Sure he is…but do you think it’s coincidence he ended up back at home and at a school his bro and parents played at???
And do you think he ended up at LMU after leaving Pepp because LMU offered him the most $$$ ?
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Dickinson is a good example of what you’re talking about, too. He would have gotten playing time and money at Michigan–the Wolverines have dough to throw around. And Dickinson was a pretty clear All-American who, as a true big man, was likely to stay all four years given dim NBA prospects. Michigan could have hit the streets to pay him pretty easily.
Could Kansas throw him more? Maybe. Probably. But Dickinson is also a challenging personality given to talking smack about opponents on his “podcast” in true Draymond Green style. I am sure that Michigan was willing to tolerate him for a price, and maybe with stipulations on his behavior or podcast. But Kansas was willing to take a risk on a potentially toxic personality for a higher price.
For the schools, it’s about identifying the right level of investment in a player. For the players, it’s a mix of things including money but also fit, playing time, new surroundings, coaching personalities, relationships that may trump at least some amount of money. Similar for coaches in fact. (See Few, Mark; Bennett, Randy)
Again…Caleb Love left Hubert Davis and blue blood North Carolina. Ryan Nembhard left a good Creighton program with a respected and successful coach in McDermott. Does that ‘speak volumes’ about the respective programs and schools those guys left?
Players are going to leave…nothing new, has been the case for decades, it didn’t just begin with NIL. And they are going to leave for all sorts of reasons…$$$ is unquestionably a big reason, by and large the prime reason most players transfers, but there are other factors.
I’m not the biggest fan of Sendek. If you’ve been paying attention that should be abundantly clear. But I disagree if you’re trying to argue that a departure of a good player is a sign of coaching failure. Players are going to leave and players who have decent success at mid-majors are especially going to leave for bigger schools whether for money or otherwise.
Randy Bennett has been fairly successful at retaining his roster but last season he lost two starters…Jefferson to Iowa St. and golden boy Mahaney to UConn. Does that ‘speak volumes’ about Bennett??? Should SMC have canned him? Is that your argument?
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I hope Tilly isn’t married to that $1.5 million number. As best as I can infer from the smattering of reporting, that would be like 20-30% of the NIL budget at most high major schools. I can’t imagine anyone paying Tilly that much. Maybe half of that.
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Apparently there’s a website that attached NIL value to a player and for Tilly he had him at $1.2-$1.5 million. Tilly’s agent had let schools know he’s looking at that $1.5.
I cannot imagine a school giving him that much either.
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And bolsters my point about having to make value judgements just as most pro franchises must do.
I don’t know what SCU’s NIL budget is…let’s say it’s $3M. It would be crazy to give Tilly half your budget. I wouldn’t give Gus or Saxen or Rataj or Anton Watson or Jonathan Mogbo that much, just to use current/recent examples of WCC guys who are far mare impactful than Tilly.
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I’m not “trying to argue that a departure of a good player is a sign of coaching failure.” Rather it’s a sign that SCU might not be as vested in paying the NIL price to remain D1 as the admin would suggest. If you’re not going to play the NIL game the future is rather clear… it’s a short runway (like 3-4 years) and it ends playing what are essentially club level sports.
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Fine.
Then my other post above applies…everyone has budgets and limits.
It doesn’t make sense to break the bank for Tilly. I would have balked as well if I was the coach and his agent came to me with a $1.5M ask. It isn’t necessarily a sign we aren’t vested in dealing with the current realities of D1 hoops. Choices.
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It is a sign that the NIL budget is likely rather small, which ultimately results in club level sports in the not so distant future.
Even if we are able to get an under the radar player, he’ll be beyond the budget for the following season.
Teams at all levels overpay for talent. It happens regularly in the NBA, NFL, and MLB. Why would we think, in a universe of 350ish D1 schools, that someone wouldn’t overpay for Tilly?
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Question: does NIL permit multi-year deals to lock someone up? Or is it max one season deals?
Could we see an NCAA that gets NIL-saturated, to a point where new players (freshman and transfers) have to look at non-high major programs because the high major programs have already spent their annual nuts?
I assume NIL is guaranteed in instances of sport-related injuries. Spending too much on one player could end up a disaster if that player sustains a major injury.
