What'd you Expect!

Ramcounter

Ramcounter

Elite Member
Joined
Dec 7, 2011
Posts
4,956
Likes
5,938
Mistachill said:
I would have to go through each season to confirm, but that's my worry. The formula in the past was: 1) we had a couple of big time teams who had great RPI/NET rankings that boosted our RPI/NET even if we lost; 2) had at least a couple of strong RPI/NET teams in conference to provide four+ resume enhancing win opportunities in-conference; 3) in the CAA days we could get a bracketbuster game that could help; 4) minimized resume destroying loses against really bad teams.

Where are the signature win opportunities coming from moving forward? We're no longer in the 2013 version of the A-10. Whether we want to admit it or not, we're basically close to being back in the 2011 version of the CAA. Meaning, we need signature OOC wins.
Click to expand...
Just going off Kenpom atm for conference play Quad 1 and 2 opportunities. Of course these could change between now and selection Sunday.

Q1 opportunities are at Dayton and at SLU
Q2 opportunities are at Duquesne, at Richmond, at Davidson, home vs Dayton, and home vs SLU.

Not looking ideal considering they are currently 0-2 in Q1 games and 1-1 in Q2 games according to Kenpom.
 
Half-baked Mcbride

Half-baked Mcbride

Elite Member
Joined
Apr 19, 2009
Posts
11,189
Likes
24,158
AHEF said:
I was not expecting VCU fans to act like UR fans about firing the coach during the season. I was expecting / hoping for 6-2. Johns would be a Double point scorer. Current one is to improve offense to avoid the long FG droughts.
Click to expand...

I'm not THAT surprised :lol:

Seriously though, I'll pose this question. Did anyone watch the Illini/MD game the other night? I did, and MAN was it a barnburner...full of clutch shots, great athleticism, great coaching, and excellent team basketball by both sides.

Both those teams are wildly better than VCU (and every other team in the A10) by EVERY metric available....except for maybe "heart" and "chip on shoulder-ness".... I kid, I kid...

My point is that a rational VCU Fan knows this, expects this, accepts this...but also knows that on "any given night"?? Our guys could take them if 8 million things happened just right. THAT'S the beauty of college hoops...that beautiful uncertainty. That feeling that maybe, just maybe...another Final Four run could happen. But we know it probably won't.....because we just don't have the players or the skills or the abilities for that kind of effort game in and game out.

That is NOT to say our guys aren't talented, some amazingly so....buth there are tens of thousands of young men playing HS basketball....and only 358 D1 teams...and only 13 guys on schollie per team...that's 4,654 young men playing D1 ball every year. And of those 4,654 young men?? VCU consistently has a BUNCH that are in that top-ish echelon...which is amazing and awesome to behold most every season.

And VCU Basketball does that, year in and year out, DESPITE the MASSIVE financial disparities available to the myriad 358 D1 schools....now made even more challenging by the new NIL landscape, the "game" being rigged continually against schools of our mid major ilk, and by a changing world in general where there are THOUSANDS of things to do on any given day that are considered "personal entertainment"

and yet...here we are....on the raggedy edge of the internet....posting our wildly uninformed (and yet wildly confident) opinions and thoughts and strategies on a message board.

There will most likely not be another VCU Final Four in our lifetimes...and that's fine. VCU is what it is....a great University with a really really great tradition of basketball that goes back decades with SO MANY amazing players and Coaches and Games and Memories.....isn't that what sports is all about?? Watching people who are SO MUCH BETTER THAN YOU at a particular set of skills that they are getting a massive amount of attention (usually for a short amount of time) as this Earth is rocketing through space and we all just want to love and belong and enjoy ourselves before it snuffs out all too quickly AND barely makes a lick of sense as we're here??

Well, that's how I see it....Keep up the amazing work VCU Rams and VCU Nation...Go Hug somebody today. I hope nice things happen to ALL OF YOU!!
 
