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SL Xpress

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Everything posted by SL Xpress

  1. Sometimes it takes money. Not all that often for highly rated players, though.
  2. I don't think you're picking up on what texifornia is throwing down.
  3. I hate that kind of shit. There's no transparency, so people can just throw numbers out there and have just as much credibility as the next person. Give me inside information from people who know how much these players are getting paid. This is more of a guessing game than anything else.
  4. My understanding is that we're looking more for a combo guard than a true point guard. Could be looking overseas. I don't have huge concerns about the first year, but part of that is my expectations are pretty low. About like they were for Beard's first year, and I had a lot more fun watching that team improve over the course of the season than many on here did. What I want to see is the program moving in the right direction? Does Miller have a vision for what he wants to see out of his team, and can he create the necessary buy in? Miller's strengths are on offense, so how do we look running more uptempo, and is he able to help the players create open looks? I already know the defense isn't going to be what I want it to be, but can he make up for that in other areas? And then after that first year, how much is he able to upgrade the roster in his second season?
  5. Unless Congress acts - which I guess there's a remote chance - you're off your rocker. There's a reason the Power 4 commissioners are in Washington lobbying Congress to step in. They know how vulnerable they are regardless of the House settlement: Power Four commissioners call on Congress to fix NIL At best it will be a short term fix. The bottom isn't going to drop out of NIL over the long term. Someone somewhere is going to fork over the money to build a potential national championship roster, and then everyone else will have to decide if they want to compete or not. The enforcement of the House settlement will be iffy at best. At the very least it will require going to court to simply enforce it. And the NCAA has shown no appetite for anything but settlements since the Supreme Court depantsing in the Alston case.
  6. Why is it bizarre? One was an expose/memoir by a person who went through the practices and found them abusive, the other was written by an author who in part lifted up the experience as creating a culture of resilient men, despite its horrors (or because of). How you tell the story, and who tells it, makes a huge difference.
  7. While they're going against one another. That's my favorite part.
  8. Shelby Metcalf was hilarious. Him and Abe Lemons coaching at the same time was better than a comedy show.
  9. Could have been phrased better.
  10. He seems like a complete asshat. It would be hard to root for him anywhere else, but at A&M I think he's doing a terrific job,and deserves a lifetime contract. I consider myself a Trev Alberts fanboy at this stage of his career.
  11. That's my feeling. It also depends on how the House settlement shakes out. I think there's significant NIL fatigue that people are hoping the settlement helps solve to some degree. I think once it's apparent you're still going to have to spend insane amounts above and beyond the cap figures or else you can't compete for talent, and then people realize it's important to them that Texas is competing at the highest level, then more money will be found. But it will help if Miller shows promise right from the get go. Which I believe he will. But I'm really positive about the hire, so I have some bias in that regard. I guess you could call me more hopeful than analytical here.
  12. I'm just being told our NIL commitment is a bit lacking at the moment. There were examples of players given, but I don't want to post anything about it right now. I want to be very clear I'm excited about all our offseason moves thus far. I have no complaints on a personal basis. This is just different people sharing with me their personal opinion. For all I know we're leading the country in NIL commitments. I don't believe that, but I couldn't tell you one way or another on a factual basis.
  13. Yeah, I'm with you. I didn't properly emphasize what I meant. It seems obvious he was told to cut costs, and that's what he's doing. What I don't understand is, was that the sales pitch they used to hire him away from Nebraska? That just seems like such a dumb career move. But I don't understand how badly he wanted to get out of Nebraska, either. I wonder if he was sold a bill of goods on how much resources A&M had available to compete, but by the time he took the job, the job description changed to one of austerity. I don't have any inside scoop. It just seems crazy to leave a pretty cush job, with the opportunity to go someplace with a better budget on down the road, to take a job where you're going to have to slash costs to the bone because of a stupid extension a previous AD decided was a brilliant plan.
  14. So is part of the joke that a Mt., Rushmore involving A&M only has 3 people?
  15. It's not over, yet. Schloss feels like a home run hire (he felt like a home run hire day one to all of us, I'm sure), but the expectations at Texas are extremely high, as Pierce can tell you. Let's see what happens in the postseason. I still think Chris Beard is the best basketball coach to ever coach at Texas, and his first season was underwhelming in the grand scheme of things. I felt like it was a huge success, but under most circumstances a second round exit is nothing to get giddy about. The main thing we're going to see with Miller is an offensive identity built on fast breaks and creating open shots. Coaches love to talk about playing fast, as much for recruiting purposes as anything. Miller has shown throughout his career that's his identity. While basketball is transactional more than it's ever been - and it's always been the most transactional sport - having a system that's fun to play in, showcases offensive talent, and provides a great path to the NBA will help recruiting a ton. It won't bring in the players by itself, but if all other things are equal Texas will be a great destination for talented offensive players. That's going to be blatantly obvious day one. I feel like if we can get another second round season, finish in the top half of a suddenly grueling SEC, that's plenty of reason for excitement. Eventually we'll have to find more money for NIL, but that doesn't have to be there in year one. We'll see how everything shakes out.
