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Interesting, I had not heard anything about O'boyle either until I asked sman yesterday. My Spider sense I guess.

On another note, the Jay Pal recruiting situation has me thinking we are becoming victim to what I am going to term the "NIL trickle down effect". Jay Pal looks like a solid player, and would be excited to land him.

Here is the trickle down, based on what I know from following SDSU - just using them as reference because I am very familiar with their recruiting and portal work. SDSU, coming off playing in the title game, just lost out to Nebraska on a good, but not great player. It sounds like said player is getting $300,000.00 for his grad season at Nebraska, which would 5+ years salary in the G league. Case 2, Warren Washington. 7 foot grad transfer, rim protector. Played at ASU this season. Was widely thought to be going to SDSU when Mensah left last year, but Mensah came back. Seemed like a perfect fit to replace Mensah this year. However, again rumors that big NIL deals await at Texas Tech and TCU.

Leads us to Jay Pal. Sounds like SDSU may have interest now. And I am sure other teams that couldn't compete for better players due to NIL entering the scrum. Not sure that SDSU and some other teams would be that interested, but if you don't have NIL bucks to compete, you are looking at a different market. Sooo, I think this is going to really restrict us from landing another strong contributor. Hopefully I am wrong and would give Moon some nice kudos if he can do it.
 
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And with that, Utah State joins 4 other schools who we've lost 2 transfer targets to:

South Carolina: BJ Mack & Stephen Clark
George Mason: Darius Maddox & Jared Billups
Rice: Anthony Selden & Sam Alijiki
Santa Clara: Johnny O'Neil & Jalen Benjamin
Utah State: Josh Uduje and Darius Brown
 
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MDspider8 said:
And with that, Utah State joins 4 other schools who we've lost 2 transfer targets to:

South Carolina: BJ Mack & Stephen Clark
George Mason: Darius Maddox & Jared Billups
Rice: Anthony Selden & Sam Alijiki
Santa Clara: Johnny O'Neil & Jalen Benjamin
Utah State: Josh Uduje and Darius Brown
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well we reached out to like 60 guys that we know of.
so we planned on losing out on about 57 of them.
 
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Yep, just imagine how good shape we would be in if we landed O'neil and Brown from the list above.
I think our best hope at this point is A) Burton back - which I do think is possible B) big time production from at least two of the following: Dji/Smith pairing, and Noyes/Tanner/Bigs. And keep Quinn healthy.
 
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Live look at the Giper as he checks the portal tonight.

john-travolta-meme.gif
 
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There are still some guys out there, so I am not giving up hope on landing another impact guy. King is a huge addition, and if Tyler comes back, I think we will be better than last year. But, better than 15-18 is not saying a lot, so if we don't land another impact guy, a few things need to happen for us to be a lot better than last year:

1. Tyler comes back.
2. Tyler finds his 3 point stroke and shoots 35+% from there.
3. Smith is a factor right away, and a key part of the rotation.
4. Bigs steps up and is a bigger factor offensively to go with everything else he brings.
4. Noyes or Tanner (I would say Noyes since he is in year 3 now) gives us scoring and solid play off the bench.

* So, I pretty much am agreeing with 23 as far as what the keys are for us next year.

I feel like we kind of know what the other guys will bring. I expect King to be one of our top scorers and one of our best players, and Roche to be a better scorer than last year, and our best 3 point guy. If Quinn stays healthy, he should keep improving and add to what he did last year. Hopefully, we see solid improvement from Walz and Dji, but not counting on either one to be a key scorer.
 
spiders13 said:
kind of depressing
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Yeah, it is. I don't care what anyone says, you can't only have 10 scholarship players on the roster. I know Mooney is immune from any consequences, but if he can't fill out a complete roster, he might as well stick a big "Fire me" sign on his back and walk around the Robins Center. Hardt won't do any anyway cause he appears impotent, a figurehead AD, who answers to Queally-Mooney, probably in that order.
 
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VT4700 said:
There are still some guys out there, so I am not giving up hope on landing another impact guy. King is a huge addition, and if Tyler comes back, I think we will be better than last year. But, better than 15-18 is not saying a lot, so if we don't land another impact guy, a few things need to happen for us to be a lot better than last year:

1. Tyler comes back.
2. Tyler finds his 3 point stroke and shoots 35+% from there.
3. Smith is a factor right away, and a key part of the rotation.
4. Bigs steps up and is a bigger factor offensively to go with everything else he brings.
4. Noyes or Tanner (I would say Noyes since he is in year 3 now) gives us scoring and solid play off the bench.

