Time to answer your questions in the weekly installment of Q+A. Feel free to add more questions in this space over the next 7 days. We’ll answer more next week.
Let’s jump right into it.
Does the penalty for football really mean anything to RMU, since RMU and other Northeast Conference teams award less than the NCAA allowed number of scholarships?
Colonial Bob
Not really. The damage is more to women’s hoops. Lacrosse can probably escape lasting damage as well, considering their roster depth. These scholarship hits and penalties are devastating in two ways: Eliminating resources for a small team, such as basketball; creating a lasting academic issue in that specific program, especially if the school doesn’t have a way to help reform the athletes that are struggling.
With football not even approaching the Football Championship Subdivision maximum number of scholarships, this doesn’t impact the team directly. What it will do is create a bit of a bullseye on the program. They’ll need to make sure they can improve their numbers so as to not warrant any “historical” penalties that could take away things such as practice time and postseason appearances.
It’ll hurt a program like women’s basketball more, especially if the issues continue. They had the lowest APR out of all of the programs at Robert Morris. Again, the initial hit isn’t drastic, but it could create a lasting impact if it’s not handled properly. We’ll see what happens with the next couple of APR reports.
This question, also from CB, was originally answered in the comment section. We’ve posted it here in case you missed it……With regard to the recruits, what is meant by “qualified?” It gives me the impression that the recruits will definitely be eligible for next season. But, I find it hard to believe that eligibliity can definitely be determined prior the student/athletes finishing there last semester of high school. Last year at this time we were expecting that two recruits would be eligible, but it turned out that one was a partial qualifier, and the other was a nonqualifier.
I would be grateful if you could shed some light on these arcane issues of qualifying, and the NCAA Clearinghouse.
The situation with Velton Jones was a bizarre one. The NCAA raised questions about the timing of Jones’ last high school class, or something similar. His SAT/ACT score and GPA were not in question, and those are the usual issues when getting a student qualified through the NCAA Clearinghouse. Russell Johnson’s case was a bit more normal.
For this year, the way I understood Coach Rice, those normal hurdles aren’t going to be an issue. To me, that says that the four incoming freshmen have academic records that satisfy the necessary parties. Could a situation like Jones’ occur again? Sure, but it seems like that was more at the fault of the high school and their records rather than Jones’ failure to do something. Plus, with it happening to RMU once before, they’ll now be more vigilant to make sure that bizarre scenario doesn’t happen again.
As an addendum: The typical qualification process means students have to have a certain SAT/ACT score, certain required classes completed AND passed in high school. attendance records, and a certain GPA. The same requirements we all had to have to get into college are what the college athletes have to fulfill as well. If they’re tabbed as qualifying, it means that they have fulfilled the requirements. Again, something like Jones’ situation, where the timing of a class becomes an issue, could arise again. But for intents and purposes, these guys will be RMU student athletes next fall.
Phil asks….Here’s a possible weekly Q&A question – what would it take to get a more festive atmosphere at the Sewall Center for regular season games? We have a great coach, great players, and a great team that puts an entertaining product on the floor. In addition to the various perks coaches and players get, it would seem a festive atmosphere would go a long way to successful recruitment/retention. They say St. Joe’s in Philadelphia packs in 2,000 into a tiny gym every game and it rocks — RM should get at least 1,500.
Maybe the NEC should better market its teams? Maybe better outreach to the student body and community? Maybe more partnership with Pitt and Duquesne to market D-1 basketball in Pittsburgh?
This is the age old question that we have no answer for, to be perfectly frank. Cheap tickets, entertaining basketball. It starts with the students, though. Maybe the NEC Championship will spark student interest, but in the games prior to the NEC Tournament, the student section was pretty sparsely filled. If the students won’t show up, you can’t expect the surrounding community to fill it in. I can understand a tough sell early in the season. I know I missed a couple early games because they were on Tuesday nights, right in the middle of my work schedule. But Thursday/Saturday games, especially in the heart of NEC play, should draw in even just the 1,000 or so students who live on campus.
Ironic, too, considering the number of complaints I heard as a student about there being nothing to do at the end of a week on campus. Personally, I’ve long felt that students are more interested in downing copious amounts of alcohol. The proliferation of “Thirsty Thursday” events and parties throughout the weekend seems to support that. Now that there’s a winner on campus, maybe they’ll show up at the games before getting blitzed out of their gourds.
With Cwalinski getting a look by the Steelers, why wasn’t Mario Hines marketed in the same fashion and given a tryout? He has the breakout ability on kick returns and even within just the region, the Steelers wasting draft picks on guys that will only be “kick returners” when Hines possesses the ability to return and play the slot in an effective way as well.
Good question. Cwalinski’s tryout with the Steelers seemed to be heavily influenced by the Robert Morris coaching staff. Players, for the most part, seem to be on their own once they’re done with Robert Morris. It’s up to them to market themselves and push themselves in front of professional teams to get a look.
At least, that’s how it looks. The problem here is the lack of an official “pro day” at Robert Morris, or a joint “pro day” with players from RMU, Duquesne, and Pitt taking part. Other programs push their seniors who want to play in some capacity in front of the scouts. Robert Morris does not. When I talked to Mike Niklos and Mario Hines about their workout in front of the Philadelphia Eagles scout last year, they each indicated that experiencing the rigors of a workout on their home turf was much more favorable than trying to latch on elsewhere (by the way, you can check out video of their comments in a Colonial SportsCenter story I did here).
What a coach does on an individual basis for a player trying to make the leap is often kept quiet. We learned about Cwalinski’s chance simply because his hometown newspaper did a story, the typical “Local Boy Does Good” article found in mom-and-pop newspapers around the country. Maybe other players were given the same help and we just didn’t learn about it. I do know that Hines shopped himself around almost on his own, with the help of his advisor.
But the only way to clear any of it up and to truly showcase your graduating athletes is to establish a full pro day at the university.
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