2023 Coaching Carousel

[aughnanure]

You’re looking in the rear view mirror. The times they are a-changin’. Take the blinders off.

And how is Georgetown a top 3 program in the Big East? Eight straight seasons without a winning record in league play says otherwise. They are currently the worst program in the league. Attendance is way down. Support has eroded. And PSU is on the rise.

It’s not just about TV rights. It’s about NIL as well. And mostly it’s about money.

How long did it take UConn to surpass Georgetown when Big John was still there and Georgetown was at its peak? When Calhoun took over, UConn was the worst job in the Big East. If Shrewsberry is as good a coach as people say, he can get it done.

You make good points about a conference of 14-16. We saw that in the Big East expanded with football schools that teams in the bottom third had an incredibly hard time climbing out of bottom tier status. And we’re even seeing it in the ACC right now.

You’re mistaking fears for biases. We are at a watershed moment in college sports. My fear is that it’s not going to end well for schools outside the Power Two. I hope I’m wrong. But the turbulence which has brought West Coast schools into the Big Ten to join East Coast schools who made the move 10 years ago has created conditions of uncertainty. If I were a college basketball coach with a job in the B1G which pays me very well and which provides the infrastructure for me to compete and potentially succeed, I’d be very cautious about giving up that job at a program outside the Power Two.

All we have to do is look at other watershed moments for a point of comparison. In the 2 decades before the formation of the Big East, Penn, Rutgers, St. Bonaventure, Princeton, St. Joe’s, and NYU we’re all Northeast schools who went to Final Fours in those 2 decades. None of them have been back there since. Conference formation was the watershed back then. TV exposure and revenue came along with Big East membership. Within a decade, Seton Hall made it to a national championship game and replaced Rutgers, the Big East’s first choice, as New Jersey’s top program. Georgetown, which had gone to just one Final Four in the previous 40 years, was suddenly a monster. UConn, who had no history of success in national competition, was in an Elite 8 by 1990 and won a NC by the end of that decade. The Big East wanted Holy Cross over BC. Holy Cross had previously won both NCAA and NIT championships, back when both tournaments could claim a piece of the national title. But theirs and Rutgers history of past success didn’t matter. Their replacements surpassed them.

Again, you’re looking at Georgetown in the past. There is absolutely no way that they’ll be able to compete with Big Ten money. Maybe I’m wrong about that. But the point is that it’s a legitimate uncertainty. And if Georgetown’s future is uncertain, why should Shrewsberry take that risk.

While we’re at it, the decline at Georgetown hasn’t been just the past 5 years. They haven’t had a winning season in the Big East for the past 8 years. They’ve been to only 2 NCAA tournaments in the past 10 years. And they’ve been to only 10 tournaments in the past 26 years. It’s been a long time since they were a perennial tournament team. I don’t know how this adds up to a top 3 program in the Big East.

Okay this is getting hard with all the quotes within quote responses now haha. But I'll respond to a few things here.

1: I simply don't think you can discount how much easier it is to rise up a program when it does have the name brand recognition that Georgetown has. Yes, it's maybe been a while but this is not a DePaul or St. John's that had some flashes that people remember. The brand was incredibly powerful and I think you're undervaluing that. National podcasts and radio shows that aren't even Big East, college basketball, or Northeast focused have talked a lot about the coaching change at Georgetown because it is so well known. If that program gets momentum again, it will attract the type of attention Penn State simply cannot.

2: I also simply don't think you can discount how much easier it is to rise up a program when it is in the upper half of jobs in in its own league. This goes back to the issue I have the mega conferences - all the teams can't be good and even if you are in the upper half, no one cares about the 8th or 9th best team in any conference. Being an afterthought in the Power 2 is not going to be some awesome dreamworld. Fans want to win, and donations are still the biggest drivers for athletics. Fans don't love to donate when you're just mediocre The hill to climb is just so much steeper unless you have one of the top jobs in that conference (i.e., UCLA, IU, Michigan, Ohio St, MSU, Maryland, Illinois). Coaches want to keep their jobs and they know it's just going to be harder in a conference like that cause eventually fandom grows tired if you cant compete for at the top once in a while.

3. You're a bit taking the worst view possible of GTown right now. I would argue that from 2006-2015 they made 8 NCAAs, won 3 conference titles, and went to 2 Sweet 16s and a Final Four. They kept Ewing way too long (him out of nowhere winning the BET in 2021 was negative in hindsight - and he lost half his team to transfers after that!), but programs turn around quickly. If they would've fired him last year like they should have they wouldve hired Dennis Gates I think and everyone would be happier, but Mizzou just put an insane buyout on him in the new deal (i think like $25 million). If it was more like in the range of $10 million, I think he'd be a candidate after Cooley.