* So, I pretty much am agreeing with 23 as far as what the keys are for us next year.

I feel like we kind of know what the other guys will bring. I expect King to be one of our top scorers and one of our best players, and Roche to be a better scorer than last year, and our best 3 point guy. If Quinn stays healthy, he should keep improving and add to what he did last year. Hopefully, we see solid improvement from Walz and Dji, but not counting on either one to be a key scorer.
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so all we need is a miraculous alignment of the stars and we will be able to improve on 15-18. Man those glory days of 24-7 seem so long ago 😢
 
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8legs1dream said:
so all we need is a miraculous alignment of the stars and we will be able to improve on 15-18. Man those glory days of 24-7 seem so long ago 😢
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Right, we were 15-18 last year. We lost 3 starters off of that team and an important role player and have added back one starter. Simple math says we are a worse team than last year, right now. And I have no idea what Tyler is going to do but if he leaves, we are really screwed. But if we can't add any high caliber players in the portal, I can't see anyway this team is anything more than a middling .500 squad.

I'm sure Mooney will sign some portal players because he doesn't want to look like completely incompetent, but the question right now, is will those players be roster filler type players or players that actually make an impact. With each passing day, the chances of the former happening increase.
 
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97spiderfan said:
Right, we were 15-18 last year. We lost 3 starters off of that team and an important role player and have added back one starter. Simple math says we are a worse team than last year, right now. And I have no idea what Tyler is going to do but if he leaves, we are really screwed. But if we can't add any high caliber players in the portal, I can't see anyway this team is anything more than a middling .500 squad.

I'm sure Mooney will sign some portal players because he doesn't want to look like completely incompetent, but the question right now, is will those players be roster filler type players or players that actually make an impact. With each passing day, the chances of the former happening increase.
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It's kind of funny that you, of all people, bring up losing 3 starters like they are major, how will we win without them, starters when you probably criticized all 3 of them as much as anyone during their careers here.

And, I don't think the math is as simple as you are making it. I appreciate what both Goose and Grace brought, but my math says Roche can be as good or better than Goose as a starter, Bigs can be as good as or better than Grace as a starter, and King can be a ton better than Nelson as a starter. I don't think it can be said enough how important King will be at PG.

Yes, Goose was very good defensively, but Roche is clearly better offensively. I really like what Grace brought, and he gave us some good offense with his inside game and 3 point shooting, but Bigs does a little bit of everything, and no question he is a better rebounder than Grace. I also think both Roche and Bigs will be better all around players this year than they were last year.

No question, as of now, we will likely struggle if Tyler does not come back, but if he does, I definitely like a possible line up of King, Roche, Tyler, Bigs, and Quinn a lot better than a line up of Nelson, Goose, Tyler, Grace, and Quinn.

Which leads us to the bench, and what I said earlier about the importance of getting production from Smith, Noyes, or Tanner.

So, math or no math, I do think we are a better team right now than last year, but no question, we could use another impact player to be a lot better.
 
VT4700 said:
It's kind of funny that you, of all people, bring up losing 3 starters like they are major, how will we win without them, starters when you probably criticized all 3 of them as much as anyone during their careers here.

And, I don't think the math is as simple as you are making it. I appreciate what both Goose and Grace brought, but my math says Roche can be as good or better than Goose as a starter, Bigs can be as good as or better than Grace as a starter, and King can be a ton better than Nelson as a starter. I don't think it can be said enough how important King will be at PG.

Yes, Goose was very good defensively, but Roche is clearly better offensively. I really like what Grace brought, and he gave us some good offense with his inside game and 3 point shooting, but Bigs does a little bit of everything, and no question he is a better rebounder than Grace. I also think both Roche and Bigs will be better all around players this year than they were last year.

No question, as of now, we will likely struggle if Tyler does not come back, but if he does, I definitely like a possible line up of King, Roche, Tyler, Bigs, and Quinn a lot better than a line up of Nelson, Goose, Tyler, Grace, and Quinn.

Which leads us to the bench, and what I said earlier about the importance of getting production from Smith, Noyes, or Tanner.

