, still 6-2 has a lot of issues. It's not as good as you think with the schedule. With likely the most veteran team in the country with our ability across the board falling back on 6-2 is fool's gold. We are in a dangerous spot and we need to come out gangbusters in league play boys.
Regroup for a few days, ok to be pissed off, enjoy family time at Xmas as much as possible but come back with an urgency off the charts please.
“Change things up Mooney”, fat chance. How many years to change the defense. The guy is average at best. Imagine what the talent on this team could do with a better than average coach.
Just an anecdote but got a text from a distant cousin I don’t hear from too much that said "Hofstra? Really?". He's into bball but just shows ppl had been noticing us & we blew it.
also from a UR friend who follows closely saying all the media capital from Goodman Rothstein Katz is gone. He’s right. No anecdote there.
Will be very hard to get that back. Now we drop into the dime a dozen non p6 group when we were well positioned preseason and also recently in season to capitalize. Comes around so rarely yet this veteran team & 15 year coach couldn’t take advantage.
It’s just flat out disappointing. I’ll be rooting hard for them like always but the expectations r unchanged even tho we’ve made lot more difficult. This isn’t a let’s get on bubble catch lightning in a bottle & see what happens kind of year. Its so much more & time to deliver.
If Jupiter & Saturn can do it so can the Spiders.
also from a UR friend who follows closely saying all the media capital from Goodman Rothstein Katz is gone. He’s right. No anecdote there.
Will be very hard to get that back. Now we drop into the dime a dozen non p6 group when we were well positioned preseason and also recently in season to capitalize. Comes around so rarely yet this veteran team & 15 year coach couldn’t take advantage.
It’s just flat out disappointing. I’ll be rooting hard for them like always but the expectations r unchanged even tho we’ve made lot more difficult. This isn’t a let’s get on bubble catch lightning in a bottle & see what happens kind of year. Its so much more & time to deliver.
If Jupiter & Saturn can do it so can the Spiders.
The ranking was nice, but that doesn't really matter. I like what Grant said. It has not been an impressive 6-2, but it is 6-2. No matter how Hofstra does this year and where they finish, we should not have lost this game today. Everyone knows this. But, it happens. The bottom line is we need to be first or second in the A-10. That is the main thing this year, and much more important than a ranking or today's out of conference game. So, let's regroup and come back better and get on an A-10 roll. Whether we won today or not, we would still need to start the A-10 season off right, so let's go!
yeah but a 10 year NCAA drought feels like it. Also Mooney apparently gets 800 years if he wants.
I think a lot of voters will move us down several spots this week. A home loss to Hofstra is an attention grabber.
Right, that athletic article made it sound like it was a stroke of genius to change up the d. It was flat out broken drunk in the gutter broke for 5 years and genius decided to change it up. Sometimes the head coach needs to provide the fire. Hell, I remember my high school coach when we were playing a bad team and he knew a letdown was coming. He gave us a number to win by or we were starting practice with suicides until we puked. Not saying that exact technique flies today, whatever he is doing is not working.
And wish we would throw in a 1-3-1 or something to mix it up once in awhile.
nice? Spoken like a guy who hasn’t been around long.
its not everything but it does matter. More than nice. Esp when it happens just a couple times in 35 years and it’s well within our capability.
grant said some good things I mentioned this elsewhere but the still 6-2 wasn’t one of them. not easy to answer questions after losses he gets a pass. Yeah 6-2 could be worse. Less than 6-2 would almost be unfathomable tho. Like almost unrecoverable from when u consider some league losses r likely. We can recover from 6-2 to get where we want but it’s not a position of strength when u look at the numbers. Again this isn’t let’s be a bubble team. We’ve seen it done on Broad St. seen in done at UD. Our turn. I’m not saying anything that is unreasonable within the team either.
After today, UVA is like, “Hey, are you guys free tomorrow?”
This would be a perfect time for the debut of my 5-0 ‘propeller’ defense. Everyone forms a line, holds hands and rotates in a circular fashion following the ball, while the center remains in the same spot. I feel it has great potential.
Lol. We’ve called every single team in the country. Of course I wish we could FOIA the phone records on that Moon statement. But some callbacks should be coming.
