City of Basketball Love

By Tom Robinson
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The college basketball landscape changed right before Mike Walz’s eyes.

As he approaches the end of a four-year run at the University of Richmond, with graduation looming in May, Walz sees that as a blessing.

“I think I came in as one of the luckiest classes in college basketball memory,” Walz, a Conestoga graduate, said in a telephone interview last week.

Since Walz made his way to Richmond, the impact of Name, Image and Likeness rules has changed the very concept of a four-year college commitment.

“He’s a fourth-year senior, all at one school, which is pretty rare,” Richmond coach Chris Mooney said. “We’re really proud of that. I think there are only two of those in the whole Atlantic-10. That means a lot to me and to the Richmond program and community that he’s here and we’ve gotten to see him develop, grow and become a leader and team captain.”

Walz has been around to witness the comings and goings of teammates and opponents without ever feeling the need to change the course of his college days.

“I did not come to the school for NIL purposes,” Walz said. “The reasons I came were genuine – they were more centered around academics, the culture, the personal growth and, of course, the basketball side.

“I think in more recent years as we’ve been able to monetize college basketball and turn it into a quasi-professional league, that has certainly been great for everyone involved. I’ve been able to benefit from that, but it was never part of the decision criteria. So looking back, I think I had the best of both worlds. I wasn’t tainted in why I came to the school.”

Because of that, Walz enjoyed the college experience that many of his contemporaries will never know. As he looks to his future, he openly talks about the conversations he expects to have at homecomings decades from now as he learns how the lives of teammates, classmates and others he met along the way are going.

“These are some of the best memories I’ve ever had, making friends and mentors and cementing the legacy, winning the first regular-season A-10 championship in our program’s history – being a part of some really special teams, some really special memories, beating great teams home and away and cultivating long-term relationships,” he said.

While Walz holds out some hope that an abbreviated freshman season may somehow lead to one more chance to play college basketball, as things stand now, his career is near completion.

The Spiders are on the rebound, with Walz playing a significant role, as the team heads for the final month of the regular season and what waits beyond.

The Walz career path is an old-fashioned one that only four years at one school could produce.

The 6-foot-11, 260-pound center went from little-used freshman to a small, but steady role on a championship team as a sophomore; to a frequent starter on a struggling team as a junior; to a mainstay of a resurgent squad as a senior captain. Richmond has improved from 10-22 last season to 13-9 with five losses by five points or less.

“I’m always pleased with how hard he plays, his attention to detail in practice and his concentration level in terms of watching film or following the scout,” said Mooney, who began his coaching career at Lansdale Catholic and made his first step to the college level at Beaver College, which is now Arcadia University. “ … Mike’s very smart, but he’s also very committed, very team-first, something not that I’m surprised about, but I’m always impressed with and always appreciative of.”

Walz is Richmond’s steadiest force on the boards, a key passer in the Princeton offense and is among its most accurate 3-point shooters.

The Spiders are an extremely balanced team in terms of everything from playing time to production. While starting every game, Walz sits in the middle of a group of 11 players who average between 10.8 and 25.6 minutes per game.

Coming off a season-high 14 rebounds in Saturday’s loss at George Washington, Walz averages a team-high 7.0 rebounds. He also leads the team in blocked shots while averaging 7.6 points and shooting 43.1 percent from 3-point range.

That is a long way from the player who was, by his own description, “virtually unplayable” as a freshman.

“Even as a sophomore, I played just spotty minutes here and there, just filling a void for our starting center whenever he was in foul trouble, whenever he needed a breather or whatever,” Walz said. “I was just a rebounder and a steady presence in the middle.

“It has kind of morphed the last couple years. I’ve seen an increase in the number of shots I’ve taken in the variety of shots I’ve taken. I’ve tried to expand my game beyond the 3-point arc and I’ve seen a lot of success with that. I’ve been shooting over 45 percent the last two years on threes on a decent amount of attempts.”

With his size, Walz still thinks his back-to-the-basket game can and should get stronger. Mooney encourages him to look for more shots, both close to and away from the basket.

“It’s kind of in my nature to always crash the offensive glass,” Walz said. “There’s certainly some second-chance opportunities that we find not only for myself, but kick-out 3s. I have always prided myself on my aggressiveness on the offensive glass. My coaches have also pretty much instilled confidence in my 3s.”

The feedback he gets is that “there’s not really a bad shot that I shoot and that I should be shooting more. The flaw of my game is that I’m a little too unselfish and I don’t look for shots enough. It’s kind of hard to develop that – to be more unselfish – to take more shots for myself.”

A collective discussion on analytics with the team has Walz convinced that success down the stretch may hinge on reducing the number of mid-range jumpers the team takes and replacing them with close-range baskets or using the team-wide accuracy from beyond the arc.

“Those two things cater to my game,” said Walz, who started the New Year by going a career-best 4-for-4 on 3s against Fordham to begin a January in which he has hit 47.8% from deep.

Along with shot selection, Walz sees the keys to success the rest of the way as playing physically tough when defending around the rim and pushing the pace to take advantage of Richmond’s uncommonly deep rotation.

“I think that’s an advantage for us, especially with some star-studded teams we run into in the league,” he said. “They might have seven or eight guys that play the majority of the minutes and by the under-8 media timeout in the second half, those guys are gassed. At that point, our depth and our speed and our athleticism become an advantage.”

The Spiders and Walz, who wrapped up the 2023-24 season in the National Invitational Tournament, will be trying to extend their season as far as possible.

Walz understands that in the foreseeable future, Richmond’s lineup may include a large share of “one- and two-year rentals” like other schools. But, if Mooney should ever find himself needing someone to fill in future recruits about what the University of Richmond and its basketball program is all about, Walz pledges that he will be there.

“If I’m part of the last generation or last breed, whatever you want to call four-year players, I’ll be more than happy to vouch for it,” Walz said. “This place is really special to me and my family.”

That makes Walz, an excellent student with dual majors in the business and leadership schools at Richmond, in no hurry to get to the finish.

“If this is it, that’s sad,” he said. “It’s something I’ll have to come to terms with and move on with the rest of my life.

“But, I’ll know that I’ve really set myself up in the classroom and outside in the community to be successful.”

Or, exactly what four years at a college is meant to do.