3/3/2021 Previewing & Picking The Second Day(First Full Slate of Games) of the A-10 TourneyRead NowWednesday is the second day (first full day) of the A-10 tournament, and there is a HUGE and intriguing slate. Let's get into it.
#8 Richmond Spiders (-6) v #9 Duquesne Dukes (11am, NBC Sports Network): Seeing #8 next to Richmond on all brackets makes me sick. It is crazy that winning against St. Joseph's would have led to the #3 seed receiving a double bye. Instead, Richmond is playing after two days off with two of their key players injured. Grant Golden (hand) and Blake Francis (Back), are two of the spiders leading scorers and senior leaders. Had Richmond beat St. Joseph's they would have had an extra day to give these guys some much-needed rest, but that win did not occur and now Grant will continue to play with his glove and Blake is a game time decision. If Francis isn't able to go it's going to be a tough night scoring for the Spiders. #9 Duquesne comes into this game after beating Rhode Island by 11, losing to La Salle by 20, and losing to Richmond by 7. They have not played since Saturday so the "fresh legs" advantage goes to them (though we have seen teams in tournaments underperform with a longer layover). Duquesne are led by Forward's Marcus Weathers and Chad Baker. These two players along with Michael Hughes (C) were key parts of why Duquesne's matchup with Richmond on 2/20/21 was so close. These three guys rebound super well and can also score down low. Weathers and Baker can also get hot from behind the three point line. Preview: Weathers and Baker are tough to guard when Richmond was at full strength, but now with Golden injured, Duquesne is going to pound that ball down low and let those guys get to work. For Richmond the key players in this game are Blake Francis and Tyler Burton. If Blake is able to play it will be interesting to see how effective he is in whatever amount of minutes he plays. If he isn't healthy and on a minutes restriction he will probably be able to score a big, but a back injury certainly hinders players ability to shoot. This would be key for Blake as he is a flamethrower, so it will be interesting to see what happens there. Tyler Burton is a key factor in this game on both ends of the floor. In the 2/20 matchup Burton was the star with 16 points and 8 rebounds in 35 minutes of play. But as of late, we have not seen this type of performance from Burton. He has not been able to find his way to the hoop, is turning the ball over, and looks lost on defense. There were key moments down the stretch in the game against St. Joseph's where Burton would lose his man on easy switches and pick and rolls. If Tyler continues his recent streak of play it's going to be extremely hard for Richmond to win this game. Richmond fans should hope that the Tune Squad can beat the MonStars tonight so Burton can get his talent back. Pick: This game is going to come down to which Richmond team shows up. If the team that played St. Joseph's shows up, Duquesne will run away with this game. But if the team that played hard earlier in the season with good defense and efficient scoring is in the building, Richmond will compete and win this game. My prediction is that Richmond wins this game in a very tight game. Duquesne will keep it close but ultimately Richmond will pull it out. Though, I won't be surprised if Duquesne comes out motivated and beats Richmond badly, simply based off of the way this team has looked as of late. Gambling: Over 142 #5 Umass Minutemen vs #13 St. Joseph's Hawks (+3) (1pm, NBC Sports Network): Preview: This game is very intriguing and has the hottest team in the A-10 playing in it. Yes I am talking about Ryan Daly's St. Joseph's. St. Joseph finished the regular season with four wins, but their record does not properly reflect the talent that this team has. They spent the majority of the season without Ryan Daly and Taylor Funk playing together, but since the two have been back in action they have reeled off three straight wins against La Salle, Dayton, Richmond, and in the first round of the A-10 Tournament defeated La Salle by 6. Sure they aren't the "sexiest" team as they take a lot of bad shots, but if those shots are falling they can hang around with any team in the A-10. When talking about "sexiest" teams, UMass would certainly not fall into that category either. When I look at their seeding it seems fraudulent based off of their recent events. They went on a 17 day COVID pause during February and since returning to play have lost to Richmond (badly), and St. Louis (really badly). Carl Pierre is the minutes workhorse for the Minutmen and to win this game they're going to need him to step up big today. Pick: If you couldn't tell from the unbiased St. Joseph's preview I love LOVE St. Joseph's in this one. Hop on the bandwagon while you still can because I think this team can win the A-10. #dalygoat Gambling: St. Joseph's +3, and Moneyline (sprinkle) #7 Dayton Flyers (-4.5) vs #10 Rhode Island (3:30pm, NBC Sports Network): Preview: Dayton comes into this game in a weird spot. They have the talent to be a great team and win it all but their schedule is flat out strange. They just beat St. Bonaventure to end the regular season, but prior to that lost to St. Joseph's by 13. Before that game they BLEW out St. Louis by 23. Ibi Watson and Jalen Crutcher man the backcourt, and have the talent to be the best backcourt in the A-10 when everything is clicking. Rhode Island, another weird team. As of late they played SLU close, BEAT Dayton in their last matchup of the regular season, then finished off the regular season losing to GW (ew) and Duquesne. The GW loss is shocking considering they're one of the worst teams in the A-10, but this URI team just hasn't been able to put together a consistent streak all year. If Fatts Russell and Ishmael Leggett play well though, they can compete with anyone. Prediction: Dayton is going to get hot in this game and win easily. URI just isn't built to win right now. Gambling: Dayton -4.5 #6 George Mason (-4.5) vs #George Washington (5:30pm, NBC Sports Network): Preview: George Mason as a #6 seed is insane to me. I know it is all about records for seeding but seeing this team above Dayton and Richmond just feels so wrong. They did finish the season on a four game win streak which helped put them in the position they are in now, but you need to look deeper into those games. Those wins came against Fordham, VCU(without Bones Hyland), GW, and La Salle. The VCU game was nice (I will give them credit there), but all of those other wins are not very impressive. Nonetheless, momentum is momentum. GW.....they lost to St. Bonaventure by 47 and then beat Fordham by 4 in the first round of the A-10 Tournament. There is nothing else I want to say about GW. Prediction: George Mason is going to win this game easy. Gambling: No line out yet but I am making my own line. George Mason - 6, and I am taking it! If you're still reading this, thank you, I put a lot of time into this and will keep it up as the tournament goes on. Make sure to subscribe on all our social channels and to our podcast wherever you get your podcasts! Rollspide. -Andrew
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It's been a rough weekend for Richmond Men's Basketball. After a solid win against a short-handed St. Joseph's team on Tuesday, things went downhill quickly. There was so much excitement surrounding a nationally televised game against a Top-25 St. Louis (SLU) team at the Robins Center on ESPN2. SLU was coming off a tough loss against Dayton in their first game in almost a full calendar month. Friday's game was being hyped up to be arguably one of the biggest games of the year for Richmond and for the A10 Conference in general. But Friday morning, things took a wrong turn. Friday morning I started to hear rumblings deep on twitter/reddit that SLU was feeling skeptical about playing us, but there was really no reason to believe these rumors considering there had been no news of new positive tests on either side. But those rumors proved to be the truth as around 1pm on Friday the 29th it was announced that the game that night would be cancelled. A few outlets reported that the cancellation was due to SLU's concerns with UR's COVID protocols. Since Friday's cancellation, there hasn't been a full report of exactly what SLU was uncomfortable with, but it was enough to fly home and not play on Friday night. Richmond Athletic Director John Hardt and Coach Chris Mooney assured the media that both teams were cleared to play according to their protocol. Apparently the protocol wasn't enough for SLU as they were uncomfortable enough not to play. The lack of info led to an explosion of different reactions on twitter and plenty of speculation and arguing. As you can see above, people lost their minds. There were theories that SLU believed Richmond had a positive player, so SLU wanted to be extra careful. Another big narrative was that SLU was "afraid" to play Richmond because they hadn't played in so long and were just coming off a tough loss to Dayton. There were even people saying that SLU wanted to stay out of the spotlight so they decided not to play and are hoping to get into the tournament by not playing any more games (hoping the NCAA makes an exception for the minimum number games played to be eligible). Some of these accusations were pretty ridiculous (in my humble opinion), but as the internet goes into a frenzy, you can find crazy takes wherever you look. Today we learned that Richmond will be entering their third COVID pause of the season, likely due to contact tracing worries. While it seems that SLU might have made the right decision to not play on Friday, I am still a bit intrigued on how they knew not to play. Tests on both sides came back negative and everything seemed to look good.