I think Mooney’s coaching is all over this. He responded to the bad halves at Vandy and Loyola by saying the problem was we needed to keep scoring and that it was inevitable the other team would come back etc. It was clear in both games and at plenty of other times that our defense and intensity were the problems, not our offense. Those two problems showed up big time today and even with zone struggles and three point shooting woes, we were still actually ok (not good) offensively today. But the defense was terrible, especially down the stretch again. Believe they made 10 of last 11 and know they had 3 straight dunks/layups at the most crucial junctures. We got away with it in other games, but it needed to be fixed. Instead, we tried to blind Ourselves to it with a few more nice buckets on offense
Watched SDSU tonight. They had an ugly loss to BYU last time out. Came back with a blow out of a decent St. Mary's team. Difference is the defensive end. They play with an enormous amount of intensity from the tip off. Really a great mind set to make everything hard on every possession. We do not have that instilled by our coach. If not he needs to scheme better.
This was devastating. No way to sugarcoat it. I was excited about grabbing national attention with the polls. It is a true sense of pride to be recognized as a Top 25. And with this team, we absolutely should be there. The players are fantastic. The reality check hit hard today - Mooney is still our coach. I was very hopeful that the fire Hardt or the billboard lit under his ass was going to do the trick. I was shocked that he switched the defense and emphasized toughness and rebounds last year, but is the same ole Mooney back?
This is the only sports team I follow or care about or watch for that matter. But I am 100% in on our Spiders Basketball team. It is a tremendous source of pride for me and our school. Being in the top 25 was a huge deal. That's why it hurts so incredibly bad when we blow it.
It takes so much to be successful because the definition of success is not just to win more than you lose. It is to be in the Top 25, to make the Tournament, to make a run in it...It takes the whole season to be successful, but seems to take 1 game to pop it.
I have to reach deep to understand why I do this. There is an enormous pain in my gut quite literally since yesterday. The pain is so much easier to come by than the glory of success, simply because of the number of wins required to counter a loss.
This season can still be saved, but our backs are against the wall. We had high expectations to make a solid run in the dance, which is still possible, but we'll have to do it from a cinderella standpoint now. I guess that's where we are most comfortable, though.
But first things first, we must acknowledge that we have a tremendous uphill battle to get in the Tournament now. It seems to me a 14-4 record in the A-10 would be required, maybe 13-5 with a run to the finals in the A-10 tourny but that would be shaky at best. Those are difficult things, a lot more difficult than beating Hofstra say. Dayton, St. Louis, vcu, Davidson will be major challenges. And we are likely to lose at least one outside of that group. It is possible with these guys, but it will be very tough.
The Spiders are an addiction that is probably very bad for my health. But I can't stop.
It takes so much to be successful because the definition of success is not just to win more than you lose. It is to be in the Top 25, to make the Tournament, to make a run in it...It takes the whole season to be successful, but seems to take 1 game to pop it.
I have to reach deep to understand why I do this. There is an enormous pain in my gut quite literally since yesterday. The pain is so much easier to come by than the glory of success, simply because of the number of wins required to counter a loss.
This season can still be saved, but our backs are against the wall. We had high expectations to make a solid run in the dance, which is still possible, but we'll have to do it from a cinderella standpoint now. I guess that's where we are most comfortable, though.
But first things first, we must acknowledge that we have a tremendous uphill battle to get in the Tournament now. It seems to me a 14-4 record in the A-10 would be required, maybe 13-5 with a run to the finals in the A-10 tourny but that would be shaky at best. Those are difficult things, a lot more difficult than beating Hofstra say. Dayton, St. Louis, vcu, Davidson will be major challenges. And we are likely to lose at least one outside of that group. It is possible with these guys, but it will be very tough.
The Spiders are an addiction that is probably very bad for my health. But I can't stop.
Last edited:
mr. , I feel your pain, you are a good fan. Couple suggestions: Find an interest in some other teams to distract you from Richmond basketball. Second, get old 
. I have had moderate success with both of these, I am rooting for the team but not all in like the past. As I told '05 on here, I was all aboard the Mooney bandwagon if he could have landed Schieffelin or a similar player, but that didn't happen, so same old same old. I was just buying into the " a team in the A10 cannot possibly land stud 6'8' players" mantra, then Dayton landed one, then another, and one more. BUT, that is what being highly ranked for a season does for you - keeps you in the spotlight. Enjoy the holidays and don't stress about the Spiders - I smell a 5-0 start in the A10 and we are all back on board.
. I have had moderate success with both of these, I am rooting for the team but not all in like the past. As I told '05 on here, I was all aboard the Mooney bandwagon if he could have landed Schieffelin or a similar player, but that didn't happen, so same old same old. I was just buying into the " a team in the A10 cannot possibly land stud 6'8' players" mantra, then Dayton landed one, then another, and one more. BUT, that is what being highly ranked for a season does for you - keeps you in the spotlight. Enjoy the holidays and don't stress about the Spiders - I smell a 5-0 start in the A10 and we are all back on board.Thank you. I appreciate the perspective. But I couldn't possibly find another team to support. I support this team because it is my school. The pride in my team is the only thing that drives me to support them. I have zero understanding of how someone is able to support a team they have little or no personal affiliation with. I personally would never invest the time.
