Gragg promises Collins extension

[zeek55]

But I don’t think those differences will benefit Northwestern. NIL particularly. NU will always have their hands tied behind their back competing as a power school, and that will be especially true going forward as mid and low major schools continue to get more and more tv airplay, and our academic standards remain where they are.

It really depends on where NIL goes, but I don't see how those factors automatically tie our hands behind our back.

For example, Big Ten and SEC conference distributions should head towards $100 million per school per year by the end of this decade. Something only around 32 schools will be receiving with another 30-40 receiving $40 million and most others sub $10 million.

What happens if NIL programs draw from those conference distributions? We'd basically have more NIL money than all but the others in the Big Ten and SEC.

 

[Purple Pile Driver]

It really depends on where NIL goes, but I don't see how those factors automatically tie our hands behind our back.

For example, Big Ten and SEC conference distributions should head towards $100 million per school per year by the end of this decade. Something only around 32 schools will be receiving with another 40-50 receiving $40 million and most others sub $10 million.

What happens if NIL programs draw from those conference distributions? We'd basically have more NIL money than all but the others in the Big Ten and SEC.

I don’t believe you can use conference distributions to fund NIL. That is why I think your “only” 15-20 programs with the same or better resources can be debated.

 

[zeek55]

I don’t believe you can use conference distributions to fund NIL. That is why I think your “only” 15-20 programs with the same or better resources can be debated.

At the moment no, but in the future I think things will have to change as TV money at the Big Ten/SEC grows to those levels.

The world where the Big Ten/SEC are distributing $40-50 million per year should be different from one where that number is >$100 million in the 2030s especially given how fast that change will happen.

There's been some tangential discussion of it by people in power, but I think as Power conferences get more autonomy and the NCAA devolves more power we should see a push there.

There's only so much money that can go to salary and facilities. We ourselves will be pushing the facility limit at around $1.3 billion spent on athletics facilities since mid-2010s when the stadium is done.

And this doesn't include what can happen in the 2030s as the ACC and Pac-12 may lose more schools, thus hitting their payouts more and creating even more of a gap.

I think the Big Ten and SEC will push to be able to create NIL pools for the schools from conference distributions, thus giving the schools the ability to say that it's a degree removed from their individual campuses. It feels like an obvious next step.

 

[Purple Pile Driver]

At the moment no, but in the future I think things will have to change as TV money at the Big Ten/SEC grows to those levels.

The world where the Big Ten/SEC are distributing $40-50 million per year should be different from one where that number is >$100 million in the 2030s especially given how fast that change will happen.

There's been some tangential discussion of it by people in power, but I think as Power conferences get more autonomy and the NCAA devolves more power we should see a push there.

There's only so much money that can go to salary and facilities. We ourselves will be pushing the facility limit at around $1.3 billion spent on athletics facilities since mid-2010s when the stadium is done.

And this doesn't include what can happen in the 2030s as the ACC and Pac-12 may lose more schools, thus hitting their payouts more and creating even more of a gap.

I think the Big Ten and SEC will push to be able to create NIL pools for the schools from conference distributions, thus giving the schools the ability to say that it's a degree removed from their individual campuses. It feels like an obvious next step.

Wouldn’t there be a disincentive for the wealthy blue bloods to push for pooling of TV money into NIL for each school in the conference? Sounds like a de facto salary minimum for each school that in theory would level the playing field more. The OSU’s of the world can win every year just with wealthy NIL donors basically buying the players. They keep the status quo. A equal distribution to member schools hurts them and puts the NU’s in the world in a position to suddenly be able to buy the same players. Of course, the donors could still pile in the money, making a $2M player a $5M player and you would still have a Yankees against the Royals scenario.

 

[zeek55]

Wouldn’t there be a disincentive for the wealthy blue bloods to push for pooling of TV money into NIL for each school in the conference? Sounds like a de facto salary minimum for each school that in theory would level the playing field more. The OSU’s of the world can win every year just with wealthy NIL donors basically buying the players. They keep the status quo. A equal distribution to member schools hurts them and puts the NU’s in the world in a position to suddenly be able to buy the same players. Of course, the donors could still pile in the money, making a $2M player a $5M player and you would still have a Yankees against the Royals scenario.

That is interesting to think about; the counter is that all these institutions are unique in terms of various constituencies (boosters, academics, etc.) and how in favor of "paying the players" each institution is.

Another issue is there's 2 superconferences, not just 1, so I think the competition between the Big Ten and SEC will likely move it forwards at the conference level (due to the arms race nature of competition).

Ohio State and Michigan (especially the latter) for example appear to want to be a lot more hands off than say Alabama (where Saban talks directly about players earning their NIL).