Did they investigate into our team/players somehow? Did they stalk social media? Did certain players talk to our players and something slipped out that maybe shouldn't have? It just seems strange that an opposing team would be able to find out about a contact tracing issue that Richmond itself didn't discover until Sunday. Going forward it seems that we won't have any answers to this mystery, but it does raise the question if these protocols will be an issue for any other games in the future. As the Spiders prepare to enter into another COVID pause (their third this season), this will likely impact both games this week. Tuesday against George Mason was a good opportunity to get a win against a solid team in conference, and Friday was a HUGE game against Dayton, with ESPN showing the game nationally. It is so frustrating that this continues to happen at UR, but with cases up on campus for such a small school, I can understand how it does happen. At this point all we can do is wait for the issue to be resolved, and for those that called SLU cowards for not wanting to play us, to take the backlash from SLU fans. Andrew The Final Four is set. Loyola-Chicago, Michigan, Villanova, and Kansas. Not many people could have predicted this group, as the Loyola Ramblers have been the surprise of the tournament, riding Sister Jean's depends all the way into the Final Four. Michigan on the other hand has rode their consistent all-around play. The right side of the bracket was not as crazy to predict as it is the two one seeds, despite Kansas sneaking by Duke in an OT Elite 8 win.
Going into San Antonio this weekend, Nova looks like the most legit team. Every game it's a different person who will step up to the plate, whether it is Jalen Brunson, Eric Paschall, or Mikal Bridges, Nova has so many options that are a defensive nightmare for any team. Their offense has been consistent, but their defense is what will cause some trouble for Kansas. In the Elite 8, Kansas three up more threes than Warriors, and missed SO many. They were lucky that they were able to put up 85 points against Duke. I think that Nova's all around play is going to be too much to handle and will send the Jayhawks back home. Final: Nova: 74 - Kansas 68 Moving into the Sister Jean Squad vs the Wolverines, this is going to be the night that the Rambler's magic ends. Michigan's scoring machine with Moe Wagner, Charles Matthews, and Muhammad Ali Abdur-Rahkman leading the way will be able to take the size advantage over Loyola's tandem of Ben Richardson and Marques Townes rely on a lot of three-pointers and Michigan's defense will be able to close out and capitalize on a bunch of misses. John Beilein is one of the best coaches in the game and certainly should have been a candidate for Coach of the Year. He will get this Michigan team ready and they will pull out the victory. Sorry Sister Jean. Final: Michigan 81 - Loyola-Chicago 64 Once the final is set, I will release my quick preview and prediction. Good luck to anyone gambling on the games, and if your bracket is still in tact, god bless. -Agg Tonight was tough. The Spiders came out a little slow in the first half as a team, but immediately Khwan Fore and Jacob Gilyard proved that they were here to BALL tonight. The Spiders fought throughout the first half and held the Bonnies to a 32-32 tie tonight, while Jaylen Adams had 0 points. As one of the biggest threats to the Spiders, it was a shock that the Spiders held Adams scoreless and Mobley to a low scoring first half. But, to start the second half, the Bonnies went on a 20-3 run which was devastating to the fans watching and on Twitter. Matt Mobley was the difference in this run and in the game. He finished with 29 points and set an Atlantic-10 record hitting 9 3-Pointers during the game (mostly in the second half). Everything he put up tonight was falling, whether it was a corner 3 or a 40 foot 3 from the logo. Despite trying to play tough defense on him, he made almost everything he was throwing up. The team easily could have given up, but they fought through their biggest deficit of the game, down 17 points and got back to within six with 5:20 to go. But, after a big run from the Spiders, the usual Mooney ball began to kick in. We were chucking up terrible three points early in the shot clock which gave the Bonnies easy opportunities at the free throw line, which they blew. Eventually, the Spiders made it a one possession game, but unfortunately despite many different opportunities to tie or take the lead, the Spiders could not convert. Sherod was given several big shot opportunities, but was cold throughout the whole game and was unable to suddenly get hot at the end in clutch time. Overall, this definitely was a fun game to watch that had my heart racing throughout. But despite taking some dumb shots, which