  16. I don't know how someone can follow A&M athletics and think, "Man, they really have some wizards they're bringing in as athletic director over there. Just one after another." They all seem like imbeciles on one level or another to me. Yet here they are, at LSU, Ohio State, and Alabama. Talk about failing upwards. Trev Alberts literally left his job at his alma mater to come to A&M. Did he really take this job with the express purpose of being a hatchet man? Because that's what it seems like. All his moves seem so Steve Patterson-ish. I assumed his schtick when covering college football was designed to generate some level of controversy and emotional investment through hating on the guy. It worked for me. I couldn't stand him and did a personal celebration when he changed careers. Now I'm thinking he's just genuinely an asshole, and what I saw on TV was his real personality.
  17. Two things stuck out to me in that article. First, Trev Alberts quote: Free agency was implemented by a collective bargaining agreement, not by a court order. There's a huge difference between the two. Court orders can and will be reshaped by new court orders, and state legislatures can still pass legislation that evokes a different rule set within that state, which will then compel other states to follow suit. It's also unclear how effective the enforcement mechanism will be. My guess is that it will require voluntary compliance on some level, which may or may not occur. The other problem is that compared to the NCAA, the NFL (and the other major sports leagues) are drastically limited in number. The fewer parties involved, the more likely it is that they work in tandem. All it takes is one or two outliers, then everyone else has to decide if they're going to follow suit or relegate themselves to not being as competitive. Another problem is that at the end of the day, the professional sports really are fundamentally about profit/loss and gains in value. The owners most definitely care about the return on investment. There is nothing about Phil Knight's donations or Larry Ellison funding the Bryce Underwood flip that's about return on investment, at least from a monetary standpoint. I'm not saying professional sports teams don't go out and overspend for a shot at a championship, but it's usually a short term deal and then they go back to their previous level of funding. That's not the case with college sports. I do not believe college sports will have a stable labor cost model until/unless Congress gets involved with federal legislation governing college sports. To me the House settlement is going to end up being a blip on the radar as we move to other models which may or may not work out as well. The key thing is this allows college athletes to be paid directly by universities at levels that go well beyond the previous stipends. That's huge. But this is not a solution, IMO. This is simply another step to whatever college sports ends up becoming. And it's not iterative, as Alberts is suggesting in his attempt to compare the college model to the NFL. It's a lurching in one direction or another based on court cases, various settlements, state legislatures putting their two cents in, and then bad actors tilting the model in one direction or another. Second, the valuations of Texas, A&M, and Texas Tech (I should make clear I find these valuations a joke designed to provoke conversation - they're not market tested and it's not clear how they would be): I love how they say Texas Tech's $389 million valuation is a far cry from Texas and A&M, when their valuation is literally closer to A&M than A&M's valuation is to Texas.
  18. If we're returning anything to North Carolina first on the list is Mack Brown.
  19. Make fun of UH to your heart's content, but no school from the SEC is some kind of fucking "conference ally." I'll give Florida their due. They're not the hayseed limbless family tree school/program that makes up the rest of the SEC, but there's no love because of conference affiliation. I don't give one shit about all that conference pride horseshit. The most meaningless stat in the world to me is all this "SEC has won X out of the last X championships!" in whatever sport. Who the fuck cares. That's A&M's purview. Pride by association because they can't win anything themselves.
  20. I didn't know George Tuttle, but I thought it was a cool story.
  21. Maybe? I'm not saying you're wrong, but those incompetent dorks ended up at LSU, Ohio State, and Alabama. It's not like A&M fired them. They just took better jobs, just like their best coaches do. Just like Trev Alberts will the first chance he gets. Is it worse that they keep getting the hire wrong, or that the wrong hire doesn't even want to stay there?
  22. My dream for A&M is Bruce Weber.
  23. In terms of my entertainment value it was the right thing to do, so I beg to differ.
  24. I know Liucci is in perpetual Baghdad Bob mode, but between Fisher, Schloss, and Williams/Beard, he's having to do overtime. Wait until they eventually hire someone and Liucci has to spin it as a better hire than Miller. And none of it matters, because if the guy wins he's going to leave, and if he loses - specifically compared to Miller - it's simply business as usual.
  25. Beard was going to get a pay raise regardless. But A&M's interest allowed Beard to parlay that into a greater sense of urgency, and likely allowed Beard to negotiate a greater share of resources that otherwise probably would have gone to football. He's still gone the first time a bigger job comes along. And eventually a bigger job is going to come along. Just not A&M. Poor Aggies.
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