LSU is down to 0 scholarship players
- Thread starter Sean Miller Fan
- Start date
That's a weird and unprecedented situation for the new coach. More fallout from the portal free for all rule and proof that the NCAA didn't think it through very carefully.
We won't have any scholarship players left next year either when Capel gets canned.
As long as they get there before 2030, that's a safe bet. We're on the fast track to becoming Northwestern.
Yeah, really, what the others are saying here. As long as you have the means (and blessings of your admin) to go out and buy new players, it’s probably preferred to lose the dead wood that got you nowhere.
Admin doesn’t even have to pay directly, particularly in cases like LSU. They merely have to agree to pretend not to notice what the boosters are doing (in order to keep the plausible deniability).
Of course that would take a LOT of money but clearly LSU has the boosters with the means and willingness.
NIL, like unlimited transfer, was put in place to facilitate the LSUs of college. Those facts are irrefutable. BUT, you need enough guys with fat wallets willing to do it.
As much as I’ve been frustrated that Pitt refuses to engage, it is also probable that in 2022 Pitt simply lacks the boosters with big enough wallets willing to produce the goods to come even close to what the big boys have. In 1982, when that Pitt admin slammed the door on boosters, we probably did have that. But 30 years of being scorned and obstructed, and only approached when REALLY big F-ups need fixed (Haywood, Stallings) probably has thinned the ranks irreparably. Heck it’s almost certainly why Capel is still at Pitt.
That's it, why would rich people put money in, if the admin isn't fully committed to winning at ANY cost, BY DOING anything THE BAD BOYS do. The reason they would pay big money is to hang out in the luxury boxes and on the field, and be their at the Final 4 or CFP with all access, hang out with the team, for their own ego boost. Why pay money for a program that will remain mediocre to be "clean".
That’s the biggest question of the last 40 years of course. I guess the answer can be made by pointing to things like the soccer and volleyball programs. Those successes were made on the backs of forty years of self imposed sanctions on the two main sports. It’s undeniable.
They'll buy a whole new roster of 4 and 5 stars. They will suffer no substantive penalties for what they allowed Wade's staff to do. They'll be in the tournament in 2 years.
And so many stupid Pitt fans want to be "clean" then complain about how bad we suck
The thing is we actually have a sizable contingent of fans (at least those who are fervent enough to post on message boards) who DON’T complain about sucking. They peculiarly seem to get satisfaction from the “clean” tag, no matter how bad the team is.And so many stupid Pitt fans want to be "clean" then complain about how bad we suck
Which, overall is a joke of course … by necessity a Px program needs to be a LITTLE dirty if only to field a full team. Just in the admissions process alone, to start… the great majority of our athletes would simply not win admission to Pitt as a regular student. Beyond that common exception, our willingness to take back a car thief — but ONLY after his charges were lessened (not thrown out). How ‘dirty’ that is, can be debated, but it definitely isn’t “clean”. Do I care? No not really, I don’t know the guy and it wasn’t my car he stole, and I enjoyed his (occasional) good performances on the court with no delusions nor guilt. But I think if it were my car that had been stolen, I’d have to scoff a bit if a Pitt fan ever bragged to me that we’re morally superior to an LSU or Louisville or whoever. As many here absolutely do.
I do hate the Pitt fans who, like the Pitt ADMIN, brag about being clean, having crappy teams are like a badge of honor to some of them, then they do posts about academic excellence on a football page, that has nothing to do with football, especially during bad years.
For most fans like that I think doing that is a fall back coping strategy when we stink on the field/court, and it’s understandable. You want to grab on to some crumb, anything, when times are dark to redeem your allegiance. But quite normally, these folks then become regular fans when we’re winning, and all that noise goes by the wayside.
Others though, they are genuinely perturbed if we’re successful but not doing it “cleanly” enough. I was around long enough to see that in the early 80s when I was at Pitt. Way too many were genuinely concerned about negative connotations that came with football success. Hey, everyone’s entitled to their opinion, but the problem was that much of that thinking got permeated though to the admin and faculty.
It was pretty surprising to me as a young undergrad how vitriolic some of my instructors were about the football team. Lots of bitter, disparaging remarks. It continued for my time there … many seemed strangely happy when Foge Fazio’s brief period imploded as it did. And of course it actually only got worse there after, until we hit the bottom in the disastrous late 90s we’ve never really ever recovered from.
The truth is, the university as a whole gets richer when you're at the top of revenue sports.
Agreed. That's the one thing I hate about collegiate athletics - the fact that they're affiliated with academic institutions. I did go to Pitt, but I was a Pitt fan well before that, and I could honestly care less what the university's recent academic achievements are. That's not to be a jerk; I'm just not really into those sorts of things, and that's not what I'd elect to spend my free time caring about. I'd much rather follow sports.
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It’s much like Tide sponsoring a race car. Most of a university’s athletes in major revenue sports are just pretending to be serious students; they likely wouldn’t have even gotten admission if not for their sports prowess. One has nothing to do with the other.
With the Tide race car, there is nothing to be gained other than to gain positive publicity for the sponsor if the car races well on national TV races.
Conversely the sponsor might feel a bit of mockery if the car almost never finishes in the lead or close to it, or worst case, frequently has an ugly crash.
Continuing the race car analogy, with enough terrible finishes it might rub off badly on the sponsor’s product. “Why is P&G continue using Tide to back this loser? Is it a loser too?”
These are typically subconscious mental connections, not said aloud.
I don’t watch racing very much so I have no idea if sponsors happily continue to back car teams that usually lose, often badly so. Hey, maybe they do. Was it Borat who had the catch phrase of “what a country?!” Or maybe it was Balky Bartokomous. But anyway.
Back to the lesson. So when Pitt basketball outright stinks for years and years (including absurdly terrible conference results), there is likewise palpable negativity that forms in the subconscious (if not outright loud public proclamations…but often there are those too) about the university.
It’s not keeping students from applying (probably…not Pitt anyway…by now most Pitt applicants should know not to count on the thrill of a NC chase).
But it certainly impacts what alumni donate…must certainly athletics and possibly even non athletics.
It doesn’t help, let’s agree on that much. So why even bother then?
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