(06-10-2013 12:13 PM)MemOwl Wrote: (06-10-2013 07:04 AM)Fort Bend Owl Wrote: The bad news for schools like Rice is that it just seems harder and harder for private schools to advance far into the baseball postseason. No private school has won a title since Rice and now it even seems a rare occasion for a private school to make it to Omaha (eight public schools will be there this year). Stanford and Miami's programs have dropped in recent years and USC hasn't been a national power for decades now.
I think the combination of fractional schollies and rampant tuition inflation is potentially a real problem.
However, out of state tuitions are very high, and NCSt had a bunch of out of state guys in their lineup.
Yet another reason to be in awe of the job Wayne Graham is doing at Rice.
A huge factor in the rise of the ESUs of the world in college baseball has to do with what they are doing with scholarships in the non-"head count" sports, and what Rice is NOT doing.
There are 6 "head count" sports - those in which all scholarships MUST be full (tuition and room & board):
1. Men's basketball (13)
2. Men's football (85)
3. Women's basketball (15)
4. Women's volleyball (12)
5. Women's tennis (8)
6. Women's gymnastics (12)
All others are "Equivalency" sports, in which there is a maximum of a certain number of full scholarships for an entire team. Baseball, for example has specific rules (11.7 scholarships for 27 athletes, with a minimum of 25% for each athlete). The other Equivalency sports don't have that percentage minimum requirement.
To demonstrate what other schools are doing, I will use track & field as an example, in that it is easy to present the information.
I will use Texas A&M as a case study.
Here are track & field scholarship limits -- men (12.6), women (18)
Texas A&M's 2013 roster lists 61 men and 58 women (119 athletes for 30.6 scholarships). You might think that there are just a bunch of walk-ons with minimal ability. You would be wrong. In an "off" year for the Aggies, they had 23 men and18 women qualify for the NCAA Championships (1st Round). Many of these are sprinters (some foreign), who traditionally need (and deserve) full scholarships.
So how do they do it? Easy. Let's say they recruit an athlete who is offered a full scholarship at another school, let's say, Tulsa. Well, A&M will offer the athlete, for example, 30% of a scholarship, and then the university will supplement the remaining 70%, either in need-based aid, or in the way of an "academic scholarship". Voila, A&M has a full scholarship, while only using only 30% of its athletic aid.
Doing this is perfectly legal under current NCAA rules. See how that 12.6 can grow into 20 or 30 or more "full" scholarships?
I would hazard a guess that this is being done in baseball at the big state schools. If Rice is not doing this (and I do not believe it is), then the high cost of attending Rice has got to be having an impact on recruiting. I understand that the demographic for high school baseball players is vastly different from that of track & field athletes, but $52,000 is still $52,000.
Assuming that ESU is combining aid, and that Rice is not permitted to do so, it is astounding that Coach Graham continues to bring in quality baseball players and to so well with them.
If anyone disputes my hypothesis regarding big schools combining aid, I am willing to stand corrected. I know that it is being done in track & field (and the Ivy League schools are GIVING HUGE athletic scholarships that are "financial aid" -ever wonder why Harvard is so good in basketball?), and I am extrapolating that it is being done in the other Equivalency sports, as well.