We really don't have any recent March Madness of college basketball topics that I could find. This is just an interesting local and national story. Villanova is getting Maryland's basketball coach. The reason - Maryland (a Big 10 school) apparently has less NIL money than Nova in the Big East.
Mar 30
Apr 1
Well, it's not because of NIL money per se - it's because every school can now opt in to share 22% of its revenue with athletes due to the House settlement, and most schools are allocating 75% of that to football and then dividing the rest among basketball (men's and women's) and other sports. So even when it's a Big 10 or SEC school with more than $20 million to play with there's only about $5 million leftover for the rest. Villanova probably doesn't have that level of athletics revenue w/o football, but they are able to llocate more than $5 million to men's basketball alone.
Of course NIL can fix that, if you have it. I feel a little bad for Maryland, they were a better fit in the ACC, and football shouldn't be #1 there, but it drives the $ everywhere now. It sounds like everything is better for him at Nova (including facilities and I assume salary) but also the AD that hired him left, and hasn't been replaced, so there is no one to even try to fix or save things soon enough.
The thing is that that thanks to Jay Wright (and to a lesser extent, Rollie Massimino), expectations at Villanova are stratospheric. He probably has five years to get them to a Final Four, maybe eight-to-ten years to win a National Championship or he may be on thin ice.
It is definitely interesting if the Big East without football can get its members more money than a middling Big Ten school. Maryland has always been a basketball school since the Lefty Driesell days. They went to the Big Ten for more football money and initially it did nothing but help the basketball program.
But the NIL era is different. I think this year's NCAA tournament is evidence of that. Football money from the SEC is driving top programs there now. Something like 68% of the minutes from Sweet 16 teams this year were from transfers. Any time a mid-major gets a decent player they get hundreds of thousands of dollars to transfer if not millions. Tyler Perkins from Penn went to Villanova last year for that type of money and he was a 6 point a game rotation player (who might have been an Ivy League all conference player).
I think the NCAA division 1 will contract over the next decade. St. Francis was the leading edge of that. It is just less fun to watch pro ball masquerading as college games.
Neptune got three.
The Penn hire is also interesting.
I also feel bad for Temple, I like the football hire and they can probably get back to that Rhule level of success but being in the AAC has just not been that good... or appealing schedule-wise - for basketball and they probably have a similar issue as Maryland even as a non-P4.
McCaffery is a decent hire for Penn. I assume he wanted some assurance of financial support before taking the job even if the Ivy League does not formally do NIL money. Was the point guard there when I went to Penn. Hopefully he brings some of the players from Iowa who can get in the Ivy League with him. Pretty much the entire Iowa team has graduated or is in the portal - replaced by most of the Drake team which was so good in the NCAAs and is the new Iowa coach.
That's pretty funny because A&M poached Turgeon from Maryland. They were never quite as good with Billy Kennedy/in the SEC. And they probably don't mind losing Buzz that much (he got three years of runway missing the tournament and never won a second-round game in Years 4-6). A&M got a new AD last season, that always makes it easier for a coach to leave (as was also the case for Willard).
Worth keeping an eye on too I reckon. Personally, while I'm not super-invested in any one school, seeing these games at the WFC wasn't as interesting to me, but going back to the really old way obviously will never happen, especially since it's also Six now.
since its inception in 2023, the Big 5 Classic has restored some juice to the games that âNova, Temple, St. Josephâs, La Salle, Penn, and Drexel play against each other.
Would Willard be open to severing Villanovaâs ties to the Big 5? He didnât mind having Seton Hallâs 100-year series with St. Peterâs end on his watch, and he was not especially enthusiastic about the Piratesâ annual matchup against Rutgers for New Jersey supremacy â a game in which Seton Hall, traditionally the better program, had little to gain and a lot to lose. The New York Post once referred to him as the ârivalry grinch.â The Classicâs contract has two years left. Once the schools fulfill those obligations, it wouldnât be all that shocking if Willard, maybe under the guise of seeking some early-season scheduling freedom, started inching Villanova toward an exit.