Even just among blue bloods there's a lot of differences; look at Texas A&M going out and buying their #1 football class last year, and the uproar that caused across the rest of the SEC. Schools that don't have the donor bases to compete with them in the Big Ten and SEC are likely to want some sort of conference setup for NIL (because that would enable them to outcompete everyone outside the 2 superconferences).

At that point it makes sense for the conferences to put guardrails up because even the bluebloods will want that; Alabama doesn't want Texas or Texas A&M to just be able to buy their classes with donor NIL because the reality is those 2 schools' booster groups have even more $ than Alabama's due to all the Texas business/oil money in their donor bases.

Final issue is just there's only so many places conference distributions can go right now. How much more can you pay coaches? There will also likely be further lawsuits, and those likely will target conference distributions (given how money is coming to the schools/conferences from TV), and the best way to mitigate those is to create "conference NIL pools" of somewhere around 20-25% of the conference distribution money.

That'd give every Big Ten and SEC school an automatic $20-25 million NIL pool every year for example. The blueblood donors can go above and beyond those numbers of course, but that'd let the rest of those conferences be well ahead of everyone outside.

 

[IGNORE2]

That is interesting to think about; the counter is that all these institutions are unique in terms of various constituencies (boosters, academics, etc.) and how in favor of "paying the players" each institution is.

Another issue is there's 2 superconferences, not just 1, so I think the competition between the Big Ten and SEC will likely move it forwards at the conference level (due to the arms race nature of competition).

Ohio State and Michigan (especially the latter) for example appear to want to be a lot more hands off than say Alabama (where Saban talks directly about players earning their NIL).

Even just among blue bloods there's a lot of differences; look at Texas A&M going out and buying their #1 football class last year, and the uproar that caused across the rest of the SEC. Schools that don't have the donor bases to compete with them in the Big Ten and SEC are likely to want some sort of conference setup for NIL (because that would enable them to outcompete everyone outside the 2 superconferences).

At that point it makes sense for the conferences to put guardrails up because even the bluebloods will want that; Alabama doesn't want Texas or Texas A&M to just be able to buy their classes with donor NIL because the reality is those 2 schools' booster groups have even more $ than Alabama's due to all the Texas business/oil money in their donor bases.

Final issue is just there's only so many places conference distributions can go right now. How much more can you pay coaches? There will also likely be further lawsuits, and those likely will target conference distributions (given how money is coming to the schools/conferences from TV), and the best way to mitigate those is to create "conference NIL pools" of somewhere around 20-25% of the conference distribution money.

That'd give every Big Ten and SEC school an automatic $20-25 million NIL pool every year for example. The blueblood donors can go above and beyond those numbers of course, but that'd let the rest of those conferences be well ahead of everyone outside.

I have been trying to think how ncaa could control spending like the major sport leagues do. I think one method might a system similar to the salary cap where the penalty impacts number of scholarships a program gets to use.

Official NIL must have paperwork for tax purposes. Athletes can be forced to disclose NIL as condition of participation. NCAA acts as gathering house. Put limits that if exceeded lead to loss of scholarships for following season.

 

[hdhntr1]

I dunno. For the near-term, I think it’s a very reasonable goal to have any player who commits to NU make an NCAA Tournament during their time here.

The key is what happens in the down years. Can NU establish a floor of the NIT? Establish more consistency with no bad losses? Establish a greater ability to close out close games?

Basically I just want to be in the bubble conversation the majority of years, with the occasional great year. Not all that different from the expectation of a floor of 6-6 and a bowl in football, and sometimes a Big Ten West title when things break right.

People need to understand that NU has to be viewed with a different lens than most programs. Reality is that we are more of a developmental program and we don't have superstar Frosh ready to come in an make a huge splash. If you look at the BIG, even with the uptick in recruiting under CCC, hard to find another program with less raw talent. That means our success means getting enough guys in the right positions to a level of development at the same time. Takes winning 50% of our games (10) in the BIG to be legitimately in the conversation for the Dance and realistically that happens about every 4-5 years. With luck you might be able to keep that developed core together for a couple years so there could be a couple consecutive appearances but otherwise 4 to 5 years. Throw in potential injuries to the wrong person or at the wrong time or whatever else and looks more like 5-6. That is reality whether we like it or not. Hopefully we can improve that and/or our new identity as a Defensive Jugernaught, and /or some home court advantage can make us a little less dependent on the cycles similar to Rutgers or WIS

Just take a look at this year. It all came together. Guys like Audige and Buie finally got to their potential. And while they may come back because of the gift of an extra year due to Covid, if they are gone, we have no one to replace them with at a level to get it done. PG is our hardest position to recruit and not sure that the guys to get back to the top level are even in the current recruiting class. Then it takes 2-3 years to get them to a level where they can make a difference and if they don't come back and it could take 4 years or more to get back to tourney level.