4. I think your take is a bit too obsessed with the TV money. Estimates put the % basketball accounts for in a TV deal at around 20% (might be higher/lower). The new deal puts that number per school around $75 million. So roughly $15 million to basketball (though who knows how each school prioritizes it, IU probably pushes more to basketball than Penn State would). Estimates around the Big East new TV deal are $8-10 million/school. So yeah, it's more. But its always been more, yet Nova, Xavier, and Marquette and others rank among the highest budgets in the sport.

5. Back to the issue of conference size, I think where Penn State's position in the Power 2 pays off is when comparably ranked programs in other conferences come looking (i.e., Kansas State, Oklahoma State, Virginia Tech, NC State, Seton Hall, maybe Creighton, Georgia Tech, etc.). And even then, its more about is climbing from the 6th best program job-wise in the Big East easier than the 12th best from the B1G? These conferences have gotten too large and its going to leave a lot of programs damaged and in the dust with the fewer opportunities to win something. It doesn't even sound fun to be in those conferences unless you are an absolute big boy like Alabama or Texas. Penn State football over time could suffer itself (and I think already has as the conf got bigger), the same for Nebraska to an even worse degree. Oklahoma I think could go the way of Nebraska in SEC. It all just sucks, but my point is being in these conferences is a bit of double edged sword. Everyone just wants to grab the life raft because they feel they'll eventually be left without a seat when the music stops (and the money is vastly more of an issue on the football side). And that's just not happening in basketball. I hope at some point when they grow to 20+ teams they do formally split into divisions of 8-12 and in a backward-engineered way bring back the 10-team conferences.

[aughnanure]

Lemme just come in and touch on subject i keep seeing . Georgetown’s terrible attendance

DC only shows up for winners . They have fans but nobody wants to see a team lose . I used to go to every home Hoya game and I havnt been to one since 2021 . And I went to maybe 1 game that entire year. Look at the nfl team, HUGE fanbase ..:bad attendance

If the hoyas are good that place will be rocking every BE game like it used to until around 14-15

Yup, and one particular issue GTown has is that DC is such a transient city. I live here myself (not a Georgetown fan though), and you just very rarely meet someone who is from DC and if they are from the area its Maryland or Virginia. GTown isn't a school with a high percentage of students from the area and even when students do stay in DC - the majority eventually do leave over time, so their local alumni and fanbase is just much smaller. Marquette and Xavier for example pull a lot higher percentages of Wisconsin/Chicago or Cincy/Ohio kids than Georgetown.

So I'm not surprised when they're this bad the attendance is too. Plus a lot that still are in town are trying to send a message. DC really needs a better arena unfortunately, they built the Verizon/Capital One center in the early 2000s era when cities were building arenas too large (it's like 22K). Its always felt more cavernous even when 15/16K show up (also built for Hockey). Should be 16/17K like the new Bucks arena or Georgetown builds its own 8-12K one, but that's nearly impossible to do in Georgetown with fights from locals on whatever they want to build. They finally got that major practice facility built after many many years.

[Xudash]

From the whatever it's worth department, please allow me to chime in on two things:

1. Athletic department finances; and

2. N I L

Athletic Department Finances

Some of you guys are focused on the REVENUE line. Most of you here understand that it is about the INCOME STATEMENT. It's about revenue AND expense. Most here have repeatedly noted, except for perhaps 20 or so Division 1A programs, that most athletic departments run in the red, at least technically, because a strip of their revenue comes from student fees subsidies; their athletic departments alone do not generate enough pure revenue to be self-sustaining.

Will the number of athletic departments operating in the black increase? Yep, most likely. That will happen in the SEC and B1G, for sure. I can't see it happening any other way when the new media money begins pouring into both camps, regardless of the accounting treatments that are utilized by the athletic departments in those two conferences. Nonetheless, the media money is paying for good football primarily. We know that. We have a reasonable understanding of media valuations between football and basketball.

So, 32 schools, in particular, will be better positioned financially to achieve athletic department objectives across the board. Better positioned, not guaranteed. And, importantly from a cultural point of view, virtually all 32 of those schools, in particular, are primarily focused on football. That number can only increase if the SEC and/or B1G find a way to expand by bringing in new schools that add value to the media agreement. I believe we all understand that is getting increasingly harder to accomplish.

