OO, Bailiff did not do those things, IMO, because he did not have an approach that could produce those results, particularly given Rice’s self-imposed limitations. The only philosophy that I could ever discern was simply to keep plugging square pegs into round holes until we could recruit well enough that they fit. I don’t think that can work given Rice’s inherent recruiting limitations.

Bailiff’s reputation at Texas State was that his teams played hard but sloppy. I don’t think that can work st Rice. I think the model for Rice has to be that you may have a slight edge in talent, but we are going to recruit to narrow that gap and then to out-scheme and out-work and out-execute you to overcome that gap.

I’m not sure whether Bloomgren’s approach can work at Rice, but at least I know what his approach is. And he has been a big part of making it work at Stanford, so maybe he knows how to make it work here.