Seriously, if say Iowa or Florida State decided to poach a NEWBIE coach, do you honestly think they wouldn’t get out bid? Heck, Hurley has basically said he would leave for more money. The Creighton guy is the only one who might stay. But a few NEWBIE schools are near the top in budgets, it’s true, but overall the league ranks 4 or 5 in average budget depending how you calculate it. (4th in mean, 5th in median). Marquette, Villanova Georgetown and Providence are in the Top 20. St Johns is 35th We are right about at the league median interestingly and 41 nationally. Creighton is next and spend almost a million dollars less than UConn. Seton Hall spends $1.8 million less. But after that it drops until you get down to Butler which spends less than a number of A10 programs.
As to our conference situation, We are in an awful position, to be truthful. We are stuck in a league where we don’t belong pretending it is 1995. We are the only large public school in with a bunch of smallish, urban Catholic colleges, many of which are really commuter schools. I hope Dave is doing everything in his power to get us into a true power conference. Because the future of the NEWBIE just became much bleaker than it was before this announcement. I am not advocating a return to the AAC. That ship sailed. Had we not let everything collapse under the last administration, we might be in the new Big 12 which wouldn’t be awful. We are just sort of stuck where we are. Can’t move up can’t move down. It is really a difficult place for a program that was the envy of many 10 years ago.
