What happened to Rice baseball?

Villagedawg

All-Conference
Nov 16, 2005
2,175
2,185
113
Just thought about the fact we haven’t seen them in forever. Always liked Rice. Cool campus, and they hosted a Super Bowl. Yearly contender then haven’t heard from them in years. Was it all Graham?
 

Perd Hapley

All-American
Sep 30, 2022
6,100
7,206
113
Graham was the program…..they haven’t even gone to a regional since he retired nearly a decade ago. They have some private school money, but not nearly enough. I’d also imagine that NIL hasn’t been kind to them….it’s a really small school. Only about 4,000 undergrad enrollment. And with Houston now in the Big 12 that really hurts them too.
 

615dawg

All-Conference
Jun 4, 2007
7,000
4,213
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same thing that happened to Tulane and even Sewanee.

new president came in and gutted athletics. The further they get away from a time where they were in a major conference (SWC) the worst it gets.
 

QuaoarsKing

All-Conference
Mar 11, 2008
6,078
2,738
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David Pierce is their coach now, former Texas coach who got fired for not really being that bad there. I think he'll get the program improved. Problem is the AAC only gets 2-3 bids most years, so it's going to be hard to consistently go to Regionals as long as they're in that conference.

There's a faint chance that the ACC could expand to 20 schools and look at Rice, and if that happened, I think they could become a power again.
 

eckie1

All-Conference
Jun 23, 2007
3,941
3,931
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Graham was the program…..they haven’t even gone to a regional since he retired nearly a decade ago. They have some private school money, but not nearly enough. I’d also imagine that NIL hasn’t been kind to them….it’s a really small school. Only about 4,000 undergrad enrollment. And with Houston now in the Big 12 that really hurts them too.
Yeah, they only have an $8.5B endowment. Bunch of poors.******
 

Perd Hapley

All-American
Sep 30, 2022
6,100
7,206
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Yeah, they only have an $8.5B endowment. Bunch of poors.******
What’s Harvard’s endowment? How many times have they been to the CWS? Endowment doesn’t mean much when all the alums don’t give a crap about athletics.

In the NIL era you need a large number of living alumni with wealth, who have an active interest in athletics. This is not a friendly environment for the Rice’s and Wake Forest’s of the world.
 

CochiseCowbell

Heisman
Oct 29, 2012
14,944
12,773
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Rice got cooked.
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