MOONEY TALKS WITH REPORTERS ABOUT OPENING PRACTICE 
RICHMOND TIMES-DISPATCH: Mooney Turns To Familiar Source For Insight
UR coach played for Carril at Princeton and recently gleaned tips from his guru
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Oct. 9, 2007
UNIVERSITY OF RICHMOND, Va. - With practicing starting on Friday, third-year head coach
Chris Mooney sat down with RichmondSpiders.com to answer a few questions about how the off-season went and what to expect from the Spiders in 2007-08.
The Spiders have just 24 days of practice until they open the 2007-08 season with the first Division I college basketball game of the year against Maine on Nov. 5 at 3 p.m. (ET) in the 2k Sports College Hoops Classic benefitting Coaches vs. Cancer. The earliest Richmond has ever opened a season was Nov. 14, both last year against East Carolina and in 1998 against Campbell.
Last year the team really seemed to come together at the end of the season. You won your last three home games and played well in the Atlantic 10 Tournament, losing to fifth-seed Fordham 63-61. How has that momentum carried through the off-season.
That has had a great impact on our program, finishing strongly with victories over Rhode Island and St. Joe's in the last week or so of the season and playing well in the conference tournament gave us some confidence and let the guys know that we had talented players. They realized that as we got older, more experienced and more mature, we could compete with anyone. It was probably a springboard for them going into the off-season, realizing that they were close to really being able to accomplish some things with some hard work.
Dan Geriot and David Gonzalvez had outstanding freshmen years and have both gotten stronger in the off-season. What do you expect from them?
David and Dan are very, very good players, two of the up-and-coming players in the Atlantic 10. They played extremely well down the stretch, particularly in the conference tournament against Fordham. I believe that both probably deserved to be on the Atlantic 10 All-Rookie team. Those two have bright futures ahead.
The offense seemed to run more smoothly at the end of last year and you seemed to look for open shots earlier in the shot clock. Is this what you are looking for in your third year of implementing it?
Our offense improved dramatically from our first year to our second year, even though we were playing so many freshmen. Toward the end of the season, we were much better offensively, we were able to score much more easily and that's how we want to play. We want to create easy baskets for ourselves, we want to score in transition. With us being so young, so weak and not able to defend as well as we would have liked to last year, that really inhibited us.
How much will the physical and mental maturity of the team help defensively this year?
The biggest thing that will help us defensively is experience and Gaston Moliva (missed last season due to foot injury) playing. Gaston is maybe the best defender that I've ever coached. His presence, his intelligence and his knack for defense will have a tremendous impact on the entire team. Along with that, everybody being a year older, year stronger, more experienced and having more understanding will really help us defensively.
With this year's freshmen class, it is obvious there was an emphasis on bringing in athletes, how will this help the team?
For us and for anybody, speed and athleticism are attributes that really can separate or really can be a difference maker for an individual or a team. We really have some good athleticism. We were able to bring in some guys that are not only skillful and can dribble, shoot and pass, but are fast, move well, are strong, and certainly have a great foundation to be very, very good players.
The players made a strong commitment to the weight room this off-season, how have you seen that pay off in preseason individual workouts this fall?
Jay DeMayo does a great job both technically teaching our guys, and motivating our guys to get in there and lift weights. We've put an added emphasis on it and he has really helped the guys achieve some very impressive results. Everyone has committed themselves to getting stronger, getting faster and building more endurance. It's very obvious how they look and certainly in their play and in their stamina. You can see all of those hours in the weight room paying off.
The Atlantic 10 looks to be as strong as ever this season. How tough will conference play be with such a balanced league?
The Atlantic 10 should be stronger this year and be one of the top-10 conferences in the country. Many teams return most of their starters and great players, and a lot of the all-league team returns. It should be a very exciting season, top to bottom there are competitive games to be played throughout. Every team has very good players, there are 14 teams that are capable of making a run in the A-10 Tournament.
Talk about this year's schedule, including opening the season in the 2k Sports College Hoops Classic benefiting Coaches vs. Cancer.
We feel we've put together a very good schedule that is competitive and that plays a lot of schools in state, which is important to our fans and the Richmond basketball community. We have a Big East team and an ACC team coming into the Robins Center, which is getting harder and harder to do these days, so we're excited about that. The games against our former conference rivals Old Dominion, William & Mary and VCU are always exciting and carry a little bit more weight. Playing in the Coaches vs. Cancer at the beginning of the season will be a great experience and is something we have been able to look forward to the entire off-season. We play a little bit earlier than the rest of the country and we have the possibility of playing the No. 1 team in the country. That being there to open the season is very exciting to all of us.