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@bettererer This is why the revenue sharing model is really important and significant for SCU. Santa Clara has institutional financial resources to compete with most mid-majors but lacks a deep pool of moneyed, sports-obsessed alumni. Once schools can actually put money into players’ pockets directly, SCU will have huge advantages over lots of peer schools, including many more prominent mid-major programs.
@buckets NIL is a fee-for-service model, technically. That service is endorsement of a brand, charity, or business. This isn’t my area of the law by a mile, but basically, the “collectives” are clearinghouses for a promotion opportunities for a given school. But it can’t be coordinated by the school because athletes still can’t be employees. So the contracts can only be X social media posts or Y appearances in public, etc. None of it can be performance based for the sport because they aren’t being paid to play a sport. As to whether those contracts can be locked in for multiple years…I actually don’t know. But I think that the schools are also probably reticent to lock players in for multiple years. And in the event of breach, the damages would be so low anyways because almost none of these athletes have actual marketable value.
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Just like in professional sports spending a bunch on one player and then they get injured is a risk. NIL deals are not supposed to be based on performance. But the better you perform the more NIL opportunities the athlete will have. Since it’s a contract I’d assume everything is negotiated and the contract could have some language related to injuries. Like if you’ve blown out your knee and can’t meet the # of expected appearances or something.
I think since NIL is still so new, no one really knows what to expect. I don’t envision a scenario like you propose to happen. There’s only so much money you can get out of people without the results. You might have a lot of NIL money across D1 basketball in the near term but is it lasting?
For example, SCU like a lot of schools has several donors willing to donate X over a 5 year period. That’s where the $5 to $7.5 million in NIL comes from. But if after that commitment SCU basketball is still the same, how can you go back to these people asking for more money?
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I think homesick is possible but I think he may feel he didn’t get the respect from coaches he earned with clutch play versus Bal, Carlos, and O’ Neil…. Why stay after that regardless on matching NIL?
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I just saw this news:
Interesting move. Not sure I understand why they are pursuing this path.
As a Sacramentan whose parents had season tickets to both football and basketball, neither do we.
They did hire Mike Bibby as their basketball coach, which is interesting. They are moving their basketball team from ‘The Nest,’ a terrible Quonset hut, into a new area which is a conversion of their student work-out facility. It would be like if SCU were still playing at Seifert, and, failing to build a new arena, just put bleachers on the other two courts at Malley and made it the new arena.
The football team has the No. 1 FCS recruiting class, and had success under Taylor (now ignominiously canned up on the Farm).
There are essentially zero FBS independent success stories (yeah, I get Notre Dame) in terms of moving up from FCS - Idaho, Umass, New Mexico State… I do suppose in this era of uncertainly, it may actually be easier to schedule as an Independent than it was before?
They clearly want to be in the MW or Pac, but no one is taking the bait. It is a big media market that lacks an FBS team. UC Davis, who has their act together way moreso, is going to the MWC, though not for football (yet).
House vs NCAA Settlement & Transfer Portal and its impact on mid-majors-WCC-Santa Clara University MBB:
As the college landscape has unfolded for the past few months regarding, “The House vs NCAA” on one hand; with the conference alignment, portal transfer on the other.
The ruling suggests that D1 conferences will pay back pay from athletic revenues from 2016-2021.
In addition, the schools are committed to paying from here on out.
The caveat thats unclear to me is why power conferences get to pay 40% of the total backpay while mid-majors are expected to pay 60%.
The backpay disparity single-handedly disrupts the WCC’s potential powerful growth opportunity.
Perhaps the idea is that these schools get less prominent athletes perhaps a smaller payout per athlete. Inversely, the WCC doesn’t have football which is costly but yields significant revenue for schools. Santa Clara won’t be expected to pay football athletes at its own school but will be contributing to a pool of mid-major that do have football which is unfortunate.
The future of the WCC isn’t so clear it’s pretty obvious now why Gonzaga is eager to leave for the Pac-12. This former power conference features a lucrative TV deal which will help offset their costs and enable them to continue to pay competitive salaries to their elite athletes.