Love2Ram

Love2Ram

Elite Member
Insider
Joined
Feb 25, 2011
Posts
1,916
Likes
4,691
I came into the year expecting to watch a team and a program making incremental steps on an annual basis trend towards building something special again. I've noticed significant improvement in the level of recruiting talent Rhoades and staff have made every year since he's taken over. Like almost every team from the past, this season began with the pleasure of watching us develop a promising big while surrounded with very talented teammates at most other positions. My expectations were we'd see a competitive VCU team occasionally punching above our weight class when given an opportunity to play against power fives but falling a little short usually during those limited games. Never entered my mind that this would be a year in which we could say we've arrived but I do see us moving in the right direction. I remain confident that we now have the right level of talent to build sustained success and dividend checks are coming. I think we're still a year away from what we all want but I'm a patient man willing to enjoy whatever success we experience while humbly accepting defeats. My plan was to embrace the blue collar look on game day fully supporting a team with a lunch pail attitude every opportunity granted. For me this season was always about a top four A-10 finish and nothing I've seen leads me to believe we can't pull that off.
 
V

VCU Heel

Elite Member
Joined
Aug 7, 2012
Posts
16,141
Likes
21,037
Half-baked Mcbride said:
I'm not THAT surprised :lol:

Seriously though, I'll pose this question. Did anyone watch the Illini/MD game the other night? I did, and MAN was it a barnburner...full of clutch shots, great athleticism, great coaching, and excellent team basketball by both sides.

Both those teams are wildly better than VCU (and every other team in the A10) by EVERY metric available....except for maybe "heart" and "chip on shoulder-ness".... I kid, I kid...

My point is that a rational VCU Fan knows this, expects this, accepts this...but also knows that on "any given night"?? Our guys could take them if 8 million things happened just right. THAT'S the beauty of college hoops...that beautiful uncertainty. That feeling that maybe, just maybe...another Final Four run could happen. But we know it probably won't.....because we just don't have the players or the skills or the abilities for that kind of effort game in and game out.

That is NOT to say our guys aren't talented, some amazingly so....buth there are tens of thousands of young men playing HS basketball....and only 358 D1 teams...and only 13 guys on schollie per team...that's 4,654 young men playing D1 ball every year. And of those 4,654 young men?? VCU consistently has a BUNCH that are in that top-ish echelon...which is amazing and awesome to behold most every season.

And VCU Basketball does that, year in and year out, DESPITE the MASSIVE financial disparities available to the myriad 358 D1 schools....now made even more challenging by the new NIL landscape, the "game" being rigged continually against schools of our mid major ilk, and by a changing world in general where there are THOUSANDS of things to do on any given day that are considered "personal entertainment"

and yet...here we are....on the raggedy edge of the internet....posting our wildly uninformed (and yet wildly confident) opinions and thoughts and strategies on a message board.

There will most likely not be another VCU Final Four in our lifetimes...and that's fine. VCU is what it is....a great University with a really really great tradition of basketball that goes back decades with SO MANY amazing players and Coaches and Games and Memories.....isn't that what sports is all about?? Watching people who are SO MUCH BETTER THAN YOU at a particular set of skills that they are getting a massive amount of attention (usually for a short amount of time) as this Earth is rocketing through space and we all just want to love and belong and enjoy ourselves before it snuffs out all too quickly AND barely makes a lick of sense as we're here??

Well, that's how I see it....Keep up the amazing work VCU Rams and VCU Nation...Go Hug somebody today. I hope nice things happen to ALL OF YOU!!
Click to expand...
The one thing that I’m informed about and wildly confident about is that I spend too much of my money and my time on VCU basketball to continue doing so if we’re not a regular NCAA Tournament team.

I don’t care about 20 win seasons (that’s not the high bar it used to be when there were fewer games). I don’t care about the NIT. I’m not even into it that much for the social aspect of going to games. I enjoy it, but I can get that elsewhere.

I judge the success of the season based on just a couple things. Conference championships (which we almost never get) and NCAA bids (which was pretty regular until the last 5 years).

