bierce

Try again. From TexAgs

Plane took a 40 minute pit stop, then it took off for Vegas.

Maybe it will just be his faux negotiator stepping off the plane to use A&M to get a raise from Charleston.

Chris Mack appears to be heading right now to College Station to talk to Alberts.

They'll hire Lutz/Byington/Jans long before that. If they were really offering $7+M per year for Beard, then they will buy someone away from his current job.

Already at "Texas A&M University (Ole Miss)" according to Wikipedia as of 4/2/25 1:38 p.m. CST. He was the coach at High Point before the latest edit.

As I understand it, the House settlement provides both an absolute $ cap and a % of athletic revenue cap for NIL spending. Big East schools don't make big football $, so none of them should be able to spend 8 figures without going way over the % cap. Last Big East basketball TV deal was for $80 million a year for the conference, which has 11 members. Not getting anyone past the round of 32 won't help either. Of course, the Big East is not a defendant in the case, so it would have to opt in, and I haven't heard that it has.

New Mexico hired Olen. I wonder if he will find out the Big West will be a better conference than the remnants of the MWC.

UNM down to Eric Olen and Andy Kennedy. The former is in his early 40s and took a DII team into DI and eventually took it to the NCAA tournament this year and lost a naibiter to Michigan. The latter is in his late 50s and made 2 tournaments in 12 seasons at a P5 school and 2 more in 5 years at UAB.

He's not. He can dunk with two hands.

Hawkins. Was a dynamite PG for them this year.

Oldest coach in today's games is Nate Oats, who is 50. Average age of coaches today is 44. Youngest coach in tomorrow's games is Bruce Pearl, who turned 65 this month. Average age of tomorrow's coaches is 70. Another unique thing about this Elite Eight is that the eight teams remaining were the top 8 in Pomeroy rankings on selection day. This final 8 has the lowest amalgam of seeds ever since the tournament went to 64 teams. Oh, and thanks to a three landing on the bridge and crawling in at the buzzer, Pomeroy bull's-eyed his prediction in the Michigan State-Ole Miss Ole Iss Ole Ipp Ole I game.

Willard meeting with Villanova today and expected to make decision tonight (if it hasn't already been made).

Willard was booed by MD fans while entering the arena tonight. MD is said to already be hunting for a new coach. Last time MD was in the S16 was in 2016. Nice way to celebrate the return.

Willard missed a team dinner earlier this week. Does he fly back with the team or head straight to Philly by himself?

Seems like McCaffery was not ready to quit. He was just hired to take over at Penn, which is now 20 years removed from the Dunphy Ivy League dynasty. Martelli was hired by VCU.

Let us all have a good laugh at the articles today touting the "massive" NIL prize at stake in the CBC starting next week. https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/other/new-postseason-college-basketball-tournament-ups-the-stakes-with-huge-nil-news/ar-AA1BMHQh Ooh, 300K to the winner. That might be enough for a single 10-15 mpg bench player from the prices we are hearing. Massive, I tell you.

Colorado State promoted assistant Ali Farokhmanesh. Time to see what New Mexico will do. Nice arena in which to play, but the conference will be severely diminished. Report is that Baby Pitino took his entire staff with him to Xavier, so no promoting assistants for them. I wonder if UNM will forego the up and coming young coach route and go with a P5 guy no longer employed like Keatts, Craig Smith, or Terry. Smith and Terry have coached in the conference before.

It wasn't just the players attacking the year in residency rule. A coalition of state attorneys general took on the NCAA over the rule. And made the NCAA capitulate. Sitting out a year ain't coming back. The NCAA is a creation of the member institutions, not something that was foisted on them by nefarious outside forces. The members can always dissolve the NCAA and create a new model.

It is hitting the fan in College Park. Willard is reported to have skipped the team dinner. Maryland plays Florida tonight in the early game out west.

And unleash a flood of litigation. The NCAA can't stop players from going from one school to another anymore. Those days are over and not coming back unless the NCAA members agree to certification of a union and collectively bargain with the players' union, and I doubt member schools want that.

Ok, Baby, I gave you Bennett as a guy who .maybe quit because of the portal, but he quit in September, so it wasn't about the timing. Which football coaches do you claim quit or went to the NFL because of the portal? Satan? While he alluded to NIL changing player attitude, he also said he couldn't keep promising assistant coaches he would be around for 3-4 years, and he told the AD in 2022 he was thinking it was near time for him to retire. Not to mention he was 72. Nebraska women's volleyball coach John Cook retired this year, and he bitterly complained about teams building with transfers, but he didn't cite transfers and NIL as a reason for retiring. He cited doing it for 25 years, wanting to spend time with family, and pursue other activities like his roping shows, as well as it being time to hand the program over to his protege. And he's 68.

The portal exists because it has to. The NCAA does not have the power to prevent players from moving around. And you know it. The courts will eviscerate any governing body that tries to restrict player movement, and you know it. So the portal exists. Your only complaint about basketball is connected to the timing. Dumb complaint because the portal is only about when players can declare entry to the portal. It doesn't determine when players have to announce they are staying or going somewhere else. The day will come when every player in every single sport will announce he/she is entering the portal on day one of the portal opening to try to maximize earning potential. How you going to stop that? You can't. Smart coaches will recognize this is the new reality and not panic. They will tell their guys, "Let's go win this year, so you can maximize your potential earnings, and I'd love to have you come back here, but right now, let's get ready for our next opponent, and you agent and my GM will negotiate." Now admit it. Not a single NCAA basketball head coach has left for the NBA since the portal has become a thing. Admit it. Does the portal add to the headaches facing NCAA coaches? Of course it does. But only Bennett made a point about it being a reason he walked away. Wright just said he was only giving 70% of himself.

I don't know, and I don't care, because our discussion is about whether having the portal open during the NCAA men's basketball tournament is some kind of bugaboo. There isn't a single NCAA basketball head coach who has left college coaching ranks to take an NBA job since the portal became a thing. Wright and Bennett retired. Maybe that was due to the portal being a thing, but they never said anything about the timing of the portal.