I'm noting "32 schools", but let's dispense with the bullsh--. Alabama, Ohio State, Georgia, Michigan, Texas and a small handful of other schools are the stalwarts of big time college football. I left out Notre Dame on purpose, because this is primarily about finances, not tradition and brand. ND can move along being ND, including having their deal with NBC, but Ara Parseghian and Lindsay Nelson recaps on Sunday are long gone in South Bend. Virtually all other programs, including some of those in the SEC and B1G, cannot compete with the alumni bases and stadiums of those schools. For you guys that are located in the East, where college football is loved, but not as big, you can get a full dose of what I'm talking about by travelling to Columbus and joining 107,000 of your not so closest friends to watch Ohio State play a home game in the Horseshoe. Indiana cannot replicate that. Maryland and Rutgers cannot replicate that, etc.

Overall, increased competition from this group of 32 may increase and probably will increase from where it has been, but there are no guarantees. In a very real sense, it does go to show the importance of hiring the right coaching staff. We are basketball schools. Basketball IS our JOB ONE. Maybe it will help to not have to worry about funding teams comprised of 60+ players, many coaches, back office support for all of that, and marching bands.

It all begins to get abstract from here, but I'm imagining a successful coach in the Big East, making $3 million per year, a new media agreement that is worth $7 million or more per year per school (that will help fund competitive salaries), MSG for the BET, major media markets, and basketball first cultures, etc., etc. I'm coming up with the conclusion that the Big East can truly find a special niche in the sport that will keep it competitive and attractive moving forward.

N I L

I'm getting long with this, so I'll try to shorten this one up.

Any way you cut it, this is about third party private (fan) money. Is the value of the investment in advertising worth the cost? How many shirts can I sell with someone's face plastered all over it? I can't build a structured advertising campaign that is sustainable via NIL "celebrities" - players leave or graduate. Can a college kid truly be effective in selling me a car? At least in my case, hell no. If I don't pay attention to NFL players on ads, etc., it would seem apparent that I won't gulp down a message from a kid who is 18 to 22 years old about buying something, regardless of whether or not he wears my school's name on his shirt. The messaging just seems problematic in terms of value and the timeline does not have a reasonable tale before it has to be done with someone else.

Overall, my gut tells me that NIL is not sustainable at a feverish level at the high net worth individual or corporate/LLC level. Maybe there are Miami Hurricane or Texas Aggie nutcase fans who own businesses and a G6 that are willing to shell out 6-digit deals for this, but for how long? Will NIL find a way to be brought back to what it was intended to be at any point? I don't know, but I sense that some of the crazy early NIL deals that we've seen may slowly evolve to something less nuts.

Having noted that, collectives are too fungible at this point, as I understand where we are with them, to come to a conclusion on that piece (https://www.burr.com/newsroom/articles/the-ncaas-new-guidance-regarding-nil-collectives-will-the-guidance-shut-down-nil-collectives-or-affect-their-abilities-to-pay-college-athletes. Nonetheless, while I would hope that some reasonable structure and guide rails will be put into place, there is no denying the benefit of huge alumni bases that can throw $20 per alumnus here and there towards a NIL collective on top of whatever they may donate to their alma mater directly https://www.thefoundationohio.com/. At least C.J. Stroud didn't have to tap one of their collectives for his new Bentley last year!

Here is where supply and demand of basketball talent kicks in. 32 teams - maximum potential spectrum at this point for the top two conferences - times 14 players per roster = 448 players. Anecdotally, Zach Freemantle was, according to 247 Sports, the first 3-star recruit to make the list in 2019, and he was in position #133 on the ranking list that year. Will a particular coach, a basketball-centric program versus a football school, the educational opportunity, including support infrastructure, come into play moving forward, or will it all be about NIL money? I think we know the answer to that, and that answer isn't bleak. More pressure due to more competition coming from non-traditional sources, but it won't be armageddon, especially if we remain well funded, have strong coaching staffs, and clear and impactful administrative support.

BTW, I'm not discounting schools outside of the big two conferences. They'll still have a very big say in all this. Kansas, UNC, Duke, etc. aren't going away. Xavier, with UC less than 4 miles away from us, has to put up with the Bearcats having an enrollment of over 40k and therefore a much larger alumni base in a city having a 2.2 million MSA.

