SAD! If you love basketball, you keep playing. What about recruiting?
Most of what I'm thinking is not positive in regards to C. Vivivan and Rutgers Athletic Administration. OK, you disagree with the decision made by the selection committee and I can understand the frustration (Oklahoma, really?). But:
- Tyler Scaife comes back from heart surgery to give it her all senior season and you're talking about next year? Her career at Rutgers is now done while everyone else works on next year.
- This was a team that largely rode the back of transfers, sitting out a season and getting used to a new system and a fairly idiosyncratic coach. And that's it.
- Branding, which includes everything from overall reputation to recruiting. Most of the other teams that didn't get in -- including Purdue, a Big 1G rival -- are playing. And you're sitting home?
- C. Viv has been kvetching about bad practice facilities and now that help is on the way, she won't use it.
- The recruiting thing. This team -- transfers and all -- made a good step forward again after (more than) a few down seasons. But you've got to keep moving up and to do that you need players. And coaches and administrators often recommend players or schools.
Very short-sighted decision.
- And, lastly, the 1,000 win achievement. A number of people believe that Rutgers -- in part-- stuck with Viv to get her to a 1,000 wins the right way. But the 1,000 wins also helps the program, as in "We've got a 1,000 win coach." And that could've happened in the WNIT.
(And then helped recruiting during the April official visits.).
The AD should've overruled on this one....the decision only speaks to C. Viv's ego and not the other reasons that she should've been thinking of.
