On the court, it's been a good-not-great season. Richmond is 15-9 overall, 11-3 in the A10, and has an RPI around 100. We've played a lot of good teams tough, but we've only actually BEATEN one of them and probably need to go on a run to make the PI (or win the CT to make the NT).

However, recruiting could not have possibly gone any better. We only needed to fill one scholarship this time around, as only Dan Green graduates (side note: The guard I lost the 55-45 flip for, Allen Spradlin, has scored more than 1,600 points while a four-year starter for NC State; that hurts!). Meet one of the best recruits I've ever signed...

Lyle Amezcua (*****, #26 overall, #5 C, NY Mr. Basketball) - I decided to take a big swing. A walk-on wouldn't have hurt me much; I'd have happily rolled with both Gary Cole and Matthew Ebbert in the starting lineup, with Douglas Opitz as the #3 big.

Amezcua's preferences were among the most favorable I'd ever seen, and he was just under 300 miles away. He comes in ready to start, complete with knowledge of my system on both ends of the floor. He's an insane athlete who will turn into a complete player fairly quickly, and I'd be stunned if he wasn't drafted (probably early).

I expected stiff competition, and I got it. UConn and St. John's both dove in on him. However, because Amezcua was my only target throughout recruiting, I was able to get in, promise him the world, max out my visits, and hold on for dear life. I wound up winning a three-way flip with something like 45% odds; I was favored, but not by a ton, and it's probably good he made a decision when he did (going up against two higher-prestige Big East teams is hard!).

I love Amezcua, and I really like the rotation we'll roll out next year. Jones, Nicholson, Caudill, Cole, and Amezcua will turn into a really strong unit, and with a bench that includes White, Keegan, Ebbert, and Opitz, plus a few other solid rotational pieces, I think this could be my best Richmond team yet. Hopefully our results bear that out!

GRADE: A+.

Big post coming here...

Last season: Richmond went the hardest-luck 17-11 I've ever seen. Of 11 losses, nine were by five points or fewer. I'm not saying we were great, but we should've won 20 games and didn't, so that hurts. In addition, our prestige dropped to C+, which I figured would hurt us in recruiting.

This season: Things went much, much better. We've completed a 20-6 regular season with some big wins, including a road win at Georgia. WIS says we're on the right side of the NT bubble, and that's nice to see.

We had three scholarships to fill in recruiting, and all three got filled up early. Here's what we got...

Daniel Murphy (**, #122 overall, #29 SG) - This was another terrible guard year (though, to be fair, it comes after a string of decent ones). Murphy was one of two primary targets. Another, a *** guard, was the subject of a battle between Richmond and Georgia. Georgia won the flip, but I don't regret going after him because I HAD to dig my heels in somewhere.

Murphy, meanwhile, has a listed position that doesn't match his skill set. It says he's a guard, but he's really a SF. Currently, he's slow for a guard, and he can't really shoot. What he CAN do, however, is guard like crazy and move the ball. He hits me like a "point forward" type, one who'll get much faster and turn into a solid dribble-drive guy on offense. Down the road, it's possible he moves back to a guard spot, depending on how the roster shapes up.

We do, however, have to start him next year. Maryland Eastern Shore dumped a lot of attention on him. I was OK battling them (a lower-prestige program from a lower-level league), but then I saw Binghamton offered him a scholarship and I pulled out the promises to keep this from turning into a three-way battle. Thankfully, he knows both of my sets and shouldn't be a liability, and long-term, he'll be a very good player with a defined role. There'll be growing pains, but for what he is, I really like him.

David Wiggins (*, #147 overall, #35 PF) - The frontcourt isn't a pressing need for next season. We return the four PF's/C's that have played every game. However, two of those guys will be seniors next season, and I remain convinced Amezcua's going to turn pro early.

Enter Wiggins, who has plenty of potential but needs time. He's a good athlete already, with good "wing" stats for a big and a knowledge of my defense. Most everywhere else, though, he's pretty raw (I also wish he had a higher rebounding ceiling, but it's not like he'll be terrible on the glass, either). He's going to develop a lot in time, and that makes him a prime redshirt candidate. If he doesn't take it, it's not the end of the world, but more time to ensure he reaches his ceiling will turn him into a solid starter.

Anthony Gerhardt (#63 SF; ineligible) - It's been a while since I went down the "sign an ineligible" route, but having plugged the other gaps, there wasn't much available other than what was being fought over by lesser-prestige schools. Sim teams Canisius and Niagara were battling for Gerhardt, but I was able to swoop in and sign him without much of a fight.

