The Cost of Hiring a College Basketball Coach

KANSAS CITY, Mo.– The cost of hiring a college basketball coach with any success has become much more expensive this year.

Missouri lured Cuonzo Martin away from Cal with a seven-year, $21 million offer. Illinois, who had tried to get Martin, settled on Brad Underwood of Oklahoma State for six years at $18 million.

In a world where making the NCAA tournament has become a pass/fail test, the stakes are high there will be a short honeymoon. These coaches are expected to win immediately and make their programs competitive in the SEC and the Big Ten.

With that in mind, here are the seven most intriguing jobs on this year’s coaching carousel.

Missouri: Martin, who was born in East St. Louis and played for Gene Keady at Purdue, is a proven recruiter who has had success at Missouri State, Tennessee and Cal and the Tigers certainly need blue chip players to climb out of the abyss in the SEC, where previous coach Kim Anderson never won a road game in three years. Martin signed future NBA star Jaylen Brown and forward Ivan Raab, a 6-9 sophomore who should be a first round pick, at Cal. He also has apparently already taken the first steps toward rejuvenating the Tigers by hiring Michael Porter Sr., who was an assistant on Lorenzo Romar’s staff at Washington. Porter used to an assistant women’s coach at Missouri before moving to moving to Seattle to take a job at the University of Washington for a year. But more importantly, he has two sons– 6-10 Michael Jr. and 6-8 junior Johntay, who are game changers. Michael Jr., the Gatorade National Player of the Year and the best prospect in the class of 2017, signed with Washington and Johntay verbaled to the Huskies. Porter has since asked for his release and is expected to resurface in Columbia.

Illinois: Underwood has been a man on the move. He went from Stephen F. Austin to Oklahoma State last year, coached the Cowboys to the NCAA tournament, then abruptly left to Champaign after a 92-91 loss to Michigan in the first round. The Illini administration was willing to double his money after the school, that fired John Groce after his team didn’t make the tournament, lost out in the Martin sweepstakes. Three schools in three years. The 53-year old Underwood, who has a 109-27 record in his last four years, is known for his understanding of offensive basketball.

Washington: Mike Hopkins, who spent almost 25 years as a player and an assistant on Jim Boeheim’s staff at Syracuse, was tabbed as the eventual replacement for Jim Boeheim since 2007. Two years ago, Syracuse put the transition plan in writing, announcing Hopkins would take over after the 2017-18 season. He served as interim coach during a stretch of the 2016 season when Boeheim was suspended for nine games by the NCAA. Last week, everything changed. Hopkins, who is from the West Coast and had been linked to jobs at USC and Oregon State, received a call from Washington. They were looking to replace the popular Romar, who had taken the Huskies to three Sweet 16 appearances but failed to make the tournament for a fourth straight year and finished with a 9-22 record despite having Markelle Fultz, who could be the first pick in the NBA draft. Hopkins jumped at the chance to create his own legacy at the Pac12 school. The Huskies had a Top 3 recruiting class with Porter. It could still be good if Hopkins can keep Daejon Davis and Jaylen Nowell, two elite guards from Seattle Garfield High.

North Carolina State: Herb Sendek took the Wolfpack to five straight NCAA tournaments and graduated 100 percent of his players and it wasn’t enough. Mark Gottfired took the Pack to four NCAA tournaments and two Sweet 16’s and it too wasn’t enough for a rabid fan base that desperately wants its team to be on a par with North Carolina and Duke on Tobacco Road and wasn’t satisfied with the fact Gottfried was 15-17 this season. It will be up to Kevin Keatts, who coached UNC-Wilmington to 29 wins in the CAA and an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament to try his luck. The 44-year old Keatts has been on a fast track since he was head coach at Hargrave Military, Va. Academy. He spent three years as an assistant to Rick Pitino at Louisville become moving to UNC Wilmington, where he won CAA Coach of the Year in both 2015 and 2016 and led the Seahawks to two close losses to Duke and Virginia in the NCAA tournament.

LSU: The Tigers struggled in the Johnny Jones era, failing to make the NCAA tournament in 2016 despite the fact they had 6-9 point forward Ben Simmons of Australia, who was selected by the Philadelphia 76ers with the no. 1 pick in the 2016 NBA draft. So they reached out to Will Wade, who was a Shark Smart assistant at VCU on the 20011 Final Four team before taking the UT Chattanooga job in 2013. In his two seasons there, he posted winning records, giving the Mocs their first 20 plus win season in 10 years and was named Southern Conference Coach of the Year in 2014. Wade returned to VCU when Smart took the Texas job in 2015. He led the Rams to their first ever A-10 regular season title and a 25-11record in his first year and has coached VCU to two NCAA appearances before this latest opportunity came up.

Three other high profile jobs are waiting to be filled.

Georgetown fired John Thompson III after 13 years. Thompson coached the Hoyas to eight NCAA tournaments and one Final Four, but missed the NCAA tournament three of the last four years. The Hoyas, who finished 14-18 this season and were 5-13 in the Big East, were troubled by dwindling attendance at the Verizon Center and lost two key players when LJ Peak declared for the NBA draft and Tremont Waters, a Top 25 recruit, asked for his release.

Oklahoma State actually interviewed former guard Doug Gottlieb, a CBS TV personality for the job yesterday even though he has no experience as a college coach. We think you will hear names like Tim Jankovich of SMU and Joe Dooley of Florida Gulf Coast, both who have Kansas pedigrees as a member of Bill Self’s staff, before it’s all over.

Finally, there is Indiana, the once storied Bob Knight program that fired Tom Crean despite the fact he won 18 games and made the NIT with a crippled team. The big rumor out there is the Hoosiers are ready to offer local hero Steve Alford, the star of IU’s 1987 national championship team a seven-year deal worth $31 million if he leaves UCLA. Alford, as might be expected, isn’t saying anything with his team still alive in the tournament and getting ready to play Kentucky in the NCAA South Region semi-finals.