Sorry for the long post. But I'm hoping that it isn't purely about monetary advantage at the conference level, though that will bring challenges. I'm certainly hoping that NIL finds a balanced, reasonable place at some point.

It brings me back to what I'm focused on more than how Xavier does this year in the NCAAT, even though my focus is premature: where are we headed with our next media agreement? That is our key building block for the future.

I say we will end up thriving as a conference moving forward, but the headwinds will be stronger.

[Jasper67]

All of this talk about Georgetown being a Top 3 job in the Big East got me thinking.which Big East schools have the best track record of success and what is the relevant time period. I decided to look back over the past 25 years because it includes the immediate past and it goes back far enough to include some history. Going back farther includes an era that simply isn’t relevant to anyone under 40. So here’s what the Big East schools look like over the past 25 years:

UConn - 16 NCAA tournaments, 7 Elite 8’s, 5 Final 4’s, 4 NCs ——- 4 BE Tourn Champs, 5 BE Reg Seas Champs
Villanova - 17 NCAA tournaments, 5 Elite 8’s, 4 Final 4’s, 2 NC’s - 5 BE Tourn Champs, 8 BE Reg Seas Champs
Butler - 13 NCAA tournaments, 2 Elite 8’s, 2 Final 4’s
Marquette - 14 NCAA tournaments, 2 Elite 8’s, 1 Final 4 —————- 1 BE Tourn Champs, 2 BE Reg Seas Champs
Georgetown - 10 NCAA tournaments, 1 Elite 8, 1 Final 4 —————- 2 BE Tourn Champs, 3 BE Reg Seas Champs
Xavier - 17 NCAA tournaments, 3 Elite 8’s ——————————————- 0 BE Tourn Champs, 1 BE Reg Seas Champs
St. John’s - 6 NCAA tournaments, 1 Elite 8 —————————————— 1 BE Tourn Champs
Creighton - 15 NCAA tournaments ———————————————————- 0 BE Tourn Champs, 1 BE Reg Seas Champs
Providence - 9 NCAA tournaments ———————————————————- 1 BE Tourn Champs, 1 BE Reg Seas Champs
Seton Hall - 8 NCAA tournaments ———————————————————— 1 BE Tourn Champs, 1 BE Reg Seas Champs
DePaul - 1 NCAA tournament

[kayako]

I didn't want to post this because I am not 100% sure myself, but Georgetown being a top 3 BE job is a very safe assumption IMO. Goodman's poll of BE coaches had Georgetown ranked #1 back in 2018/2019 season, and a couple of Ewing disasters + covid seasons + BET title isn't going to change the result too much.

https://watchstadium.com/big-east-basketball-coaches-rank-the-best-jobs-in-the-conference-11-02-2018/

Granted, this is mostly perception ranking. But assuming B10 and SEC dominance going forward is also mostly guesswork IMO. Money disparity hasn't translated to basketball budgets, yet. Georgetown can and will have its basketball budget in the top 10 when it is even somewhat competitive.

https://www.three-man-weave.com/3mw/college-basketball-budgets-2022

You guys have extensively covered the NIL impact, but what we know for fact is that the BE did very well in the transfer market last year, arguably #1 as a conference. This is a fluid situation, but I think it's way too early to conclude that a football school like Penn State is a better job than Georgetown. Again, known fact is that Georgetown pays its coaches more than Penn State does.

[kayako]

Having said that, it sounds like GU's next HC has already been decided according to Fanta. I think it's someone with connection to the BE.

[billyjack]

Jasper--
God Shammgod wants you to go back 26 years to 1997, not 25.

[billyjack]

By the way, what is everyone's opinion on Georgetown looking to grab the coach of a fellow Big East school ? It's never happened before and there is no excuse, and i can't believe the Hoyas are doing this. If true, this is bad bad behavior, almost unforgivable.

[Wizard of Westroads]

By the way, what is everyone's opinion on Georgetown looking to grab the coach of a fellow Big East school ? It's never happened before and there is no excuse, and i can't believe the Hoyas are doing this. If true, this is bad bad behavior, almost unforgivable.

You got somebody in mind there?

One other thing regarding the Big Ten money: In addition to having football take a huge slice, those schools support a lot more sports. They have track, gymnastics, swimming, wrestling, and some have hockey. Volleyball is HUGE and gets a ton more more money than it does in the BE. So while men's hoops will get more money, it's not the difference it would seem to be.

[Jasper67]

Jasper--
God Shammgod wants you to go back 26 years to 1997, not 25.

Haha, I was actually thinking of that. Time marches on.