We don’t have a program
- Thread starter SpiderAlways
- Start date
Well said. And it seems the University doesnt care very much whether it has a program or not. Fans keep showing up, Spider Club keeps raising money, and CM keeps getting his tremendous paychecks.
It's basically a cult of Mooney at this point.
One big issue with his long game, if it works as planned and we see good progress in the 26-27 season, it could easily get blown up by NIL. Hey, again these are all things outside of Hardt and Moon and Lil ol Richmond's control. Woe is me.
One big issue with his long game, if it works as planned and we see good progress in the 26-27 season, it could easily get blown up by NIL. Hey, again these are all things outside of Hardt and Moon and Lil ol Richmond's control. Woe is me.
I've been thinking a lot about this. About the idea of a "program". A good program can elevate lesser players by being in it. Sometimes a star player can make a bad coach look good (and if you continue to get star players, you can continue to look good!). Watching Roussell create good season after good season without a single true "star" player has made me really appreciate his coaching. He has not done it by bringing in big time recruits, he's done by getting pieces that fit his system and coaching them up to be bigger than the sum of their parts.
I compare Mooney a lot to Bob McKillop at Davidson. It's a similar "leafy" small, southern liberal arts school. If you take McKillop's final 20 years at Davidson and compare them to Mooney's 20 years at Richmond, there is a ton of overlap in resources/league/etc. I'm gonna remove their best player from their legacies to show program effect more than star power for success:
McKillop had a really strong program, you can remove his best player (Steph Curry) and the tournaments that Steph got them to, and he still would have gone to 7 NCAA tournaments and 6 NITs in those 20 years.
If you remove Mooney's best player (Kevin Anderson) and the tournaments that KA got them to, he would have gone to exactly one (1) NCAA tournament and 4 NITs in that same time frame.
(I'm not including the Coaches Cook-Off in these numbers)
I compare Mooney a lot to Bob McKillop at Davidson. It's a similar "leafy" small, southern liberal arts school. If you take McKillop's final 20 years at Davidson and compare them to Mooney's 20 years at Richmond, there is a ton of overlap in resources/league/etc. I'm gonna remove their best player from their legacies to show program effect more than star power for success:
McKillop had a really strong program, you can remove his best player (Steph Curry) and the tournaments that Steph got them to, and he still would have gone to 7 NCAA tournaments and 6 NITs in those 20 years.
If you remove Mooney's best player (Kevin Anderson) and the tournaments that KA got them to, he would have gone to exactly one (1) NCAA tournament and 4 NITs in that same time frame.
(I'm not including the Coaches Cook-Off in these numbers)
Thats a very good way to look at it. Remove the best player or best season, and go from there. I would also look at their lows as well. McKillop never had a losing season in the A10, and one could argue - their jump from the southern Conference, was a greater jump than ours from the CAA. In fact - you have to go back to 2001 to get to a losing season for McKillop - over 20 years. Mooney has 3 and looking at 4th this year, IF you don't count his first 2 years at UR cause of rebuild/cupboard bare.
Trap if we have another .500 or below season this year, it will be the 8th of Mooney's 20 year tenure. 40%.
Yes - I was only counting below .500. Giving the benefit of an exact .500 season. But point is still valid - the lows are too low and highs too infrequent