Grand Canyon saw an opportunity to join a rising conference with perennial powerhouse Gonzaga leading the conference followed by a nationally respected St. Mary’s and rising Santa Clara and University San Francisco. Oregon St. and Washington St. added prestige as a legitimate basketball conference and voila!
Grand Canyon was able to scope out that Gonzaga wouldn’t be there to fortify the legitimacy of the league and St Marys who has been rumored to want to leave as well would eventually bolt. Grand Canyon de-committed from joining the WCC and quickly prioritized the Mountain West despite the WCC’s greatest effort and excitement. The mountain west is a multi-bid conference with a TV contract; something the WCC would benefit from.
This current transfer portal season has been a nightmare for the top talent in the conference that made it one of the more compelling WCC seasons in the past 20 years.
Many players are seeking schools that can pay the average prices for an elite basketball athlete which currently sits between $2-$4 million. The running price for a quality starter is $1-$2 million. Even for a rotational player the salary band is currently $250-$750k (these figured are loose estimates based on cbs report in college basketball).
The top AP ranked schools have a budget of $10 million before you get to NIL money. In a recent report that cbs shared there were the top 100 grossing basketball programs. Santa Clara University was listed at #97 with $7.5 million generated but it didn’t share cash flow. Its hard to know exactly what the correlation is between those figures but it sounds as if the program won’t be impacted as far as high school talent or juco transfers. However for those more established players like we recently saw with Tyeree Bryan and Christoph Tilly who transferred for power 4 conferences while their stocks were peaking.
Every WCC team was decimated by the transfer portal. Gonzaga has the pedigree to poach some talent. Ultimately, I believe in Oregon St. and Washington St. who will be returning to the pac 12. It remains to be seen how the WCC responds exactly. Whether it create partnership conferences who mirror each other schedules.
Maybe even a partnership in a TV contract.
In the end; this is all the changes is disruptive to WCC growth and ultimately Santa Clara. I think Santa Clara University and University San Francisco have put themself in enough prominence in recent years. The recent success of both schools may allow them to acquire An occasional big school prospect like USF has recently done with Mookie Cook(Oregon), or even Malik Thomas(USC), or Marcus Williams(Texas A&M). Santa Clara has had some success of their own with Juco transfer Elijah Mahi(West Valley), Johnny O’Neil(American University). While the schools may not be as prominent the ball players were equally valuable. These two schools and the rest of the conference barring Gonzaga will need to win the recruitment battle more than ever as it becomes harder to retain these athletes.
If you made it here I apologize for the long read. I had alot of thoughts I guess.
Thoughts?
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The mid-majors are paying in 60% because they represent a much higher share of overall D1 student athletes–significantly more than 60%. Plus, the Power conferences are committed to paying more going forward whereas mid-majors don’t have to opt in. That’s unsatisfying for mid-majors that, in an NIL world, probably only have 10-25% of the actual value of marketable athletes. But the Power conferences pointed to how many more athletes overall play for mid-majors and their obligation to pay going forward, ultimately landing on the current 40/60 backpay split.
I don’t think it’s fair because, again, as a damages assessment, mid-major players probably only would have collected a small percentage of NIL had it been available in prior years. But there’s enough lack of certainty there, that the power conferences were able to exploit for their own estimation of “fairness” based on raw number of athletes.
I actually think that there’s at least potential that the revenue sharing era works better for Santa Clara because SCU is in better position than most D1 schools to provide direct income for athletes and doesn’t have to worry about a football team. I think the big question about the coming couple of seasons is if the revenue-sharing is effectively going to count as the equivalent of a “salary cap” within college sports. Legally, it can’t eliminate NIL. But effectively, it may kill off all NIL that isn’t directed at the most marketable 10-20 athletes like Cooper Flagg or Livvy Dunne. Schools are probably going to tap the same donors to fund “revenue sharing” that they were tapping for NIL (at least it will be more clearly tax-deductible now), so I’m not sure there will be much NIL left.
If revenue sharing kills off most NIL deals, then Santa Clara may be well-positioned. With $5 million a year, Santa Clara will be roughly commensurate with many power conference programs. Whether that’s a good investment is for the trustees to decide, but if they choose to invest at those amounts, Santa Clara won’t be uncompetitive for financial reasons at least.
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