The University of Richmond men’s basketball team defeated Gardner-Webb 102-67 on Nov. 22 for its fifth straight victory to kick off the 2025-2026 season.
This 5-0 start for the Spiders is the best start to a campaign since Season 2019-2020 – which was going to be a success for Richmond until it was ultimately cut short due to the pandemic and what seemed like a potentially big offer to the Big Dance was removed from the program.
It’s been six years since the last 5-0 start for Richmond, and much of the structure of college basketball has changed since then thanks to NIL and the transfer portal.
The Spiders are no longer made up of fifth- and sixth-year students like Jacob Gilyard, Grant Golden, Nathan Cayo or Nick Sherod, who played their entire careers at the Robins Center and built a foundation in Richmond that ultimately ended with a trip to the NCAA Tournament in 2022.
The new norm is players rotating in and out of the Spiders program each season, forcing Richmond and, frankly, all of its Atlantic 10 opponents to start over pretty much every year due to the lack of continuity.
It’s difficult to predict from season to season whether a team put together so quickly will be successful, but for a school like Richmond, which is now more than three and a half years removed from its March Madness appearance and which finished 10-22 last season, a 5-0 start in this ever-fluctuating landscape is not something to ignore.
So here are five things to like about the Spiders’ 5-0 start:
Grid depth
Richmond has shown the depth of its roster in each of the first five games to start the season, as three or more players scored in double figures in each of those games.
Whether it’s the Spiders’ starting unit, their bench unit or a mixture of the two, 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 rotation consisting of a starting group of Mike Walz, AJ Lopez, Mikkel Tyne, Collin Tanner and Will Johnston, and a starting group of Jonathan Beagle, Apostolos Roumoglou, Jaden Daughtry, Aiden Argabright, David Thomas and Jaylen Robinson, Richmond’s players have had the opportunity to get in and out of the lineup, contribute to spurts and familiarize themselves with different units on the field, which in turn has only further demonstrated the team’s depth.
Immediate impact of the transfers
It feels more and more like a toss-up each season when it comes to the players a school adds through the transfer portal.
During the 2023-2024 season, Richmond scored on a portal acquisition Jordanian kingwho won the conference’s Player of the Year award alongside now Denver Nuggets center DaRon Holmes and helped lead the Spiders to a share of the A-10 regular season championship.
On the other hand, last year, while the Spiders did have some solid transfers Dusan NeskovicRichmond’s side never really reached its full potential all season, and having so many new faces and a lack of continuity from the previous season ultimately hurt the team’s chances.
It’s only five games, but this season feels a lot more like the first as Richmond’s transfers have all shown flashes of elite play in the young season.
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’s going to be this team’s bona fide goal 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 like Lopez.
Johnston shoots 47.6% from three-point range. Not only has he helped the Spiders in his role as a facilitator in the starting unit, but he could also be one of Richmond’s better shooters.
Daughtry has proven to be a force in the paint off the bench, shooting almost 60% overall from the field.
And Thomas has also had moments where he shined and came alive, especially in Richmond’s last two games against VMI and Gardner-Webb, scoring 10 and 13 points respectively in those games.
Each transfer has added something different and that has only served the Spiders well in the beginning.
Improved play by Jonathan Beagle
Jonathan Beagle had an up-and-down season last year after transferring to Richmond from Albany. At times he acted as a viable option off the bench as a backup to Walz, but he was also inconsistent at several points during the campaign.
The best-case scenario for Beagle this season was to get into year two with Richmond Neal Quinn did it in his second year with the Spiders after three years at Lafayette.
Quinn increased his scoring average by three points from season one to season two and became more comfortable in the Spiders system after a year under his belt.
Beagle has started this season in a similar fashion and appears to be on the same sophomore trajectory as Quinn.
Last season, Broke 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 averages 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 scored a double-double with 10 points and 10 rebounds against William & Mary.
If Beagle can keep up this pace, especially by coming off the bench and acting as a counterbalance to Walz, then Richmond will be in strong form as the season progresses.
Another small guard lighting up the box score
Richmond has hosted its fair share of successful small guards over its history, dating back to the 1980s with 6-foot-4 Greg Beckwith and the original “giant killer” spiders that defeated Charles Barkley and Auburn in the 1984 NCAA Tournament.
More recently that was the case Jacob Gilyardwho, after five years at Richmond, broke the all-time NCAA Division I steals record and also played a big piece in that 2022 March Madness run.
Now it appears the Spiders have found another little guard gem in the form of freshman Aiden Argabrightwho has been in the lead for five games Richmond in scoring at 13.2 points per game.
Argabright looked comfortable from the start in his first series of college games, and has shown enough flashes to fit the small guard archetype that Richmond has leaned on so often in the past.
“[Argabright’s] he’s going to be a great player and I think we had a good feeling about that when we recruited him and everyone probably has a pretty good feeling about that right now,” Mooney said in a press conference after the match on November 26. “He has some qualities that have been very valuable to these guards that we have had that have been so good: feel for the game, speed, aggressive mentality.”
In this age of the transfer portal, it’s difficult to know if Argabright will still be at Richmond by the time his collegiate career comes to an end, but for now it wouldn’t be a stretch to assume the freshman has the intangibles to lead Richmond’s offense for years to come if he decides to stay.
Start non-conference play on a high note
Last season the Spiders in particular did not start the non-conference portion of their schedule well.
After winning the first game of the season against Mount Olive, losing Jon Rothstein Marist was said to be considering buying games, Charlotte and Bucknell followed, making hopes of a Richmond CV strong enough to attract mainstream attention.
This season, the Spiders have flipped the script and have finally been able to get some wins 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, as they did early in the season, rather than saving it for the final game of the non-conference slate heading into the holidays, as they have done 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 in 2023 and have proven to be a strong mid-major program in recent years.
So if the Spiders can beat them and add a sixth win to their tally to start the season, it 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.
#Richmonds #start