might be due to the "youth" of the team, Mooney's play calls and timeout management were questionable at best. While I am not an experienced basketball coach, I really do believe that I could draw up some better coaching plays than 35 foot 3 pointers when there was still time to get a quick 2 pointer and foul. Mooney's decisions throughout the season has been questionable, but I cannot take anything away from this team. They played as hard as they could tonight against a very tough St. Bonaventure team. While I am not sure if the Spiders will be playing in any postseason tournaments, it will be interesting to see what Hardt does this offseason in bringing in transfers or a possible new coach. Below are the team's comments reflecting on the game tonight, and a bit on the season as a whole. -Agg We're a little over an hour out from game-time so here is a short preview/prediction for the quarterfinal game of the A-10 tournament against St. Bonaventure. The last time we played the Bonnies was back in early February when De'monte Buckingham was out and the Spiders ended up losing the game 97-88. Golden and Sherod played 32 and 38 minutes respectively, and finished with 24 and 26 points to lead the Spiders. Unfortunately, the Bonnies backcourt of Jaylen Adams and Matt Mobley were too much to handle as they were able to put up 24 each and combined for 7 assists and 9 rebounds. Leading to a tough loss for Richmond.
It seems that with the way the Bonnies played this season (24-6) they should make the NCAA tournament and should be an 11 or 12 seed, which could put them in place for a big upset. But, in terms of this game, I do not believe that the Bonnies will overlook this Spiders team. Newly crowned Co-A10 Player of the year Jaylen Adams and All-Conference First Team Matt Mobley will be too much to handle tonight. Back in February they were able to take advantages of defensive mismatches on Gilyard and Golden, and held the lead throughout the whole game, playing extremely confidently. While I want to believe that having Buckingham back in the lineup tonight will spur a better defensive effort from the Spiders, the Bonnies backcourt is too dangerous and is just too consistent on both sides of the floor. I do want the Spiders to win, because I believe a matchup with Davidson in the Semi-Finals would be favorable to Richmond, but I can't look beyond this tough St. Bonaventure team. Prediction: Richmond 73, St. Bonaventure 86 If this does happen to be a brutal loss, just keep watching the Duquesne highlight video above and pretend that it is the championship of the A-10 tournament. Roll Spide. -Agg Hey y'all. It has been a while since we have been active on the blog. Winter break came and went and since we have been back on campus over this past month and a half, Evan and I have struggled with our very different schedules to get together and put in some work. But, from here on out I promise that there will be more consistent content on the site. As the Spiders basketball season begins to come to a close, we will continue to cover the A-10 tournament, but will also certainly try to evolve and grow to cover sports and fans on a larger scale. So! In the final regular season game of the year, the Spiders were able to defeat their Virginia rival, George Mason. The Spiders for some weird reason over the past few years have had difficulty in beating George Mason. Richmond is 2-6 against George Mason over the past four years, and the biggest struggle certainly has been the fact that their defense has kept us shooting and rebounding very inconsistently. But, yesterday something different happened. The offense came out firing in the first half as Nick Sherod and Grant Golden led the way, getting the Spiders out to a 45-32 lead at half, which was essential to the team's victory. In the second half though, the offense continued to flow, but the defense struggled a little. They gave up a good amount of second chance points and ended up giving up 47 points to the Patriots in the second half. Luckily, their defense played just as badly as ours. Sherod, Golden, and Buckingham stayed hot, finishing with 25, 22, and 15 points respectively. Khwan Fore also had an extremely productive night finishing with 14 points and grinding on the defensive end. For one of the first times all season, the Spiders' hot start allowed them to not play from behind and struggle to fight their way back into the game during the whole second half. This game was important for the A-10 tournament standings, as the Spiders were able to move up 1 or 2 spots due to the win and tiebreakers. The final A-10 tournament bracket is below and I will be posting a full A-10 tournament preview this week! Thanks for sticking with and supporting Frontline Fanatics! Credit CBSSports
Cheers, Andrew Happy New Year! Guess what?
