Here's the recap from coach Schmidt: https://riceowls.com/news/2019/5/4/aggie...eason.aspx

Quote:It was obviously a great college tennis match. Credit to A&M for staying tough and making extra balls when it came to it. A&M took it to us in doubles. They came out ready to go and we didn't. That was disappointing. I told our team after the doubles that we needed to bring more intensity and we did that. Across the board there were six really competitive matches out there. You didn't know until the last point who was going to win the match. I'm proud of our team. They left everything they had out on the court. We have to get a little more of an edge and an attitude to turn matches like this into "W's". At this level you have to have that a little more. They've been a really enjoyable group to work with this season. The exciting thing is that everybody who was in the starting lineup today is going to be back next year. Obviously, they were hungry this year, but they are going to be even hungrier because I know how much this loss stings for them and for everyone with the program. I'm confident they are going to use it to get better.

(05-04-2019 01:03 PM)illiniowl Wrote:  Up 9 on Marquette with 2:30 to go. Outscored 15-2 from there.
Up 5-2 and serving in this one.
And see any number of bullpen meltdowns and otherwise blown leads on the diamond.

We need a sports psychologist on staff, and stat.

Posters laugh at UH for “Coogin it”, but we seem to be the chokaholics.

(05-04-2019 02:23 PM)chrisc Wrote:  Here's the recap from coach Schmidt: https://riceowls.com/news/2019/5/4/aggie...eason.aspx

Quote:It was obviously a great college tennis match. Credit to A&M for staying tough and making extra balls when it came to it. A&M took it to us in doubles. They came out ready to go and we didn't. That was disappointing. I told our team after the doubles that we needed to bring more intensity and we did that. Across the board there were six really competitive matches out there. You didn't know until the last point who was going to win the match. I'm proud of our team. They left everything they had out on the court. We have to get a little more of an edge and an attitude to turn matches like this into "W's". At this level you have to have that a little more. They've been a really enjoyable group to work with this season. The exciting thing is that everybody who was in the starting lineup today is going to be back next year. Obviously, they were hungry this year, but they are going to be even hungrier because I know how much this loss stings for them and for everyone with the program. I'm confident they are going to use it to get better.

A&M used the minimum 6 players, 4 freshmen and 2 sophomores.
Rice's 7 players were 3 frosh, 3 sophs, 1 junior

(05-04-2019 02:26 PM)Ranger Wrote:  

(05-04-2019 01:03 PM)illiniowl Wrote:  Up 9 on Marquette with 2:30 to go. Outscored 15-2 from there.
Up 5-2 and serving in this one.
And see any number of bullpen meltdowns and otherwise blown leads on the diamond.

We need a sports psychologist on staff, and stat.

Posters laugh at UH for “Coogin it”, but we seem to be the chokaholics.

I think the following also needs to be noted:

Women's hoops was 0-4 against P5/Big East (28-0 against everyone else)
Women's tennis: 2-7 vs. P5/WCC (arguably a major conference in tennis) (14-1 vs. the rest)
Volleyball: 2-2 vs. P5, 22-4 vs. the rest . . . and then lost to a G5 school in the NCAA tournament.

And the futility vs. P5 in football, baseball (since circa 2016), and men's basketball is well documented.

(05-04-2019 03:50 PM)illiniowl Wrote:  

(05-04-2019 02:26 PM)Ranger Wrote:  [quote='illiniowl' pid='16081084' dateline='1556993001']
Up 9 on Marquette with 2:30 to go. Outscored 15-2 from there.
Up 5-2 and serving in this one.
And see any number of bullpen meltdowns and otherwise blown leads on the diamond.

We need a sports psychologist on staff, and stat.

Posters laugh at UH for “Coogin it”, but we seem to be the chokaholics.

I think the following also needs to be noted:

Women's hoops was 0-4 against P5/Big East (28-0 against everyone else)
Women's tennis: 2-7 vs. P5/WCC (arguably a major conference in tennis) (14-1 vs. the rest)
Volleyball: 2-2 vs. P5, 22-4 vs. the rest . . . and then lost to a G5 school in the NCAA tournament.

And the futility vs. P5 in football, baseball (since circa 2016), and men's basketball is well documented.
[/quot

Clearly more competitive in WBB, and tennis, however.

I'd rank our top three teams in 2018-19 as (1) Women's Basketball, (2) Volleyball, (3) Women's Tennis.

And it's probably a massive jump between those three and number four, whatever sport you put in that spot (maybe swimming?).

