(04-06-2024 09:32 AM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  

(04-06-2024 09:13 AM)DrMac Wrote:  How can you recruit competitively when your sales pitch is: "Come to Rice, a loser for the last decade. Our facilities are now pretty average for college. We can give you a 25% scholarship, so your parents will only have to pay $60,000 for tuition, room and board. You can make it up with the NIL money we don't have to give." Until you can get the players, it doesn't matter much who's coaching.

That's a true statement if you're looking at Top 25 - 35 caliber teams. However, we have the talent to be far better than a #217 ranked RPI level program. Stop making excuses for the lack of coaching. Some times I wonder whether the current coaching staff is over-reliant on analytics at the expense of actual teaching fundamentals and developing talent.

I guess the question is what are the goals for the baseball team? Is it to just make the conference tournament (questionable this year and barely got in last year), get an NCAA bid or are we content to just have a team that plays D-1 baseball and will continue to finish at or near the bottom of the conference every year? Agree we should be far better than 217 RPI (as stated on another thread HCU is 222...let that sink in) but top 75 should be an achievable goal if administration gets serious about how rising tuition costs are affecting athletics and ability to recruit/compete and make the necessary aid changes so that there is at least a chance of success. Right now there is no chance of success under the current structure. I never thought I would say this but Rice either needs to get committed to the current athletic landscape or just move to D2 or Ivy League (which cares little about athletics given how they dealt with Covid years etc... ). I'm tired of watching failed season after failed season for this program. The administration and to some level the coaching staff are equally to blame for not adjusting to the changing landscape of college baseball.

(04-06-2024 09:32 AM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  That's a true statement if you're looking at Top 25 - 35 caliber teams. However, we have the talent to be far better than a #217 ranked RPI level program.

No, Rice doesn't.

The reason the pitchers walk so many batters and hit so many more is because they don't have the stuff to come into the zone and get batters out, so they have to nibble at the corners exclusively. And the more you have to nibble, the more you miss.

(04-06-2024 09:32 AM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  

(04-06-2024 09:13 AM)DrMac Wrote:  How can you recruit competitively when your sales pitch is: "Come to Rice, a loser for the last decade. Our facilities are now pretty average for college. We can give you a 25% scholarship, so your parents will only have to pay $60,000 for tuition, room and board. You can make it up with the NIL money we don't have to give." Until you can get the players, it doesn't matter much who's coaching.

That's a true statement if you're looking at Top 25 - 35 caliber teams. However, we have the talent to be far better than a #217 ranked RPI level program. Stop making excuses for the lack of coaching. Some times I wonder whether the current coaching staff is over-reliant on analytics at the expense of actual teaching fundamentals and developing talent.

I tend to agree with Numbers. It’s easy to really question some of Cruz’s decisions about why certain people are in the line up or why we make pitching decisions like we do. Is it that our coach doesn’t understand baseball? I really doubt that. I’m becoming more and more convinced that some of those iffy decisions by are coach are driven by the simple fact that we just don’t have the talent this year.

(04-06-2024 10:55 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(04-06-2024 09:32 AM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  That's a true statement if you're looking at Top 25 - 35 caliber teams. However, we have the talent to be far better than a #217 ranked RPI level program.

No, Rice doesn't.

The reason the pitchers walk so many batters and hit so many more is because they don't have the stuff to come into the zone and get batters out, so they have to nibble at the corners exclusively. And the more you have to nibble, the more you miss.

That's absolutely not true. Love how a guy who hasn't been to Reckling in years and who I very much doubt watches on the video feed is commenting on the talent of the team.