Let's get something straight. I did not think we had any chance at winning this game. I was right (in that we lost), but the Spiders showed up to play today in Boston. Final/OT: Richmond 73 - Boston College 78 Leaders: Richmond: Grant Golden: 17 Points, 10 Rebounds --> Double-Double! Nick Sherod: 12 Points, 9 Rebounds Jacob Gilyard: 13 Points, 6 Assists Boston College: Jordan Chatman: 30 Points! Steffon Mitchell: 10 Rebounds Nik Popovic: 10 Rebounds Seeing Grant put up a double-double in this game was certainly encouraging, as it gives us a glimpse of what the future holds. Khwan was also extremely efficient as he took smart shots and got to the basket often. His two and-one layups came in clutch times during the second half and the beginning of the overtime. While these were bright spots, the two most important sophomores on the team were not.
De'Monte Buckingham fouled out and ended the game with 7 points and 9 rebounds. While this is not a terrible stat line, it is not what we expect from a player who has his own section in Robin's Stadium. Buck's jumper has been questionable all season, as he is not taking great shots and the ball simply is not coming out of his hands well. He had at least two air balls in the second half, and it seems like every time he takes a three-pointer it's an absolute brick. I don't know how to fix this, but hopefully the coaches can get him back on track for the start of A-10 play, because he has not been the same player this season. Sherod on the other hand had a decent stat line, but he made a bunch of mistakes down the stretch that really hurt the team. Whenever I watch Sherod, it seems that he is playing in slow-motion. Running up and down the court it looks like he is dragging his feet and is slower than everyone else out there. On many occasions it appears that he is walking. On defense, this lack of explosiveness hurts him. as well On several plays he was matched up with Ky Bowman and Bowman was able to drive to the basket and beat Sherod after his first step every single time. In the overtime down two, Sherod read a pass perfectly and had the ball in his hand, but somehow lost it on his own, costing the Spiders a potential opportunity to tie the game. If Sherod can work on improving his agility and explosiveness, he will be able to take the next step as a player. In the overtime, the Spiders simply made too many mistakes to compete with BC. There were to many bad shots and passes that went to ghosts. BC was able to take advantage of the zone defense and that led to open looks that they were able to finish. Chatman was wet the entire game, as he finished with 30 and hit a key three pointer that sealed the deal for the Eagles. Every shot he took was as smooth as butter, though his hairline was not. BC is likely going to be a tournament team come March, so for the players and Coach Mooney this contested loss probably lifted their spirits after a choke to Bucknell a few days ago. But, while I am sure many excuses will be made for why we lost this game, we should have won. BC was not making shots that they usually make, turned the ball over a good amount, and missed plenty of free-throws down the stretch. Had we been able to close out in the most basic fashion, we would have gotten a big win. Closing out games has been a problem in the Mooney era since I can remember. While this win would have brought some energy to the Richmond program, the way this game was lost certainly must have made the Fire Mooney Mafia happy. This "tough" out of conference schedule for the Spiders is finally over as the team look towards next Saturday's first A-10 matchup at home against (4-5) Davidson. Davidson has a potential A-10 Player of the Year in Forward Peyton Aldridge who averages 22 points per game, 6.7 rebounds a game, and almost 4 assists. He will certainly be a matchup problem for our guard heavy lineup. In all, this team needs to look to make smarter passes and take smarter shots. While the team is certainly young, BC also has many young players that made mature decisions throughout this game...that is something that I would like to see from this team. Maturity, or some smoke screen that seems like we have matured. Throwback: Remember when we beat Arizona State at the Robins Center in the NIT during the 2015 season? That ASU team changed their coach after that NIT loss, and in a year and a half since, the program has been completely revamped. That team is now currently 13-0 and is ranked #3 in the NATION. Funny to think that change can improve the state of a program so quickly.....Maybe they should be an example for John Hardt in the coming weeks of what needs to be done to turn a program around. No more excuses. -Aggs In the past week, we got to see two completely different Richmond Basketball teams. The first Richmond team played against a “tough” (6-3) Old Dominion team who was coming off a close loss against VCU. This Richmond team played lazy defense, couldn’t score, and certainly did not show much energy. |