MarkInAustin

Really? My twin granddaughters are top students and not athletes and they are enjoying visiting colleges that have invited them to visit - on their mother's dime. If "ordinary" top students being wooed love visits enough to get family to pay for them why shouldn't great athletes enjoy the process even more - with all expenses paid, and steak dinners, and promises of lucrative employment. At one flagship university's business school in the midwest the granddaughter who wants desperately to go to McCombs but knows how competitive it is to get in was greeted with a giant TV screen in the lobby displaying a banner of personal welcome to her. That was great for her but athletes get an order of magnitude more attention. Would you deny your kid that satisfaction? I would be suspicious of the manipulations that kept a student - athlete from loving the one chance in life to visit major universities around the country that actually wanted him or her to play there so badly that they would spring for the visit.

This Vandy pitcher is crafty, with control and good movement on his stuff.

About the OL: When Goosby and Cojoe both return, and considering the apparent rapid maturation of the prized freshman LT, is it possible that Jordan Coleman would be placed in a contest for the LG position? I am thinking ahead to 2027 when it is likely that both Turntine and JC will start on the OL. I think there are enough talented pieces to fashion a solid pass blocking offensive line, but melding them into a unit will be a challenge, as so many are either new to their position or to the program.

I liked Robertson against OU when he was an emergency fill in and I liked him last season as the bandaid that helped stop the bleeding. I still like him. But if the much larger Sikorski provides better interior pass protection without loss of leadership [not that I am claiming that as a fact] then he can start this season. I think summer will actually bring a contest for the position. However that competition resolves the depth will become much less of a concern.

Funny, I almost added that if Swain got stronger he might approximate a Pippen.

While I doubt he was the "best" I completely agree with you that Swain has an excellent all around game. There is nothing he cannot do acceptably well. He should be a valuable sub for any team even as a rookie. Some guys, Dybantsa for example, are going to start as rookies.

Aside from having the largest endowment of any public university by a wide margin Texas has had the benefit of wonderful wealthy donors. There are generally considered to be eight elite state flagships plus one elite public tech, and Texas is one of the elite flagships. It is one of two flagships in which all departments are ranked in the top thirty in America. And Forbes just called out Texas as one of 20 institutions, public or private, that are properly preparing graduating talent for the changing job market (The New Ivies, April 8). The resulting flip side is how competitive the school has become since my day. While the overall admit rate is about 27%, Cockrell is at 11%, McCombs is at 9%, and the architecture and honors programs are comparably squeezed. I have twin granddaughters who are both in the top 5% of their junior classes in HS - one is number 1 - who legitimately fear they will be accepted into UT but not into business and engineering, respectively. And God forbid one should fall down to top 6% and be looking down the road to The College That Got One Per Cent Smarter when Texas changed auto admits from the top 6% to the top 5% last year.

WRONG THREAD - APOLOGY OFFERED BON says Jurian Dixon is visiting from UC Irvine and Texas likes him. [hoops]

Re: Ivy League I researched this on line. The Ivies permit neither grad student eligibility nor red shirting. Thus there are annually Ivy Leaguers available to continue as students and as athletes - in the real world.

I don't think the Ivy League permits a graduate school player. There should be occasional top FCS picks available as graduate transfers from Ivy League schools. I could be wrong but someone here suggested this as a fact last year, IIRC.

The personal finance decisions for a 21 YO star athlete are not simple. First, it would be smart to delete his "wants" from the decision tree and concentrate on his "needs." ---------- Second, there is the valuation issue, which turns on net rather than gross numbers. For example, income in Texas is worth much more than in states with significant income taxation. Cost of living in metro NYC or LA or SF or DC is a six figure differential over having room and board provided in Austin. Offsetting endorsement deals in LA or NYC might be unlikely for most. --------- Third, there are longer term considerations. Residual benefits of a degree now vs. a degree later, or no degree at all, are measurable to an analyst and of greater or lesser meaning to a future pro depending on his long term name value; e.g., KD and VY have extraordinary long term name value that makes a degree have virtually no long term income value in comparison. Weigh the depth of the current draft and one a year later against the likelihood of reaching a lucrative second contract a year earlier. I think the chance of a career ending injury would not be weighed because it may have the same long term effect whether sustained under a lucrative NIL deal or under a first year professional contract - but insurance issues and CBA health care provisions may make weighing injury potential another variable. ---------- Two and three are tricky issues for most, but standard fare for a financial advisor. The first issue is the most pressing: does the player NEED the most dollars today? Is his family comfortable or living paycheck to paycheck? If the current need is there the third issue, long term consequences, falls out of the matrix. Only net current value need be considered.

On the other hand it makes no sense to burn bridges gratuitously. Leaving one job for another is more often a business choice than not. On the occasions when it is the result of combat or torture or sexual predation a polite response is hypocritical, but they are few and far between.

