(07-26-2017 11:47 AM)Owl1998 Wrote:  

(07-26-2017 11:43 AM)illiniowl Wrote:  

(07-25-2017 10:27 AM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  

(07-25-2017 09:41 AM)Eat More Vole Wrote:  

(07-25-2017 08:51 AM)illiniowl Wrote:  You want to know what Vandy's advantage over Rice is? They belong to a real conference and have a greater commitment to athletics as an institution.

Prospective student-athletes see Vandy as a place where you can go and win and not a program in decline?

Yeah, and it has absolutely nothing to do with the reality that Vandy has not only very significantly reduced the academic requirements for student-athletes, but have established several incremental scholarships that allow them to greatly augment their 11.7 allotted baseball scholarships? I've heard from several sources that well over half of Vandy players are on full scholarship.

Furthermore, Vandy, UNC and UVA all have rosters heavily weighted with players from the northeast, who find those schools and locals (Nashville, Raleigh-Durham, Charlotte) much closer and more attractive than Houston.

There are 2 ways to be on or close to full scholarship as a baseball player and Rice isn't prohibited from doing either of them. One is piggybacking a merit scholarship onto a partial baseball scholarship, which is fine as long as the merit scholarship is generally available to nonathletes and is not given for athletic reasons, and the other is taking need-based financial aid only and walking on. (Technically there is a 3rd way -- getting 1 of the 11.7 baseball full rides all to oneself - but that is rarely done.)

To the extent Vandy is doing these things and Rice isn't, we can file that right under "greater commitment to athletics as an institution" as I said in my post. Vandy has scholarships with criteria that lo and behold baseball players can qualify for without breaking NCAA rules? Rice could do this as well. Why don't we? Lack of commitment to athletics, lack of leadership, and a general contentment, demonstrated vividly over the past 10+ years, with atrophying away to a small-time athletic program.

Vandy is letting athletes in with lower standards than Rice does? (People here have said this about Duke, Northwestern, and Stanford as well.) Well, it's not hurting these schools in the rankings, so why in the world are we maintaining (if we are; I doubt it personally) higher standards than these schools? What benefit could there possibly be? Who would possibly stand in the way of aligning our athletic admission standards with these schools?

Whatever advantages Vandy and other peer schools may have over Rice Baseball and other Rice sports, Rice University is choosing to let those persist. Which makes it suck to be a fan of Rice sports.

Perfectly said.