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Vincent Chaudhri - 2025 Offer

Recruiting high school kids is so 2018...
lol. I think we're going back to it.
you'll still see transfers next year, but with the grad transfer extra years done, I don't think as many strong players will trickle down to us going forward.
 
I think it may be an area we can exploit a bit. While the high major schools are chasing portal recruits, the hs guys in the top 150 range are not getting as much attention.
Mooney has been a below average high school recruiter and above average portal recruiter. I prefer he recruits to his areas of strength.
 
Mentions of SLU, Tennessee, and Cal in the recent mix as well, but not necessarily offering yet.

 
Mooney has been a below average high school recruiter and above average portal recruiter. I prefer he recruits to his areas of strength.
he's done well in the bonus-year portal when we've had 1,700-2,000 entries.
we'll go back to about 1,000 next year. and there will be a lot of high majors filling holes from all the grad transfers they took this year.

I think we better hit the AAU circuit hard this summer.
 
Yep, agree sman - haven't given much thought to how the covid year expiration will impact the portal numbers, but we need to keep recruiting h.s. guys. I hear what 97 is saying on Mooney's lack of success on the h.s. level, but a couple things. I think last couple years have been looking up on hs front. I'm still high on Soulis (as were Rick Pitino and Randy Bennett). Tyne was a good pick up. And Smith transferred but was well thought of, and hopeful on Tanner. Really have high hopes on McGlothin, and Robinson has some athletic skills and size we havent seen since D Garrett. So I do think on an uptick, but I know TBD. If under sman's theory the portal inventory shrinks - it will be harder to land these impact guys. So while we are doing well in portal, I think we need to go in with the idea that we are building a team from hs guys. If and when we have holes - then go portal. I do think the p6 will continue to be a turnstile with portal transfer and we can benefit in near term with better hs recruits.
 
No reason we can't keep attracting the kind of transfer guys we have been IMO. We have the NIL money, recent track record of success, great facilities, etc. Might see one or two of these kind of guys go a level higher but generally I think we will still be attractive to the majority of these guys.
 
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Mooney has been a below average high school recruiter and above average portal recruiter. I prefer he recruits to his areas of strength.
Other than Justin Harper, Geriot, Kevin Anderson, Kevin Smith, (should I go on)
Gilly, GG, Sherod, Buckingham, Tynes, Cayo, Tyler Burton...i'm sure I am missing a few

It is also possible, many 18 year olds don't see the value in what Richmond can offer, but after a year or two or broken promises in the college game, seeing Richmond through the lense of a 20 or 21 year old strikes a different chord. who knows......

But we will go w your narrative...
 
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Other than Justin Harper, Geriot, Kevin Anderson, Kevin Smith, (should I go on)
Gilly, GG, Sherod, Buckingham, Tynes, Cayo, Tyler Burton...i'm sure I am missing a few

It is also possible, many 18 year olds don't see the value in what Richmond can offer, but after a year or two or broken promises in the college game, seeing Richmond through the lense of a 20 or 21 year old strikes a different chord. who knows......

But we will go w your narrative...
I think it’s a fair assessment to say that Mooney and staff have been a below average high school recruiters for the A10. Yes, they have brought in a lot of great players over the years, but also a lot of players who did not pan out at the A10 level and transferred. They don’t all need to be first team A10 level players, but to be successful, we need more of the former than the latter when it comes to recruiting. Not to say it’s entirely on the staff’s recruiting ability either. There may have been other self-imposed restrictions by the University, which limited us in recruiting. I am hoping that has changed.

I also think that Mooney and staff have been above average transfer portal recruiters. The proof is in the pudding too. Our last two A10 conference players of the year (TJ and King) were transfers. Especially now with transfers not needing to sit out a year and with NIL, I think we should play to our strengths and focus on the transfer portal more compared to high school. There are too many unknown variables in high school and how a 16-17 year old will develop in the division 1, A10 level. With transfers, we have the benefit of seeing how players have adjusted and performed at the collegiate level for 2-3 years. Even guys like Apostolos and GW3 who were highly touted in high school and didn’t have the chance to show case their talents at top P5 programs, still have a year or two of college basketball under their belt where they practice among the best every day.
 
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I think it’s a fair assessment to say that Mooney and staff have been a below average high school recruiters for the A10. Yes, they have brought in a lot of great players over the years, but also a lot of players who did not pan out at the A10 level and transferred. They don’t all need to be first team A10 level players, but to be successful, we need more of the former than the latter when it comes to recruiting. Not to say it’s entirely on the staff’s recruiting ability either. There may have been other self-imposed restrictions by the University, which limited us in recruiting. I am hoping that has changed.