Look, I would love to see consistent Dance appearances but unfortunately that is likely not our reality. Have to be good with that and if we can maybe get it down from once every 5 years to once every 3 that would be a major accomplishment

 

[hdhntr1]

5 years is a long stretch with no postseason.

Collins got a 6th chance which may not have happened as many other Power 5-6 programs, but he and the team clearly answered the call this year.

At the end of the day, this is a results business. Running a clean and respectable program is important here, but results still matter and still trump that because we are a rich/"have" program even with academic restrictions and past history and a smaller fanbase. We still have financial resources that maybe only 15-20 programs in the country can match. Financial differences in the future should only favor us more if we get to a world where the Power 5 schools pay players out of conference TV deals and other methods like that.

Gragg rightly made our higher expectations explicit and the changes we saw to hoops/football staff made clear that if we're not having results, there has to be changes.

Collins can have a 20+ year career here but it likely will require that the longest drought lasts around 4-5 years. That's just the reality of this business.

Not really. Have to also recall how adversely affected by COVID we were. Especially when you consider how bad the history of NU BB has been. Yes we now have better facilities but most of the other barriers to BB success are still there

 

[zeek55]

People need to understand that NU has to be viewed with a different lens than most programs. Reality is that we are more of a developmental program and we don't have superstar Frosh ready to come in an make a huge splash. If you look at the BIG, even with the uptick in recruiting under CCC, hard to find another program with less raw talent. That means our success means getting enough guys in the right positions to a level of development at the same time. Takes winning 50% of our games (10) in the BIG to be legitimately in the conversation for the Dance and realistically that happens about every 4-5 years. With luck you might be able to keep that developed core together for a couple years so there could be a couple consecutive appearances but otherwise 4 to 5 years. Throw in potential injuries to the wrong person or at the wrong time or whatever else and looks more like 5-6. That is reality whether we like it or not. Hopefully we can improve that and/or our new identity as a Defensive Jugernaught, and /or some home court advantage can make us a little less dependent on the cycles similar to Rutgers or WIS

Just take a look at this year. It all came together. Guys like Audige and Buie finally got to their potential. And while they may come back because of the gift of an extra year due to Covid, if they are gone, we have no one to replace them with at a level to get it done. PG is our hardest position to recruit and not sure that the guys to get back to the top level are even in the current recruiting class. Then it takes 2-3 years to get them to a level where they can make a difference and if they don't come back and it could take 4 years or more to get back to tourney level.

Look, I would love to see consistent Dance appearances but unfortunately that is likely not our reality. Have to be good with that and if we can maybe get it down from once every 5 years to once every 3 that would be a major accomplishment

I agree with you on all of this, but I think the bottom out years probably should be a bit better than the past 5 as a reasonable expectation moving forward. Toss an NIT bid in here and there and some marginally winning seasons (where we don't make the tournament), and I think things look a fair bit more consistent for fans.

 

[hdhntr1]

I agree with you on all of this, but I think the bottom out years probably should be a bit better than the past 5 as a reasonable expectation moving forward. Toss an NIT bid in here and there and some marginally winning seasons (where we don't make the tournament), and I think things look a fair bit more consistent for fans.

We would all like to see that. Injuries and Allstate curtail 2017/18 season. Some high rated recruits did not work out and when we were starting to get it back together COVID hit and other programs gained advantage over us during COVID. Remember all the guys that spent an extra year in college due to COVID? We did not have them but our opponents did and those guys in their 5th year and beyond killed us. Even last year we were pretty close to NIT but a COVID cancelled game kept us from being eligible. We have a very thin margin of error and unfortunately we were on the wrong side.

 

[PURPLECAT88]

Look, I would love to see consistent Dance appearances but unfortunately that is likely not our reality. Have to be good with that and if we can maybe get it down from once every 5 years to once every 3 that would be a major accomplishment

The only way we could be anywhere near consistent would be to recruit 3-4 medium guys each year, keep them around developing while they don't play much their first couple of years and then have them emerge like MN and Brooks later in their careers. That's virtually impossible using only 10 scholarship spots, and even if we use all of them, it is tougher than ever to get guys to stick around with just the promise of playing time in their third or fourth year. Wisconsin made it work a little bit with their "Get old, and stay old" strategy, but even they had the occasional superstar (Davis, Kaminsky, Happ, etc.). I like this year's recruiting class because they all seem like they could be solid contributors by their junior years, but can we keep them that long? Simmons would have been a good candidate for that kind of development.

