Mooney, King and Bailey take home A-10 awards

If the University of Richmond men’s basketball team’s season couldn’t get any better, it now has three yearly Atlantic 10 awards to add to its trophy case of regular season accomplishments. 

As the team prepares for its first game in the quarterfinal round of the A-10 Tournament on March 14, the Spiders can not only say they are the co-regular season conference champions and that they hold No.1 seed in the tournament, but they can now say they have the A-10 Coach of the Year in Head Coach Chris Mooney, the A-10 Co-Player of the Year in graduate guard Jordan King, and the A-10 Co-Most Improved Player of the Year in senior guard Dji Bailey. 

Mooney has been at the helm of the Spiders for almost 20 years – taking over as head coach in 2005 – and this is his first time winning the award. After the team finished 15-18 overall with a second-round exit in the A-10 Tournament last season, Mooney led the Spiders to a 23-8 regular season record and 15-3 conference record this year. 

“Grateful and humbled, but I do think it’s about the entire team,” Mooney said in a March 12 press conference. “The whole organization goes into having a season like this and so, accept it on behalf of the entire program.” 

During his tenure with the Spiders, Mooney has led the program to three NCAA Tournaments and two A-10 Championships, the most recent of both coming in 2022. During the 2019-2020 season, prior to the A-10 Tournament and NCAA Tournament being canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it looked as if the Spiders were set to get an at-large bid into March Madness as well. 

However, despite Mooney’s success, fans haven’t always been so forgiving when it comes to the ups and downs of the last decade of Spider basketball. 

Back in 2018, disgruntled fans of the program purchased a billboard on a highway in Richmond that said #FireMooney. Now, Mooney winning A-10 Coach of the Year just six years later makes for quite the redemption story, especially with the Spiders also being picked to finish 11th in this year’s preseason poll. 

Following the team’s win over Saint Joseph’s University on March 6, in which it clinched a share of the regular season champions title, Mooney said in a postgame interview he was “so honored” to be his team’s coach. 

For King, the momentum behind winning his award started the first time he laced up his shoes for a game at the Robins Center. In the Spiders’ first game of this season back on Nov. 6, King dropped 34 points in his UR debut, showing just how much the former walk-on at Siena College was meant for the bright lights of the A-10 Conference. 

“It’s just a credit to all the hard work that I put in over the years,” King said in a March 12 press conference. “The journey is, it’s been a bump in the road a little bit, but I’m just glad that all the hard work’s paying off. But you don’t get these awards unless your team is winning, so I gotta give all the credit to my teammates and my coaches for putting me in the right position.” 

King ended the regular season averaging 18.5 points per game on 46.4% overall shooting from the field and 42.6% shooting from 3-point range. Over the course of the 31-game season, King sank 80 3-pointers and had 14 games in which he scored 20 points or more. 

He is the first UR player to win A-10 Player of the Year since T.J. Cline, who won it back in 2017. The only other Spider to do so before that was Kevin Anderson in 2010. 

Over the course of the season, King was awarded A-10 Player of the Week on three occasions. In addition to being named A-10 Co-Player of the Year, King also made the All-Conference First Team as well as the All-Academic Team. Graduate center Neal Quinn made the All-Conference Second Team. 

After the Spiders defeated crosstown rival Virginia Commonwealth University on March 2, senior guard DeLonnie Hunt spoke to the prospect of King winning the award in a postgame press conference. 

“[King’s] been Player of the Year for a long time in my book, and I don’t think it’s changing,” Hunt said. 

For Bailey, he came into this season as one of the last pieces of the Spiders’ 2021-2022 A-10 Championship team. 

With former super seniors Jacob Gilyard, Grant Golden, Nathan Cayo and Nick Sherod graduating following UR’s March Madness run, and former men’s basketball forward Tyler Burton transferring to Villanova University this season, Bailey was one of the last dominoes standing on the current roster.

However, despite those missing pieces, Bailey stepped up this year, taking on a bigger role and having a large impact on the Spiders’ run to the No. 1 seed in the upcoming A-10 Tournament. 

Bailey has not always had the best luck throughout his career at UR, suffering injuries in each of his first three seasons. He dealt with a wrist injury during his first-year, an ankle injury his sophomore year and a knee injury last year, making his playing time more sporadic over the years than most of his teammates. 

In his first two seasons with the Spiders, he averaged just 1.8 and 1.9 points per game, respectively, in 25 games. Last season, he averaged 3 points per game. 

But this year has been different. Injury-free during the entire regular season, Bailey averaged 10 points per game, constantly showcasing his improvement throughout the campaign. 

Bailey has had 19 games this season where he’s scored in double figures. A shining game for him was when the Spiders defeated La Salle University on Feb. 10, in which Bailey had 22 points and 7 rebounds on 6-for-7 shooting. 

In a postgame press conference on Feb. 10, following the win over La Salle, Mooney said Bailey has improved so much.

“In this day and age, for [Bailey] to have the year he’s having now after having not as quite as successful of a first few years is great,” Mooney said. “It’s gratifying. And there have been guys that we’ve had at Richmond who have had similar career paths. And for him to be able to just have the confidence and ability to play like that and have such a significant impact on so many games is really impressive.” 

With now three conference awards and a regular season conference championship under their belts, the Spiders will look to further their success this season at the Barclays Center. 

UR will take No. 8 Saint Joseph’s in the quarterfinal round of the A-10 Tournament at 11:30 a.m. March 14. 

Contact sports editor Jimmy James at jimmy.james@richmond.edu.