So, math or no math, I do think we are a better team right now than last year, but no question, we could use another impact player to be a lot better.
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I don’t think we’re a better team today but I do agree that the potential is better than the potential given the players you listed.

I wonder if there was a point last year where the coaching staff could’ve pivoted harder to the future. Sort of felt like it happened with Nelson, at least away from him. Not so much with roche or bigs.
 
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MrTbone said:
I don’t think we’re a better team today but I do agree that the potential is better than the potential given the players you listed.

I wonder if there was a point last year where the coaching staff could’ve pivoted harder to the future. Sort of felt like it happened with Nelson, at least away from him. Not so much with roche or bigs.
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I have said many times I don't like worrying about the future, and I am a best guys play guy, trying to win right now, BUT, things were not working pretty much all year last year. The consistency was never there, and as a result, I would have liked to see more Noyes, and also see how we could have done with Roche playing big minutes.
 
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VT4700 said:
I have said many times I don't like worrying about the future, and I am a best guys play guy, trying to win right now, BUT, things were not working pretty much all year last year. The consistency was never there, and as a result, I would have liked to see more Noyes, and also see how we could have done with Roche playing big minutes.
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Yeah, totally agree you don’t play for the future unless you know it’s kind of a lost cause. I don’t know that we ever really hit that point, at least if we did it wasn’t obvious to me it was a clear shift in strategy.
 
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MrTbone said:
Yeah, totally agree you don’t play for the future unless you know it’s kind of a lost cause. I don’t know that we ever really hit that point, at least if we did it wasn’t obvious to me it was a clear shift in strategy.
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With college basketball, I can see holding on because you always have hope some magic can happen in the conference tourney. So, to me, the season is never really over until it is, but, last year, I don't think it would have been any dramatic change to give Roche more minutes, or see what Noyes can do with 10 minute games here and there. It's not like we were asking for 5 brand new guys out there. So, I think there are times when you can play younger guys more, and still try to win now because maybe, just maybe, those young guys will make you a little better. One of those times would have and should have been around the 20-22 game mark last year.

And, if, in my example, if Noyes struggled for about 5 games when given some decent time, and Roche didn't make us better when he played more, then with 4 or 5 games left, go back to what we started with if you want to and you can still hope for the magic in the conference tourney.
 
Without Tyler, it will be hard for even Mooney to say we competed. 11-22 this season, TOPS! I am being very optimistic that we win 11.
 
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VT4700 said:
It's kind of funny that you, of all people, bring up losing 3 starters like they are major, how will we win without them, starters when you probably criticized all 3 of them as much as anyone during their careers here.

And, I don't think the math is as simple as you are making it. I appreciate what both Goose and Grace brought, but my math says Roche can be as good or better than Goose as a starter, Bigs can be as good as or better than Grace as a starter, and King can be a ton better than Nelson as a starter. I don't think it can be said enough how important King will be at PG.

Yes, Goose was very good defensively, but Roche is clearly better offensively. I really like what Grace brought, and he gave us some good offense with his inside game and 3 point shooting, but Bigs does a little bit of everything, and no question he is a better rebounder than Grace. I also think both Roche and Bigs will be better all around players this year than they were last year.

No question, as of now, we will likely struggle if Tyler does not come back, but if he does, I definitely like a possible line up of King, Roche, Tyler, Bigs, and Quinn a lot better than a line up of Nelson, Goose, Tyler, Grace, and Quinn.

Which leads us to the bench, and what I said earlier about the importance of getting production from Smith, Noyes, or Tanner.

So, math or no math, I do think we are a better team right now than last year, but no question, we could use another impact player to be a lot better.
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Yes, that is true. I was not enamored with Grace and Goose and Jaynel play went into the sh*tter as they year went on. I would have loved for Mooney to bench Goose multiple times last year and gotten Roche starter level minutes, but that is not the choice he made.

But the fact is they were 3 starters and quite obviously they got their minutes because the coaching staff thought they were the superior options over our other options. So, to come into a season where those inferior options according to the coaching staff and minute distribution are now all of a sudden elevated into much bigger roles AND given the fact that we don't have anywhere close to a full roster right now, I don't see how anyone could look at what Mooney has done and say we are now a better team.

That is just some wishful thinking if you think that, in my opinion. King makes us better, that is for sure, but we were way more than 1 quality player away from being a good team last year.
 