 

[hdhntr1]

The only way we could be anywhere near consistent would be to recruit 3-4 medium guys each year, keep them around developing while they don't play much their first couple of years and then have them emerge like MN and Brooks later in their careers. That's virtually impossible using only 10 scholarship spots, and even if we use all of them, it is tougher than ever to get guys to stick around with just the promise of playing time in their third or fourth year. Wisconsin made it work a little bit with their "Get old, and stay old" strategy, but even they had the occasional superstar (Davis, Kaminsky, Happ, etc.). I like this year's recruiting class because they all seem like they could be solid contributors by their junior years, but can we keep them that long? Simmons would have been a good candidate for that kind of development.

Exactly. Our reality is different than that of other programs in the conference and people need to be OK with that. Really hard to get enough guys developed to the right level at the same time. And one key injury or other issue can sideline the whole plan

 

[IGNORE2]

The only way we could be anywhere near consistent would be to recruit 3-4 medium guys each year, keep them around developing while they don't play much their first couple of years and then have them emerge like MN and Brooks later in their careers. That's virtually impossible using only 10 scholarship spots, and even if we use all of them, it is tougher than ever to get guys to stick around with just the promise of playing time in their third or fourth year. Wisconsin made it work a little bit with their "Get old, and stay old" strategy, but even they had the occasional superstar (Davis, Kaminsky, Happ, etc.). I like this year's recruiting class because they all seem like they could be solid contributors by their junior years, but can we keep them that long? Simmons would have been a good candidate for that kind of development.

It’s part of the recruiting process.

 

[hdhntr1]

I don’t believe you can use conference distributions to fund NIL. That is why I think your “only” 15-20 programs with the same or better resources can be debated.

+Reality is that we are not in that group

 

[hdhntr1]

It’s part of the recruiting process.

And again, we have a very thin margin of error. We don't get the 5 star instant successes like Indiana, OSU, even NEB and MN. So we have to see them develop and not get injured or transfer

 

[AdamOnFirst]

People need to understand that NU has to be viewed with a different lens than most programs. Reality is that we are more of a developmental program and we don't have superstar Frosh ready to come in an make a huge splash. If you look at the BIG, even with the uptick in recruiting under CCC, hard to find another program with less raw talent.

"People need to understand that NU has to be viewed with a different lens than most programs" and "Reality is that we are more of a developmental program and we don't have superstar Frosh ready to come in an make a huge splash" are completely separate issues that you are conflating. NU's primary reason for not having access to basketball's mega recruits who step in and dominate as Freshman has not that much to do with what's unique about Northwester and everything to do with not that many outside the elite basketball schools having very frequent or any access to recruits of this nature. NIL may change this a bit since some schools will be able to come up with $1 mil a year in donor money rather than build a program for years, but that's the situation MOST schools are operating under and isn't an excuse for NU. MOST schools are developmental rather than elite recruit programs, including some of the powerhouses in our own conference (how often does Izzo pull actual elite 1 and done recruits? Not all that often).

All that said, while I think NU could become a consistent and good basketball school, I actually don't care so much about year-to-year consistency as long as we have up years that are good with some regularity. 3 dance appearances a decade that includes a very high Big Ten finish like this year is not a bad baseline for me, and I care less about winning 8 conference games in the off years than I care about finishing #2 in the up years. THat's just my personal preference.

 

[GatoLouco]

The man is in Sweden and y'all keep him busy with threads he needs to shut down!

 

[IGNORE2]

And again, we have a very thin margin of error. We don't get the 5 star instant successes like Indiana, OSU, even NEB and MN. So we have to see them develop and not get injured or transfer

Which is why finding the right coaching staff is sooo important. Need to find coaches that can identify developable talent and then develop them. This year is an example. Unless you think this year is a fluke or dumb luck or simply outside the control of the coaches and therefore in no way reflect their coaching talents.

 

[Styre]

I can only imagine Chris Collins thanking a sold-out student section after senior day: "Thank you so much for your wild, enthusiastic support throughout the season, and I hope to see this level of support going forward! But I need to be honest with you: Northwestern is a developmental program, which means we're going to suck for at least the next 3 years until the stars align again. Maybe a few of you will still be here the next time we're good? Anyway, hope you're excited for next year!"

 

[Eurocat]

I don’t believe you can use conference distributions to fund NIL. That is why I think your “only” 15-20 programs with the same or better resources can be debated.

Why not and says who?

 

[phatcat]

Why not and says who?

I think NIL has to be privately funded. Like, the original intent was to allow players to have external opportunities through advertising and such. In reality, it has simply legalized what bag-men have been doing all along