(01-20-2024 01:42 PM)Ourland Wrote:  

(01-20-2024 11:47 AM)owl40 Wrote:  

(01-20-2024 09:54 AM)Ourland Wrote:  

(01-20-2024 09:40 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  Rice University simply has never given a damn about basketball.

I recall a former Rice head basketball coach who siad, perhaps joking but he said it nevertheless, that when he was hired he was told that the job was his, as long as he didn't win more games than the football team. He didn't, for two years in a row (and those weren't great football teams), and was fired, so maybe he didn't have it quite right.

If Rice truly cared about basketball, it could build a competitive program in a hurry. Too many other places have done that for it not to be true.

The same is true of every sport, particularly football. If Rice wanted great athletics, it could have it, but it's not willing to pay the salaries necessary to attract the best candidates.

Today, I read that Rice is setting aside $33 million to settle a lawsuit brought against it for inflating the cost of tuition. If the university has $33 million at it's fingertips to settle a lawsuit, instead of fight it, then the university is more than able to find $5 million a year to attract capable coaching candidates.

Rice won't have good football or basketball until it's willing to invest more money. Tulane decided to do it, so what's stopping Rice?

This issue has been discussed ad nauseam on other threads over-the-years but Tommy has a chicken/egg problem.

Potential big $ donors want to see University commit real $ (vs. static annual loss) towards not just athletics but winning at highest level. Seeing that commitment would then unlock big donor $

University wants to see the big $ donors to step-up and then fund/match which is how the model works for other things at Rice (music, engineering, etc.) and also works at other private schools like SMU, TCU, Tulane, etc. (see link below for one example at Tulane).

So nothing happens and both sides wait for product on the field/court to improve to break the stalemate. But b/c the funding is not there for better coaching, buyouts, NIL, facilities, etc. relative to other D-1 programs, the product is not improving for either side to do something different.

The big donor $ coming to break stalemate is unlikely to happen at Rice as those people don't trust the commitment to Athletics (winning in particular) to then throw good $ after bad.

And the output of all of this is games like Charlotte in MBB, Texas St. in FB, etc. that drive more apathy from all sides. Absent some big $ donors like this link below or the University to change its decades of historical approach, the logical conclusion came from McKinsey many years ago.

https://news.tulane.edu/pr/tulane-receiv...facilities

If this is true, then naturally Rice is going to have to take the first step. It needs to increase the salary of the basketball coach itself, and make a great hire at the end of the season.

In football, Rice needs to buy out Bloomgren's contract if he can't win more than six games, and increase the annual salary to, at least, $ 2 million. Of course salaries for all assistants have to be increased also.

Whatever Rice needs to do to get it's big donors off of the sidelines, if there really are any, it needs to do it now. Rice has two bad coaches in the two biggest sports. Donors can't be happy at all with what's going on. I know that I have never been so apathetic towards football and basketball as I am right now. I can't get excited at all. The thought of going out to the stadium does nothing for me anymore. I imagine donors feel the same. We're all just sick and tired of it.

lol Do tell what "big donors" are currently on the sidelines? The big donors have anteed up and will continue to do so. Those lost over the past 5+ years are the small to midsize donors.