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SpiderK said:
Without Tyler, it will be hard for even Mooney to say we competed. 11-22 this season, TOPS! I am being very optimistic that we win 11.
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We will be bad that is for sure, but remember we will schedule probably 6-7 OOC cream puffs, so there is 6-7 wins right there. Add into that winning a 4-5 games in a watered down 1 bid A-10 league is really doable. I think it is almost impossible to win less than probably 13-14 games at Richmond. But I do agree if Tyler doesn't come back, we are cooked and we can't even say we have a whole roster full of young guys who we are developing because that isn't the case either.
 
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At this point, it seems that Spiders are most likely to add a couple of fillers from the portal. These lower grade fillers will do nothing to enhance an 15-18 team without Burton.

King is def an upgrade. And, Quinn, Roche, Bigelow, Bailey, and Noyes SHOULD be at least somewhat improved with age & maturity alone. We don't know who among this group has worked hard in the off-season to get significantly better, nor do we know who may be ready to take a step up.

The optimist Nostradamus would likely predict a 18-15 season, but with an outside chance of being a bit better. My guess is that this is close to what we will see.

The pessimist Nostradamus would naturally point out that a major problem will be the same as it is every season. The maestro will fail to organize the parts successfully, and he will do a poor job from the bench. If poor coaching overwhelms the improvement of the parts, then I see another 14-18 type of season.
 
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97spiderfan said:
Yes, that is true. I was not enamored with Grace and Goose and Jaynel play went into the sh*tter as they year went on. I would have loved for Mooney to bench Goose multiple times last year and gotten Roche starter level minutes, but that is not the choice he made.

But the fact is they were 3 starters and quite obviously they got their minutes because the coaching staff thought they were the superior options over our other options. So, to come into a season where those inferior options according to the coaching staff and minute distribution are now all of a sudden elevated into much bigger roles AND given the fact that we don't have anywhere close to a full roster right now, I don't see how anyone could look at what Mooney has done and say we are now a better team.

That is just some wishful thinking if you think that, in my opinion. King makes us better, that is for sure, but we were way more than 1 quality player away from being a good team last year.
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I see your point about the starters, but what I would say to that is if those guys could come back this year, and we struggled again, maybe we actually do make the changes and become a better team. It looks like we will get to find out, and if Roche and Bigs start, I just don't see any drop off there. Just the opposite. I see us better. And, then add in the King and Nelson comparison, and to me, it just feels like a better team. Compare the guards: Nelson/Goose or King/Roche? Is that even a debate? But, again, I do see your point here, so time will tell.
 
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I think the pieces are in place to be better, but everything has to go right ... Burton coming back, health, and player development. there's no margin right now because we're shorthanded, but the portal isn't closed. I do think we'll add depth, but not likely top of the rotation guys at this point.

and that COULD work fine. I'm excited to see Bigs, Noyes, Roche and Dji in bigger roles. I'm excited to see what we have in King, Smith and Tanner. obviously it would be easier to be optimistic if we had landed a couple more guys by now. we didn't, so the guys we have will get their shot. and that might be a good thing.
 
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Just think how excited everyone would be if King and Roche were coming off the seasons they had 2 years ago:

King 97-226 from 3 (42.9%).
Roche 110-277 from 3 (39.7%).

King 14.6 PPG.
Roche 13.2 PPG.

These guys are shooters and scorers. Give them a lot of minutes and if they shoot anywhere close to this, the whole team on the floor becomes that much better.
 
So many unknowns that are currently being penciled in, hard to see better results if Tyler is not back (I think he should not return unless there’s a 100k+ NIL I’m unaware of.)

Agree that improved PG play is vital - UR prob left 3-4 wins on the table last year without a steady end game PG.

As for it being impossible to not win 14 games at UR, one doesn’t have to go back far to break that statement into pieces (twice no less.)
 
VT4700 said:
Just think how excited everyone would be if King and Roche were coming off the seasons they had 2 years ago:

King 97-226 from 3 (42.9%).
Roche 110-277 from 3 (39.7%).

King 14.6 PPG.
Roche 13.2 PPG.

These guys are shooters and scorers. Give them a lot of minutes and if they shoot anywhere close to this, the whole team on the floor becomes that much better.
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yeah and then your boy handled Roche about as well as an octopus on a bicycle
 
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