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BASKETBALL Nevada Basketball Must Strike Now to Become a National Program

RandallThomason

Blue Raider Legend
Jan 1, 2005
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https://amp.rgj.com/amp/493058002?

Interesting read here on how Nevada previously failed to capitalize on an opportunity to become the “next Gonzaga” and how it hopes to do a better job with its second chance, following this year’s Sweet 16 appearance. Somewhat lengthy read but a good insight into the kinds of discussions our university should be having as well
 
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Meh... people can talk about facilities and salary all day long but it comes down to coaching - and finding a good replacement.

Murray has been very successful at replacing good coaches as has Xavier. There is no reason that Nevada or MT can't continue to be successful when there are feeder programs like UNC-A and College of Charleston available.
 
Article shows how hard it is for a mid-major to change the stereotype and become a consistently relative part of college basketball. While many of the factors in the article are similar to MT it is easy to come up with advantages and disadvantages each has over the other in the quest.

Interesting was the emphasis on the travel budget for different schools. I have to think that how you travel (or don't) is used against schools who take many long-distance bus rides. Important ingredient missing from the article is the size of the recruiting budget. It could be it wasn't easy to disaggregate the BkB budgets to come up with those figures (as it usually is for salaries at public institutions) but IMHO the recruiting budget is one area which has a tremendous impact on the perpetuation of success.
 
Meh... people can talk about facilities and salary all day long but it comes down to coaching - and finding a good replacement.

Murray has been very successful at replacing good coaches as has Xavier. There is no reason that Nevada or MT can't continue to be successful when there are feeder programs like UNC-A and College of Charleston available.

Murray has great history in the OVC, but they are a far cry from the top level of "mid-major" college basketball (they've never made the Sweet 16 and have just three NCAA Tournament wins in their history). They are the #2 MBB budget school in the OVC behind Belmont. Those two teams have finished 1-2 in the OVC regular season standings (by virtue of winning a division championship or finishing 1-2 in the final overall standings) in all but one season since Belmont joined the OVC in 2013. Xavier spends about $6 million per year on basketball (as of 2016 data that I found), has excellent overall facilities, and now has the built-in advantage of playing in the newly configured basketball-only Big East, which is chock full of many programs we would hope to emulate.

We are probably an upper half C-USA men's basketball budget, and obviously have performed very well relative to that in recent years. I'm not suggesting we spend money just to spend money, but there needs to be constant discussion and consideration of how we can raise more money and how we can prioritize reinvesting that money into the program. I like that Nevada article because it shows some tangible investments that can be made that don't require tens of millions of dollars. If we ever want to truly make a run at joining the power broker table of "mid-major" college basketball, we need dynamic leadership, goal-setting, and execution to improve our cash in-flows and strategically utilize them.

The way I've always looked at it is that our goal should be that we build the infrastructure of a program where observers say, "If a coach can't win at Middle Tennessee, he isn't a good coach." Our reputation right now is the opposite, something more along the lines of, "Look what Coach Davis was able to do at Middle Tennessee, wow what a great accomplishment." It's a long climb to move that needle, and it takes a combination of shrewd investment and coaching hires to get there.
 
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