I think Preston can be the answer. Understand, there probably isn't another Rori anywhere. But I have seen Preston run the team and do so at speed, and do it well. Surround Preston with a good team and she will make it go. Vic will surround her with a good team.

Does BVB count in the Directors Cup race?

I just got to it at the half. How are the UT commits doing?

Great update. Thanks.

Is Jonah injured again?

I thought Mark was as exhausted as anyone on Texas' team. He really played hard, if not efficiently. Lack of depth is showing here in the late season, and that certainly has been critical since Traore's injury. Weaver is essentially the power forward when he comes into most lineups now. That really doesn't bode well. Codie is quite limited as a backup Center. Both Swain and Mark are being called upon to play too many minutes at full speed at both ends, play making, ball handling, shooting, rebounding, and defending. And there is no real choice available. Next season: Assuming Miller can keep Matas, he will also have a "phenom" in Goosby and a situational rotational shooter in Ogden. His redshirts may provide rotational help and Wilcher is serviceable as a rotational sub. Even with a couple of other useful freshmen he will need four starting quality portal in-transfers. 1-2 BIGs who can play inside or out [stretch 5s or 4s], 2 combo Wings who can shoot, rebound, defend, and pass, and a true PG or very skilled CG. Should have a 12 man roster with 9 true rotational players to go deep in the season and 3 developmental pieces, and I don't see that happening with fewer than 4 starting quality in-transfers after Swain, Mark, Traore, Weaver, and Pope are gone.

If I had to pick six guys in their prime to play one professional 48 minute game They would be Wilt, Timmy, Bird, MJ, West and LeBron. LeBron because he makes substitution possible at every position. In his prime he was able to defend five positions as well as play offense at all five. This is a different question than "who was the greatest", really. For me that was either MJ or Wilt, take your pick. But the six I named would out rebound, out defend, and out score any other six you could put on the court, more times than not, even if your next six were also all time greats.

A 2020 peer ranking of faculty strength across departments in 67 American universities, public and private, had Texas at 14, overall. Eleven of the 67 schools have all academic departments ranked 30th or better in the nation. The private elites in this group are Stanford, MIT, Princeton, Harvard, Columbia, and Cornell; the public universities in the group are UC Berkeley, Michigan, Wisconsin, UCLA, and UT Austin. IIRC, 15 departments were ranked for the metric. Some of the privates would argue that their undergrads are exposed to their vaunted faculty, and that in the publics one has to be in an Honors program to avoid instruction by junior faculty and T.A.s. Two of my daughters are alums and were not in Plan II and they did see "vaunted" faculty members as early as their second years. But more important, faculty rankings are based on publications, not teaching ability, so this "debate" really gets into the weeds pretty quickly.

This ranking and the London Times world rankings have a different perspective than US News or Niche rankings. Graduate schools are extremely important to the world rankings. That contrasts with the ranking of undergraduate schools upon which US News and Niche focus. Texas has ranked as high as #29 in world rankings in one past year. An obvious difference in the rankings: Princeton is always US News #1, but never in the top world group. Princeton has no professional schools - no medical school, no business school, no pharmacy school, no law school. The great US public universities of which Texas is one are all well endowed in breadth and depth of graduate and professional schools. They usually score among the top fifty both on US undergrad rankings and world rankings based on metrics like peer reviewed publications and patents produced. The consensus that Texas is an elite academic university is widely shared by employers, peer universities, the press, and the public. As one result, it is ever more difficult to be admitted as a freshman - and even automatic admission [requiring inclusion in the top 5% of one's HS graduating class] does not guarantee admission to Cockrell or McCombs, both now accepting fewer than 10% of applicants. I have twin 17 year old granddaughters one of whom wants engineering and one of whom wants marketing, and both want to go to Texas. They are both in the top 5% of their junior class and both worry that they will be admitted to Texas but not to Cockrell and McCombs, respectively. You may remember a time when it was less competitive. I certainly do.

Plays WR on HUDL. Unless I looked away for a moment and missed it, he was never in line. He outclassed every opponent by such a degree that it seems impossible to really gauge him. Those opponents didn't look like much. Which is not to say he isn't great. I just have no way of seeing that from this HUDL.

Paulie, I think Cojoe was robbed of a year in which he would have shown that marked improvement. As Bobby has pointed out, he was ahead of Baker at RT when he was injured. Were he to have fully recovered, do you [or Jeff] think he has a shot at "marked improvement"? It certainly would be a boon to the OL were he to come back strong.

Bradley was an insanely good athlete. And I used to leave work to watch both Street and Hooton pitch. Hooton had an excellent Major League career. Street, who was the ace, who threw 2 no hitters including a perfect game, never pitched again after he was injured in the CWS. I think James Street was robbed of his career in baseball by that injury; perhaps his son's success was Karma.

Will Zina get more snaps than Lance Jackson?