Gerhardt's a decent long-term prospect. Down the road, he'll be an excellent defender, with good ATH/speed he can use on both ends. I wish he was a better passer, but he'll turn into an OK complementary scorer who also won't commit many turnovers. In a vacuum, he makes a lot of sense for us, but I'm not entirely sure how much he'll play. Everything he does, Murphy is going to do better, and if he shows up and sits a year, he won't develop until that second season (where it's possible he'll be third-string at SF and not really able to contribute anywhere else). Ability-wise, though, I don't have many concerns.

GRADE: B. Getting the *** guard would've helped us a ton, but I landed my other primary target and snatched up two other guys who'll fit long-term. Given the recent prestige drop, I did pretty well, and I'm hoping that bounces back up at the end of this season.

Lots of good stuff here...

Last season: Richmond was, indeed, on the right side of the NT bubble. We got in as an 11-seed and sprung a minor upset of USC in the first round before running into Colorado, who eventually advanced to the Final Four. Patrick Caudill was drafted, and our prestige floated back up to B-.

This season: It's probably my best Richmond team ever. We're currently 22-3 (and have been ranked for most of the year) ahead of a massive showdown with 22-1 St. Bonaventure. The projection report has both teams as NT locks, and La Salle also figures to be on the right side of the bubble. The A-10 is tough this year, but we've played really well (including a win against top-10 Cincinnati).

Recruiting was always going to be key this year. We have four scholarships to fill, two for key starters that may very well get drafted (Quincy Jones and Gary Cole) and two for reserves that have played a ton of important minutes (Douglas White and Matthew Ebbert). We've filled two of them in the early stages of recruiting, one with a guy I treated as a must-get...

Del Mueller (****, #56 overall, #11 C) - I think WIS underranked Mueller a bit, actually, because he's very similar to Lyle Amezcua. Mueller popped up 16 miles from campus, and I needed a high-quality big. We lose two of them after this season, I remain convinced we're going to lose Amezcua early (if he sticks around all four years, I'll be very pleasantly surprised!), and Douglas Opitz will be a senior next year, too.

I planted my flag on Mueller early by maxing out promises, and, predictably, a battle ensued. NC State showed up on him and I was prepared for a flip. What I didn't expect was both Georgia Tech and Providence ALSO joining in to make it a four-way fight (Princeton also invested a bit in him, but not enough to have a real shot). Somehow, I wound up a slight favorite at 31%, and that was enough for me to land him.

Mueller will start from day one (Opitz is probably better, but as Ebbert has proven the past two years, there's a ton of value in having a #3 big that's good enough to start for most teams), and I can't wait to see how he develops. He's not as polished a scorer as Amezcua was coming in, but he's a phenomenal athlete with room to grow everywhere it counts. If we hadn't gotten him, it would've been a legitimate crisis (and I'd probably be searching for a new job next year).

James Buchheit (*, #139 overall, #16 PG) - Stop me if you've heard this before, but it was a below-average guard year. In addition to Mueller, I had two other targets in mind, both guards. One was right next to Cincinnati and the other was an ineligible that got snapped up by Lipscomb, and I figured engaging in either battle (in addition to the one for Mueller) was a losing proposition.

Buchheit was a backup option, and while he's far from bad, if this is truly the #16 PG in the country, something's wrong. On the plus side, he's going to turn into an excellent shooter with a passable inside game, decent-to-good athleticism and speed, and reasonable point guard skills. Those point guard skills, though, are close to topped out, and while he'll turn into a solid defender down the road, he won't ever be a lockdown guy and is going to need some work as a freshman.

Buchheit is a good get, especially considering we'll need outside shooting with Jones and White graduating. Thankfully, though, I didn't have to promise him anything, because he'll likely be the #4 or #5 guard in the rotation starting out.

Make it three...

David Nguyen (#83 PG) - Nguyen is a JuCo player, so we'll have him for two years. He looks a lot like Douglas White, for several reasons. He's going to be a very good scorer once he gets his offensive IQ up, and with his shooting/distributing abilities, he can play either guard spot. Athletically, he's fine; he's no burner, but he's fast enough to get the job done.

The downside with him, like with White, is in his defense. He does have some room to improve, which is good, and if he tops out in the mid-60's, he'll be fine. If he can't get there, he becomes a bit of a liability.

I had to promise him a start (plus 20 minutes) to ward off a challenge from Buffalo. I probably would've won a flip for him, but I needed backcourt bodies and I didn't feel like taking the chance (and, as it turns out, A- prestige Oklahoma State offered him a scholarship the cycle he signed with me, so the decision was probably the right one). He'd be better as the "instant offense off the bench" guard White's been for the past few years, and he's not going to be a star, but he definitely fills a need and should be totally fine for what he is.