(05-04-2019 07:46 PM)Fort Bend Owl Wrote:  I'd rank our top three teams in 2018-19 as (1) Women's Basketball, (2) Volleyball, (3) Women's Tennis.

And it's probably a massive jump between those three and number four, whatever sport you put in that spot (maybe swimming?).

all fit with the narrative that sports w true students have a much better chance for success at Rice

Tweet from Grace Morgan (VB middle blocker) from a couple of hours ago.

"Every time someone says Rice has bad athletics all female Rice athletes simultaneously scream into the void."

Women’s sports just aren’t as interesting as men’s sports to me.

But yes-our women’s teams have been pretty good.

(05-04-2019 07:46 PM)Fort Bend Owl Wrote:  I'd rank our top three teams in 2018-19 as (1) Women's Basketball, (2) Volleyball, (3) Women's Tennis.

And it's probably a massive jump between those three and number four, whatever sport you put in that spot (maybe swimming?).

I think "massive jump" is probably unfair. By at least one measure -- wins over major conference opponents -- swimming and XC (women's AND men's) probably each have more of those than WBB, WVB & WTEN combined. I realize that is a bit apples to oranges because invitationals afford the chance to face multiple teams at once; on the other hand, swimming and XC don't/can't compete nearly as often. Both swimming and WXC qualified individuals for nationals; there is no team qualifying in swimming; and XC's national meet is roughly twice as hard to qualify a team for as the sports with 64-team tournaments. Not saying MXC or WXC would have made a mythical 64-team field this year (might have been a different story for the women if Elsa Racasan hadn't redshirted) but if winning your conference got you in automatically like other sports, and CUSA didn't happen to have a couple of Athletics Kenya development programs masquerading as college teams, then the women certainly would have. And the men probably would have made the equivalent of the NIT -- which is probably where WVB, WTEN and maybe even WBB would have ended up if they hadn't won their conference tournaments.

(05-05-2019 11:27 AM)Fort Bend Owl Wrote:  Tweet from Grace Morgan (VB middle blocker) from a couple of hours ago.

"Every time someone says Rice has bad athletics all female Rice athletes simultaneously scream into the void."

We have a good-to-very good women's athletics program . . . among non-major conference schools.

We have an average women's athletics program compared to Division I schools that have football. It is quite possible none of our 3 NCAA tournament teams would have been at-large picks.

We have a bad men's athletics program right now no matter how you slice it. The standard-bearer is the XC/T&F program, which is (like women's athletics overall) good against non-major conference competition, but around average for Division I. Baseball is bad against majors, average against non-majors, and average overall (which unfortunately feels like bad because of past success). The rest are mediocre to bad, full stop.

So, kind of hard to characterize "Rice Athletics" overall given these disparities. I get the women's frustration at being overlooked because of/lumped in with the bad football and MBB teams, and sure, that is an example of casual sexism that deserves to be called out. I'd agree with the women that what they have accomplished should be enough to avoid the "bad" label, but at the same time the hard truth is they haven't done much of anything on a national scale (yet).

(05-04-2019 01:03 PM)illiniowl Wrote:  We need a sports psychologist on staff, and stat.

I think this guy is on to something.

(05-05-2019 04:43 PM)illiniowl Wrote:  

(05-05-2019 11:27 AM)Fort Bend Owl Wrote:  Tweet from Grace Morgan (VB middle blocker) from a couple of hours ago.

"Every time someone says Rice has bad athletics all female Rice athletes simultaneously scream into the void."

We have a good-to-very good women's athletics program . . . among non-major conference schools.

We have an average women's athletics program compared to Division I schools that have football. It is quite possible none of our 3 NCAA tournament teams would have been at-large picks.

We have a bad men's athletics program right now no matter how you slice it. The standard-bearer is the XC/T&F program, which is (like women's athletics overall) good against non-major conference competition, but around average for Division I. Baseball is bad against majors, average against non-majors, and average overall (which unfortunately feels like bad because of past success). The rest are mediocre to bad, full stop.

So, kind of hard to characterize "Rice Athletics" overall given these disparities. I get the women's frustration at being overlooked because of/lumped in with the bad football and MBB teams, and sure, that is an example of casual sexism that deserves to be called out. I'd agree with the women that what they have accomplished should be enough to avoid the "bad" label, but at the same time the hard truth is they haven't done much of anything on a national scale (yet).