I also care a lot about how others view our team. I want others to recognize us. Top 25 does that. NCAAs do that. It also builds recruiting, like we pointed out with Dayton. This is the same reason I am a million times more supportive of Spiders basketball vs Spiders football. I don't deal well with playing for 2nd (like an NIT birth or an FCS championship). I am not able to enjoy a single game without the perspective of playing towards a championship. For example, the vcu game means nothing to me if we find ourselves not in the running for an at-large bid.
I wouldn't call it an uphill battle to make the dance
..either we are good enough, or we aren't. It's all about A-10 play this year. Yes, we likely need to go 14-4 to make the dance, but how is that any different if we beat Hofstra? With teams playing fewer OOC games this year, and some playing way less or more than others, there will be a much bigger focus on conference play. Without a lot of OOC data this year, we probably needed a 1st or 2nd place A-10 finish to feel safe for the dance anyway. So, losing to Hofstra doesn't change that. I agree we should have won yesterday, but all is not lost. Everything is still in front of us. As for the ranking, it was cool to be ranked, but this year there is a lot less relevance to that. It was nice for us to talk about it, but I doubt too many people are paying much attention to the rankings this year. And, if we do well in A-10 play, maybe an 8-2 start with some quality wins, that could get us back in the rankings discussion at 14-4 anyway.
not too many ppl pay attention to rankings? No only the millions on espn cbs the newspapers etc. Having that number by your name is invaluable for school like UR.
Or just go to Hardt and he’ll tell u about a thing called the REGATTA!!
dont think u should minimize imo. The rest of what u wrote has truth but again this isn’t about scooting into the dance w a 12 seed. This year is about making a real statement. And every loss but esp a bad loss at home as 14 pt favorites takes u farther away. Yes we’ll get in going 1 or 2 in league play but it no doubt hurts your reg season ceiling which in turn can factor into post season ceiling.
Or just go to Hardt and he’ll tell u about a thing called the REGATTA!!
dont think u should minimize imo. The rest of what u wrote has truth but again this isn’t about scooting into the dance w a 12 seed. This year is about making a real statement. And every loss but esp a bad loss at home as 14 pt favorites takes u farther away. Yes we’ll get in going 1 or 2 in league play but it no doubt hurts your reg season ceiling which in turn can factor into post season ceiling.
If we had beaten Hofstra, we would still be ranked and in the discussion. Leads to a better chance.
If we hadn't lost to Hofstra, we wouldn't have a questionable loss for the committee to consider.
If we hadn't lost to Hofstra, we may have needed one less win in A-10.
If we hadn't lost to Hofstra, we wouldn't have a questionable loss for the committee to consider.
If we hadn't lost to Hofstra, we may have needed one less win in A-10.
I agree with everything but the "gelling in late January/February" part. Besides maybe last year, when did that happen over the past 8 years? Did we make an A10 championship I dont remember?
I hear you, G, but this year with everything going on, how many people outside of Richmond even knew we were ranked? I'm not saying it wasn't cool or wasn't good for the program, but no one is playing for a ranking right now. And, we probably would have needed to win nearly every A-10 game to stay ranked anyway once the power teams starting getting all these "good wins" in their conferences. Look at last week. We won twice, and got passed by power teams. Yes, a ranking is nice, but an A-10 title is better.
Most college basketball fans pay attention to the rankings. Also, a teams score scrolls across ESPN more if ranked, top 25 scores are announced on the radio and TV. Its about getting as much attention for the program as possible. Not even you, VT4700, can argue that being ranked doesn't get a school more national attention. Its just good for the program.
Maybe, but I doubt it. Hofstra will have a good year. This won't be a sub 200 loss or anything. And, we won't be competing with Hofstra for a bid. We will be competing with other A-10 teams. If we finish 3rd, that is likely 2 teams ahead of us in the at large order, whether we had beaten Hofstra or not. I don't know if our conference as a whole will have enough out of conference data to get more than two teams in this year. We need a 1st or 2nd place A-10 finish to feel safe this year. Nothing has changed.
Yes, I know it's good for the program. I just finished saying that. But, it is certainly not everything, especially this year. We can still do everything we set out to do this year. Also, we can't control rankings. We can control our other goals. Had we stayed ranked most of the year, and not won the regular season or tournament titles, or a game in the dance, are we really looking back saying at least we were ranked?
