Beau Holder said:
Bad coaching hires, plain and simple. Let Wayne go on too long, missed badly with Bragga, didn't even try with Cruz Jr. The new AD (came from Vandy) needs to fire him after this season and go make his own hire, preferably one with actual college coaching experience.
Agree with most of this.
Yes maybe kept Wayne Graham around too long but it wasnt like it they kept him 5-6 years to long.. Kept him maybe 1-2 years too long so IMO didt impact the program downfall greatly.
Graham was still coming off 6 consecutive conference titles in 2015. Hosted and was a 1 seed in 2016 ( regional the Ags won) and were a regional finalist in 2017.
Wheels came off and they had a losing record and missed the postseason for the first time since 1994 in 2018.
Graham was gone at that point.
No they were not the level he had in the early 2000's but still very competitive
And when the man who took a program that had nothing , only 7 winning seasons prior to his arrival in 1992 and never made NCAA postseason in the history of the program and took them to 23 consecutive NCAA postseasons, 18 conference titles, 11 conference tournament titles, 7 trips to Omaha and a National Title.. he sort of earned the right to stick around.
The Bragga hire was a swing and a miss. Not a bad hire on paper with success he had at Tennesse Tech but couldn't muster anything and was fired after only 3 seasons which included the covid shortened 2020 season. He had a 51-76-1 overall record
Now Jose Cruz Jr is a head scratcher. Yes he was a big part of the Wayne Graham rebuild at Rice in the early-mid 90's. His dad was a fan favorite with the Astros in the 80's..Was a big league player..He obviously knows the game, but had zero head coaching experience and only coaching experience he had was on year as an assistant hitting coach with the Detroit Tigers. He had never been a head coach and had zero experience at the college level...and so far its been a train wreck.
In his 3rd season he is 57-104.
Rice will finish with a losing record for the 7th consecutive season and miss the postseason for the 6th straight season. Thats hard to believe considering all the success they had for 25 years
The Ags and Rice absolutely had some classic battles in the post season as well as regular season games in that time .