What the heck are you smoking. "Good to very good" among non-majors? Try exceptional among non-majors. WBB was Top 25 ranked nationally, and volleyball was Top 35. Womens tennis was Top 50 and won the conference championship despite an almost complete turnover in our roster after having lost our top 3 players from last year's squad. And swimming excelled in the individual and relay events. That's far better than "average" among all D-1 womens programs.

We are 113 out of 263 (who have points) in D1 after the winter season in the Directors Cup. This does not yet include our points for women’s tennis (spring season)

Top 1/3 of D1 and top team in CUSA at close of winter season.

So... YEAH!

https://s3.amazonaws.com/nacda.com/docum...verall.pdf

(05-05-2019 06:23 PM)owl at the moon Wrote:  We are 113 out of 263 (who have points) in D1 after the winter season in the Directors Cup. This does not yet include our points for women’s tennis (spring season)

Top 1/3 of D1 and top team in CUSA at close of winter season.

So... YEAH!

https://s3.amazonaws.com/nacda.com/docum...verall.pdf

Pretty damn impressive. Top of CUSA. What a feat. And only 6 Ivy League schools ahead of us. And only 28 slots behind Akron, 26 behind Southern Utah, 23 behind Buffalo and Colgate,21 behind Northern Iowa, 29 behind SFA.........

Those schools are real athletic powerhouses. It is a dream to be almost good enough to be in their company.

How did we get 80 points in the fall?

Probably need to normalize that data if you want to use it for comparison.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

(05-05-2019 08:21 PM)Fort Bend Owl Wrote:  How did we get 80 points in the fall?

VB?

(05-05-2019 09:54 PM)Tomball Owl Wrote:  

(05-05-2019 08:21 PM)Fort Bend Owl Wrote:  How did we get 80 points in the fall?

VB?

XC teams that did not make nationals but still finished in the top 5 at regionals get points, so both MXC & WXC got points for Rice in the fall, along with VB for making the tournament. Only 31 teams make the national meet -- making it, as I said above, fully twice as hard a postseason to qualify for as a 64-team bracket, and therefore these points are basically saying that these teams are worthy of the same recognition as teams that make a 64-team field and lose in the first round. In other words, MXC and WXC ended up scoring basically the same number of points for us as WBB, WVB & WTEN.

(05-05-2019 05:20 PM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  

(05-05-2019 04:43 PM)illiniowl Wrote:  

(05-05-2019 11:27 AM)Fort Bend Owl Wrote:  Tweet from Grace Morgan (VB middle blocker) from a couple of hours ago.

"Every time someone says Rice has bad athletics all female Rice athletes simultaneously scream into the void."

We have a good-to-very good women's athletics program . . . among non-major conference schools.

We have an average women's athletics program compared to Division I schools that have football. It is quite possible none of our 3 NCAA tournament teams would have been at-large picks.

We have a bad men's athletics program right now no matter how you slice it. The standard-bearer is the XC/T&F program, which is (like women's athletics overall) good against non-major conference competition, but around average for Division I. Baseball is bad against majors, average against non-majors, and average overall (which unfortunately feels like bad because of past success). The rest are mediocre to bad, full stop.

So, kind of hard to characterize "Rice Athletics" overall given these disparities. I get the women's frustration at being overlooked because of/lumped in with the bad football and MBB teams, and sure, that is an example of casual sexism that deserves to be called out. I'd agree with the women that what they have accomplished should be enough to avoid the "bad" label, but at the same time the hard truth is they haven't done much of anything on a national scale (yet).

What the heck are you smoking. "Good to very good" among non-majors? Try exceptional among non-majors. WBB was Top 25 ranked nationally, and volleyball was Top 35. Womens tennis was Top 50 and won the conference championship despite an almost complete turnover in our roster after having lost our top 3 players from last year's squad. And swimming excelled in the individual and relay events. That's far better than "average" among all D-1 womens programs.

Well, actually, neither WBB nor WVB finished anywhere near those (over)rankings. WBB, in particular, was objectively rated in the high 40s by the seeding committee, and certainly didn't move up from there by losing a quasi-home game against a non-P5 opponent missing its best player. WTEN will probably finish around top 50, although they blew a golden opportunity yesterday, simply needing to win just one more out of six sets to win the match (2 doubles sets, the 2nd set at #3 singles, and the 3rd sets at #3, #5, and #6) and managing to lose all 6.

The Directors' Cup rankings, which I looked at before picking my adjectives, confirm my assessments. I'm all for celebrating the positive steps made this year but the fact of the matter is that we still have a lot of work to do to move into "exceptional" territory.