I also think that Mooney and staff have been above average transfer portal recruiters. The proof is in the pudding too. Our last two A10 conference players of the year (TJ and King) were transfers. Especially now with transfers not needing to sit out a year and with NIL, I think we should play to our strengths and focus on the transfer portal more compared to high school. There are too many unknown variables in high school and how a 16-17 year old will develop in the division 1, A10 level. With transfers, we have the benefit of seeing how players have adjusted and performed at the collegiate level for 2-3 years. Even guys like Apostolos and GW3 who were highly touted in high school and didn’t have the chance to show case their talents at top P5 programs, still have a year or two of college basketball under their belt where they practice among the best every day.
I think that you think it should be easy to recruit players to Richmond.
I’m not sure I understand that thinking.
 
I think that you think it should be easy to recruit players to Richmond.
I’m not sure I understand that thinking.
I acknowledged that there may have been more self-imposed restrictions we have from our administration that makes it harder for us to recruit high school students, and hopefully that has changed according to some posters on here. If we want to be a top 4 A10 team consistently and have shown commitment towards that I.e. We have top level A10 facilities and top level A10 NIL, then we should also put our coaching staff in a position to recruit at an A10 level from an academic perspective as well.

To go back to my larger point, Mooney has done a great job of recruiting transfer portal players that have had an immediate impact on our team. Mooney’s best teams have always been ones with players who have had a lot of college experience. When we won the tournament in 2022, we had 2, 6th year seniors and 2, 5th year seniors on our team. Last year we had several 4 and 5th year seniors. So rather than getting a high school player and hope they turn out to be really good by year 3 or 4 (or in rarer cases like Gilly where they make an immediate impact day 1), I think we should focus on recruiting transfer players more who have had proven level success at lower levels looking to play up a level for 1-3 years or players from top P5 programs who haven’t had the chance to showcase their talents, but still have 1-2 years of college experience under their belt. Especially now where transfers can play immediately and NIL is a factor too. This isn’t to say that we ignore high school recruiting, but rather invest more time in transfers, in my opinion. GW3 was the first ever consensus top 100 recruit (high school or transfer) we have ever had commit to UR and he came as a transfer with 3 years left. I don’t think we would have gotten him to come here straight out of high school.
 
Other than Justin Harper, Geriot, Kevin Anderson, Kevin Smith, (should I go on)
Gilly, GG, Sherod, Buckingham, Tynes, Cayo, Tyler Burton...i'm sure I am missing a few

It is also possible, many 18 year olds don't see the value in what Richmond can offer, but after a year or two or broken promises in the college game, seeing Richmond through the lense of a 20 or 21 year old strikes a different chord. who knows......

But we will go w your narrative...
Dude, he has been our coach for 18 years and you cite 11 players. And that is proving your point. Yes, you are missing some good high school recruits, Ced, Shawndre, Kendall Anthony come to mind. Y

Look at this another way, since the Gilly class, here are the list of Mooney high school recruits over the most recent 5 year period.

Wojcic (miss)
Goose (hit)
Verbinskis (miss)
Sal (miss)
Schneider (miss)
Grace (outside of the A-10 tourney shots, largely a miss)
Burton (hit-star)
Dji (hit (1 year though)
Wilson (miss)
Noyes (miss)
JayNel (miss)
Randolph (miss)
Dread (miss)
Walz (TBD)

So, in 5 years, he has recruited from high school, 1 all A-10 player in Burton, 2 players that were servicable A-10 players (Goose, Grace) and Dji who had 1 great year for us. Over 70% of the high school players recuited during this time were undeniable misses. Guys that barely played and made no impact in the program.

So, please go on and lecture me about my "narrative".
 
Dude, he has been our coach for 18 years and you cite 11 players. And that is proving your point. Yes, you are missing some good high school recruits, Ced, Shawndre, Kendall Anthony come to mind. Y

Look at this another way, since the Gilly class, here are the list of Mooney high school recruits over the most recent 5 year period.

Wojcic (miss)
Goose (hit)
Verbinskis (miss)
Sal (miss)
Schneider (miss)
Grace (outside of the A-10 tourney shots, largely a miss)
Burton (hit-star)
Dji (hit (1 year though)
Wilson (miss)
Noyes (miss)
JayNel (miss)
Randolph (miss)
Dread (miss)
Walz (TBD)

So, in 5 years, he has recruited from high school, 1 all A-10 player in Burton, 2 players that were servicable A-10 players (Goose, Grace) and Dji who had 1 great year for us. Over 70% of the high school players recuited during this time were undeniable misses. Guys that barely played and made no impact in the program.

So, please go on and lecture me about my "narrative".
You deserve a cookie!
 
Chaudhri committed to GW today. Lots of intra-conference competition in this class.

 
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