And yet even that is way better than Mooney. And Mooney’s had significantly more roster stability. Not to mention the 7 straight tournaments VCU made were also the Mooney era and he only made 1-2 during that stretch. But somehow Rhoades has job pressure and Mooney has an extension…
And that’s before we even get into the piece that the 10-15 years before Mooney took over, Richmond was the superior program. He let his cross town rival lap him and is still surviving off that one sweet sixteen appearance.
With a bunch of 5th and 6th years. And even then he had to win the A10 tournament to make the dance…
All I’m saying is:
a) the Richmond fans I know are fed up with Mooney’s underperformance. He gave the city away to their rivals and has a good season once a blue moon to do just enough to not get fired
b) J Willy would do better
I have a very milquetoast take here: I kinda think Mooney and Rhoads have both been fine and their respective fanbases should be content. (Though, yes, Mooney probably saved his job last season – but he did!)
Idk man if we had a guy performing below the level of the 20ish years leading up to his tenure and Tech was rattling off 12 (I believe? somewhere in that range) tournament appearances in 18 or 19 years I don’t think we’d be content. Think the main reason he gets way with it is people forget Mooney was already the coach during the Capel, Grant, and Smart years.
When Richmond jumped to the A-10, its fans assumed an easier path to the dance in a multibid league rather than in an autobid CAA. But in about five years with Beilein and Wainwright, they made it only once. And in 16 tries with Mooney (excluding 2020), they’ve made it just three times (although they would have been a 6-9 seed in 2020 were there a tourney). They made it more in the CAA.
WRT Cameron Carr: How are folks taking his decision to take an OV to Louisville this weekend? A few weeks ago, it was thought that if personal connections played a major role, it would be Kansas State or Northwestern. If recent basketball success was the primary consideration, it was thought to be between Virginia and Tennessee. So, now he is off to see Louisville. Is this just because his recruitment took off so late that now he wants a better feel of what his choices might be? Or, did he not find what he wanted at either Tennessee or Virginia? Also, with both Northwestern and Virginia, academics would require a bit of effort. At Louisville, who knows? Then there’s the issue of playing time. Which school has the clearest path to early PT? Just a bit curious. I had thought his decision was coming next week (and, it may still), but this weekend’s venture seems a bit perplexing to someone like me who isn’t fully aware of all the issues at hand.
Pure speculation, but I take it as he still hasn’t found what he’s looking for. If a kid is really excited about one of the schools he’s already seen, it makes sense he’d still do his due diligence and visit the others, but once he’d done that he’d pick the one he liked. You’d only add another late entry if you haven’t clicked yet. Maybe he really thought UT was gonna be it, and then he found it underwhelming?
His dad being former teammates with Danny Manning makes it hard to read imo. Could range anywhere from dad doing Manning a favor to Cam’s drooling over all the PT Louisville has to offer.
Louisville will have like one guard on their roster next season as it stands (a current FR who was a 3-star recruit by 247 composite) unless some of the nine million guys they have who are listed as small forwards in 247’s database are actually guards.
The Reston native was able to see the team go at it and the energy that the team played with was something that really stood out.
“When I got to watch them scrimmage, their bench had so much energy and that was impressive for it only being a scrimmage,” he said. “They were jumping around, clapping for their teammates and picking each other up and you would just think it was a regular game so that really impressed me.”
compared that to 2021 when it was just Chase cheering during the COVID no attendance lol.
