The University of Richmond men’s basketball team defeated Gardner-Webb handily, 102-67, on Nov. 22, and in doing so, secured its fifth-straight win to begin the 2025-26 season.
This 5-0 start for the Spiders is the program’s best start to a campaign since the 2019-2020 season – which would go on to be a successful one for Richmond until it was ultimately cut short due to the pandemic and what appeared to be a potential at-large bid to the Big Dance was stripped from the program.
It’s been six years since that last 5-0 start for Richmond, and a lot of the fabric of college basketball has changed since then due to NIL and the transfer portal.
No longer are the Spiders made up of fifth and sixth-year graduate students like Jacob Gilyard, Grant Golden, Nathan Cayo or Nick Sherod, who spent their entire careers playing at the Robins Center and created a foundation at Richmond that ultimately ended with a trip to the NCAA Tournament in 2022.
The new norm is players weaving in and out of Spiders’ program with each passing season, forcing Richmond and frankly all of its Atlantic 10 opponents to start anew practically every year due to the lack of continuity.
It’s hard to predict from season to season whether a team that was so quickly assembled will go on to be successful, but for a school like Richmond that is now over three and a half years removed from its March Madness appearance and that finished last season 10-22, a 5-0 start in this ever-fluctuating landscape is not something to disregard.
As such, here are five things to like about the Spiders’ 5-0 start:
Roster Depth
Richmond has shown the depth of its roster in each of its first five games to start the season, as in each of those contests, three or more players have scored in double-figures.
Whether it’s been the Spiders’ starting unit, their bench unit or some concoction of both, different players have had their moments at different times in each game, which is such a positive for a team that craved consistent depth last season.
With head coach Chris Mooney’s current 11-player rotation, made up of a starting group of Mike Walz, AJ Lopez, Mikkel Tyne, Collin Tanner and Will Johnston, and a bench group of Jonathan Beagle, Apostolos Roumoglou, Jaden Daughtry, Aiden Argabright, David Thomas and Jaylen Robinson, Richmond’s players have had the opportunity to weave in and out of the lineup, contributing in spurts and familiarizing themselves with different units out on the court, which, in turn, has only further showcased the team’s depth.
Immediate Impact From the Transfers
It feels more and more like a coin flip each season when it comes to the players a school adds by way of the transfer portal.
During the 2023-24 season, Richmond scored on a portal acquisition in Jordan King, who went on to win the conference’s Player of the Year award alongside now-Denver Nuggets center DaRon Holmes and help lead the Spiders to a share of the A-10 regular season championship.
On the flip side, last year, while the Spiders did have some solid transfers like Dusan Neskovic, Richmond’s squad never truly reached its full potential throughout the season, and having so many new faces and a lack of continuity from the previous season ultimately went on to hurt the team’s chances.
It’s only been five games, but this season feels a lot more like the former, as Richmond’s transfers have all already shown flashes of elite play on the young campaign.
After finding his footing during the Spiders’ first two games against Southern Virginia and Eastern Carolina, AJ Lopez scored 18 points in Richmond’s next outing against William & Mary and hasn’t looked back since. He already feels like he will be this team’s bona fide scorer.
The Spiders’ other transfers, Will Johnston, Jaden Daughtry and David Thomas, also took some time to get going offensively, but now appear to be on their way just like Lopez.
Johnston is shooting 47.6% from 3-point range. He has not only helped the Spiders in his role as a facilitator in the starting unit, but he also might be one of Richmond’s better shooters.
Daughtry has proven to be a force in the paint off the bench and is shooting almost 60% overall from the field.
And Thomas has had moments where he’s shined as well, coming alive especially in Richmond’s last two games against VMI and Gardner-Webb, scoring 10 and 13 points, respectively, in those contests.
Each transfer has added something different and it has only served the Spiders well in the early going.
Improved Play of Jonathan Beagle
Jonathan Beagle endured an up-and-down season last year after transferring to Richmond from Albany. At times, he served as a viable option off the bench as a back up to Walz, but was also inconsistent at different points throughout the campaign.
The best case scenario for Beagle this season was to come into year two with Richmond like Neal Quinn did in his second year with the Spiders following three years at Lafayette.
Quinn upped his scoring average by three points from season one to season two and felt more comfortable in the Spiders’ system having had a year under his belt.
Beagle has begun this season in a similar way and appears to be on that same second-year trajectory that Quinn was on.
Last season, Beagle averaged 6.8 points per game. So far this season, he is averaging 9.2 points per game. His rebounds are also up this year, as he is averaging 6.4 boards per game.
Beagle led the Spiders in scoring in Richmond’s first two games of the season, scoring 12 points against Southern Virginia and 15 against East Carolina. He also tallied a double-double with 10 points and 10 rebounds against William & Mary.
If Beagle can keep this pace up, especially in coming off the bench and posing as a counter to Walz, then Richmond will be in strong shape as the season moves forward.
Another Small Guard Lighting Up the Box Score
Richmond has hosted its fair share of successful small guards throughout its history, dating back to the 80’s with 5-foot-10 Greg Beckwith and the original “giant-killer” Spiders who knocked off Charles Barkley and Auburn in the 1984 NCAA Tournament.
More recently, it was Jacob Gilyard, who, after five years at Richmond, broke the all-time NCAA Division I steals record and also played a huge piece in that 2022 March Madness run.
Now it appears the Spiders have found another small guard gem in the form of freshman Aiden Argabright, who through five games is leading Richmond in scoring with 13.2 points per game.
Argabright has looked comfortable right from the get go in his first slate of college games, and has shone enough flashes to fit into that small guard archetype Richmond has been able to lean on so many times in the past.
“[Argabright’s] going to be a great player and I think we had a good sense of that when we recruited him and everybody probably has a pretty good sense of that at this point,” Mooney said in a postgame press conference on Nov. 26. “He’s got some of the characteristics that have been really valuable for these guards that we’ve had who have been so good – a sense for the game, quickness, aggressive mentality.”
In this age of the transfer portal, it’s hard to know if Argabright will still be with Richmond by the time his collegiate career comes to an end, but for now it would not be a stretch to venture that the freshman has the intangibles to lead Richmond’s offense for years to come if he chooses to stay.
Starting Off Non-Conference Play On A High Note
Last season especially, the Spiders did not begin the non-conference portion of their schedule well.
After winning the first game of the season against Mount Olive, losses Jon Rothstein would consider “buy games” to Marist, Charlotte and Bucknell followed, dashing any hopes of a Richmond resume strong enough to garner at-large attention.
This season, the Spiders have flipped the script and finally have been able to string some wins together against teams that, on paper, Richmond should have success against. And this has led to the team’s 5-0 start.
Even against Gardner-Webb when the Spiders won by 35 points, it was important to secure a win in dominant fashion like they did so early in the season instead of saving it for the last game of the non-conference slate heading into the holiday break like they have in the past.
Now Richmond has its first true non-conference test against Furman on Nov. 27 in the Terry’s Chocolate ESPN Events Invitational.
The Paladins defeated Virginia in the Round of 64 back in 2023 and have proven to be a strong mid-major program over the last couple years.
So, if the Spiders can defeat them and add a sixth win to their tally to start the season, then that would be a huge momentum builder as they continue to tackle the rest of their non-conference schedule.
Richmond and Furman tip-off at 11 a.m. EST.
2 Comments
Cool.
Thinking That the A-10 Will get 4 NCAA Bids, 4 NIT Bids. And 1 team to The Crown Tournament,