Last Sunday Richmond beat Davidson 64-62 in the A-10 tourney title game to earn an automatic bid to this week’s NCAA tournament. The Spiders lost their final 2 regular season games but bounced back to win 4 games in 4 days to make the NCAA tourney, where they will face #5 seed Iowa on Thursday in Buffalo. Earlier today HoopsHD’s Jon Teitel got to speak with Richmond SR Grant Golden about his athletic family and winning the conference tourney.
You were born/raised in Virginia: what made you choose Richmond? I was actually born in Richmond but moved all around Virginia (with 2 years in North Carolina). I wanted to stay here for college and Richmond recruited me: I am lucky I got the opportunity.
You play for Coach Chris Mooney: what makes him such a good coach, and what is the most important thing that you have ever learned from him? I could go on and on about him, but as a coach he really tries to understand his players and treats us like adults. From Day 1 it does not matter whether you are a freshman or senior: he just wants us to grow up and become great men. He preaches all the time that the worst thing in life is feeling sorry for yourself: there are ups and downs but if you work hard then you can push through anything.
The last time the school made the NCAA tourney in 2011 it ended up making the Sweet 16: what is the key to winning games in March? We treat the 1st 1 just like a normal game in terms of scouting, but if you can get through the 1st 1 then the preparation/short notice changes a lot. With the Princeton offense we run it will help us a lot as our opponents will have little time to prepare for it.
Last weekend you won 4 games in 4 days to win the A-10 tourney: how exhausted were you by Sunday night, and what did it mean to you to win a title? I was super-exhausted…but not as much as my roommate Jacob, who played 40 minutes in all 4 games! To hear that final buzzer go off made it all worth it and made my body feel a lot better.
You also joined the 2000 PTS/1000 REB club: where does that rank among the highlights of your career? It is certainly something that I am proud of. When I am an old man I will be able to tell my family about it…but nothing beats winning the title yesterday.
PG Jacob Gilyard was named conference tourney MVP and has the most STL in NCAA history: where does he rank among the greatest defensive (or all-around) players that you have ever seen? He is PG #1 in my book, whether you are talking about defense or offense. He can go into a game and literally score zero points and still be the best player on the court: he is an incredible player with a high basketball IQ.
In the postgame press conference you mentioned all of the obstacles your team has overcome (injuries, COVID, etc.): what was the feeling like in your locker room afterward? We were all in shock just to finally be in that moment. It is indescribable: this group has been through a lot of ups and downs.
Your brother Bryce plays basketball at Butler, your father Craig played basketball at Fairfield, and 2 of your grandfathers played college football: who is the best athlete in the family? I want to say myself but I am obviously biased! My dad would probably say himself, as would the rest of us. I guess I will say my brother: he got the super-athletic genes while I did not.
How do you feel about being a #12 seed, and what do you know about Iowa? They are a really good team and have a POY candidate in Keegan Murray. They have some older guys like us and are very solid so we are looking forward to the opportunity. I do not get into all of the bracketology but the 5-12 matchup is always an interesting 1!
Your NCAA tourney game on Thursday will be #160 of your college career, which places you in the top-25 in the history of the sport: what kind of advantage will all of that experience give you in the postseason, and can you even comprehend that your opponent Jordan Bohannon is #1 with 178 games played?! I did not know that about Jordan until I saw a tweet about it this morning: I did not think that anyone had more games under their belt than me, but it is cool to see a guy who has the same level of dedication. The advantage is mostly in maturity: we have seen it all and have been down double-digits many times so no matter where we are at we will be calm.