Nebrasketball1979

Dead today, revived in 2029

Morale of this story...when we need to hire another basketball coach, use Drake's search firm or beg their AD for advice.

I can't fault the kids at this point. The vast majority of them will never play a minute in the NBA so if schools are willing to throw around $500K or more for a player that maybe has the potential to play overseas (thinking Morgan and/or Meah), how can they not jump at the money and become mercenaries? Why would we expect them to do any different than most people would do if offered a substantial raise to leave their current employer in their current line of work? I'm not saying I like it but it's the reality that's not going away.

Apparently this is pretty debatable

Yep, I get it but no thanks. Put me in the camp that doesn't want to get their hands dirty. There are plenty of successful, high character coaches out there to lead programs. No need to sell our soul.

There has been good debate and conversation on this topic. It feels like most everyone acknowledges that our NIL budget for the 2024-2025 season was average, at best, in the Big 10 and certainly not in the $5M+ range of the top tier of teams. I think most everyone also agrees that our resource allocation and talent acquisition was poor last year. Someone mentioned that we were likely not aggressive enough at the beginning of the portal window and then we overcompensated, got desperate, and overpaid at the end. That feels right to me. One thing I ponder...let's say Fred had been given a budget of $3.5M to $4M before the portal window opened last year. Still not in the top tier but I'm sure firmly in the top third of the conference. Would this have changed Fred's approach? I have no doubt that Fred knew where we stood, NIL wise, relative to our peers last year. If you have less money to work with, I think Fred, in his conservative nature, surmised he had to be thrifty with his more limited resources and was looking for value. What backfired last year is that there wasn't a lot of value to be had. You had a handful of well resourced programs driving the prices up for all players. I believe what Fred got left with was a smaller pool of players to choose from in an inflated market with the "desperate" teams willing to overpay at that point. It feels like the NIL that players like Chucky got ended up being a bargain to what guys at the end of the portal window received. This is obviously speculation but it seems to fit how we got to where we were with our roster acquisitions. I'll be curious to see the adjustments we make this year. Fred is no dummy and he will certainly adjust. However, hopefully our NIL commitment is stronger this year. If it's not, we're still likely asking and hoping for more than what's reasonable, at least on a year in and year out basis.

They won't hire Devries or any of the highly sought after coaches if they don't. All of these coaches that have choices will demand sufficient NIL resources or they won't take the job. Who they hire will tell us a lot about how much they care and their level of investment in basketball.

I honestly had no idea that Meah had poor oral hygiene. If true, I do hope he uses some of his NIL money to get that addressed.

Someone in the committee room pointed out that Indiana had lost to Nebrasketball 4 times in a row by an average margin of defeat of almost 20 points/game and that ended their at large hopes for this year and next year.

It's obviously a balance. Fred the GM needs to help Fred the Coach but Nebraska needs to equip him with the resources that is better than below average in the Big 10. I'm not saying we need to have a $5M-$6M roster but if we're really at $2.3M, that's a large gap to consistently overcome. Coaching matters but having the Jimmy's and Joe's is critical as well.

UCF versus Nebraska in perhaps a two team field at this rate.

This seems a bit cryptic. Word on the street is that every big 10 team besides Nebraska and presumably Indiana and Ohio State have opted out. If Indiana can opt out, I wouldn't be surprised if they did.

After losing six conference games at home, we certainly have to get rid of something or find a scapegoat. This makes sense. Maybe if we have another down year at PBA we can just remove the baskets.

Ha, yeah, the pay for teachers across the country is embarrassing; however, that doesn't mean it's unfair that athletes are getting paid at the level they are. My wife is a teacher and I hope there is a day where millions of people are watching her teach so we can leverage that into a big payday for our family.

I would think McCollum would be high on their list as well. No more Francon meter as well...that's what stings the most here!