Furmanoid wrote: ↑Sun Mar 20, 2022 9:46 amWhen did you go to Furman? I went ‘79-‘83. I think it was a really good college then. Yet there were all these athletes hanging around who, I guess, wouldn’t be accepted now. But they didn’t seem to lower the quality of education at FU. I tutored, and some of those guys were pretty dumb (or doing a good job faking it), but the school thrived somehow. All I’m saying is that for no money (so endowment size does not matter) we can tweak admissions and instantly approve. I have never seen an explanation for why we aren’t doing that.affirm wrote: ↑Sat Mar 19, 2022 8:14 pmWith all due respect to every single Clemson student-athlete, Clemson is so much larger than Furman and has such a large number of selectively-acquired student-non-athletes that they can perhaps manage to use "loopholes" and justifications and exceptions that allow them to "take players who are nowhere close to their regular entrance requirements." Additionally, Clemson is so much richer than Furman is so perhaps Clemson is able to afford much more robust and extensive student-athlete academic support for any or all student-athletes - thus making so-called lower levels of selectivity much less of an issue.Furmanoid wrote: ↑Sat Mar 19, 2022 11:02 amYour last point is perhaps the most important. If Clemson can find a way to get players through school, why can’t we? Clemson is at least as selective, if not more selective, for non athletes as FU is, but they can take players who are nowhere close to their regular entrance requirements and get them through. We could do the same, and instantly improve in all sports. I wonder if we also have TOEFL requirements that eliminate the foreign guys. If that’s it then we could at least try to mine Australia.Sad Din wrote: ↑Sat Mar 19, 2022 10:15 amIHMO, Dins should not aspire that low.
Dins should aspire to be Gonzaga and Villanova. It can be done with right resources and priorities.
Gville is booming and with right strategy Dins could capitalize on that.
Its all abou recruiting and CBR and staff have done an excellent job with that! Its clear what CBR uses as competitive advantage is development and cultture. Thats how they turned Mounce, Gurley, Slaw, Both, Lyons and many others into stars. Dins need to find those hidden 2 and 3 star gems with the right fit.
For that, they need a big budget to find players all over the country and even EU. Thats what McKillop does. Secondly, they need the right staff to do research, evaluations, contacts, etc.
Its all about recruiting and that has to be a first rate operation
Add a few more upgrades and many some cirruculum adjustments for players that dont want to be lawyers and doctors.
But heck, what does SD know....
... Regarding aspiring to be Gonzaga and Villanova.
That would be good, but like I said, we should be aspire to be like Richmond and Davidson and St. Peter's (and even Chattanooga - they have 12 SoCon Championships since our last SoCon Championship) first.
Villanova is Big East, of course. Big East. Big advantage there. VU has 6791 undergrads and 3108 grad students. 1.12 billion endowment.
Gonzaga has 4852 undergrads and 2443 grad students. 308.2 million endowment. No football.
Furman has 2662 undergrads and 115 grad students. 670 million endowment.
Richmond. 3202 U, 712 G. (much closer in size to Furman than VU or GU) 3.3 billion endowment.
Davidson. 1983 U, 0 (zero) G. (smaller in size than Furman). 1.3 billion endowment.
St. Peter's. Almost equal to Furman in undergrad size: 2672 (ten more undergrad students than Furman). 881 grad students. 37 million endowment. St. Peter's is 150 years old THIS YEAR. (Furman will be 200 years old 4 years from now. Can we please have something big to celebrate by March Madness 2026 for our 200th like St. Peter's is celebrating right now for their 150th? Richmond will be 200 years old 8 years from now. They are already into their celebrating "8 years early"!) No football at St. Peter's.
The other "little" one is Chattanooga, which is not really little: 10,239 undergrads and 1399 grad students. 147.1 million endowment. The only way they are "little" is they are SoCon, but more importantly than that, just the fact that they were seeded far below Big Ten Illinois.
Same reason they have not shifted spring break by 1 week so we could have students at the tournament, the administration gets off on being hoity toity and froufrou, so they ignore simple and obvious things they could change to improve the quality of the programs for the sake of being froufrou, FACTS
It's beyond absurd!