This season isn’t over, but it’s becoming increasingly hard for us to build an at-large resume. We can still win the conference and we can still make the NCAA Tournament and have a successful season, but one or two more seasons with neither of those and I’m going to have to change my spending and my entertainment options to something I enjoy more than watching a program spiral the drain.
 
mrgeode

mrgeode

Top Tuna
Elite Member
Joined
Mar 22, 2013
Posts
11,480
Likes
25,110
Love2Ram said:
I came into the year expecting to watch a team and a program making incremental steps on an annual basis trend towards building something special again. I've noticed significant improvement in the level of recruiting talent Rhoades and staff have made every year since he's taken over. Like almost every team from the past, this season began with the pleasure of watching us develop a promising big while surrounded with very talented teammates at most other positions. My expectations were we'd see a competitive VCU team occasionally punching above our weight class when given an opportunity to play against power fives but falling a little short usually during those limited games. Never entered my mind that this would be a year in which we could say we've arrived but I do see us moving in the right direction. I remain confident that we now have the right level of talent to build sustained success and dividend checks are coming. I think we're still a year away from what we all want but I'm a patient man willing to enjoy whatever success we experience while humbly accepting defeats. My plan was to embrace the blue collar look on game day fully supporting a team with a lunch pail attitude every opportunity granted. For me this season was always about a top four A-10 finish and nothing I've seen leads me to believe we can't pull that off.
Click to expand...
I expected us to arrive last year but Ace and Jamir getting hurt made me shift my expectations to basically what you said.

My expectation going into this year was for us to make the NCAAs. Nothing I've seen so far has changed that expectation. It will be more difficult since we haven't picked up the quality OOC wins we wanted - I really wanted a win against Memphis or Temple - but it's certainly still in play.

My current expectation is for Mike to have a come to Jesus conversation with Shriver like he did with Tsohonis last year, give the freshmen plenty of burn starting no later than next Sunday, and continue to work on getting everyone on the same page and playing with consistency on both ends of the court. Some of these expectations are more likely to be met than others.

We haven't played especially well for an entire game this year, so it's a good thing the calendar just hit December. Lots of basketball to go still - I'd rather hit our stride in February than November. Let's see that happen.
 
R

Ramaholic

Elite Member
Joined
Mar 8, 2010
Posts
1,692
Likes
5,540
VCU Heel said:
The one thing that I’m informed about and wildly confident about is that I spend too much of my money and my time on VCU basketball to continue doing so if we’re not a regular NCAA Tournament team.

I don’t care about 20 win seasons (that’s not the high bar it used to be when there were fewer games). I don’t care about the NIT. I’m not even into it that much for the social aspect of going to games. I enjoy it, but I can get that elsewhere.

I judge the success of the season based on just a couple things. Conference championships (which we almost never get) and NCAA bids (which was pretty regular until the last 5 years).

This season isn’t over, but it’s becoming increasingly hard for us to build an at-large resume. We can still win the conference and we can still make the NCAA Tournament and have a successful season, but one or two more seasons with neither of those and I’m going to have to change my spending and my entertainment options to something I enjoy more than watching a program spiral the drain.
Click to expand...
I've been to 1 game this year and havent been to a donor event in years. It's not that I'm trying to punish the AD for a lesser program. It's just that I am busy and I find it less exciting each year. From a philanthropy perspective, I just dont feel it like I used to. Maybe that will change as they start to build the village. But I am more interested and engaged with some other areas right now that seem so much more important than a well funded 60-100 ranked program. I don't think I am the only one.
 
mrgeode

mrgeode

Top Tuna
Elite Member
Joined
Mar 22, 2013
Posts
11,480
Likes
25,110
Ramaholic said:
I've been to 1 game this year and havent been to a donor event in years. It's not that I'm trying to punish the AD for a lesser program. It's just that I am busy and I find it less exciting each year. From a philanthropy perspective, I just dont feel it like I used to. Maybe that will change as they start to build the village. But I am more interested and engaged with some other areas right now that seem so much more important than a well funded 60-100 ranked program. I don't think I am the only one.
Click to expand...
I don't think that's unreasonable - interest and involvement in things shifts. Invest time and money into what's important to you right now. If that's not currently VCU athletics, that's OK.
 
R

Ramaholic

Elite Member
Joined
Mar 8, 2010
Posts
1,692
Likes
5,540
VCU Heel said:
No. I’ve still got all of my hair and I can’t grow such a beautiful mustache.
Click to expand...
my bad. I was talking WW and you were addressing the Heel reference. Swing and a miss for me on that one. Haha.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top