Director of Athletics Kevin Saal

[ShockerFever]

I’m just glad we bypassed Jans so we could get a Mills. What a monumental decision that was.

[pogo]

Pretty sure Jans was not going to walk away from 3.2 mil/year to take the 1.25mil/year that we are paying Mills unless you have insight and or the finances to pay Jans what he was making at MSU and in the SEC. His new extension is now at 4.25mil/year now.

[ShockerFever]

Pretty sure Jans was not going to walk away from 3.2 mil/year to take the 1.25mil/year that we are paying Mills unless you have insight and or the finances to pay Jans what he was making at MSU and in the SEC. His new extension is now at 4.25mil/year now.

Uh, I'm talking about when he was still at NMSU. Boatturd picks Brown over Jans. The rest is history.

[WuShock16]

Uh, I'm talking about when he was still at NMSU. Boatturd picks Brown over Jans. The rest is history.

I will go to my grave being pissed about this one. That single decision wrecked Shocker Basketball…and possibly Shocker Athletics as a whole.

[ShockTalk]

Uh, I'm talking about when he was still at NMSU. Boatturd picks Brown over Jans. The rest is history.

No way Boatwrong was going to "pick" Jans........for several reasons in his peabrain anyway. He should have "polled" the big money (that was jumping ship over not keeping GM) about Jans to save face and their support. It couldn't have hurt any more than what happened to the program.

[Singeril]

I have wondered why there are so many staff behind the bench. Hopefully mostly just grad assistants. If not, sheesh.

Ditto!

[bleed yellow]

According to Goshockers there are five assistant coaches. Does seem a little high

[WuShock16]

According to Goshockers there are five assistant coaches. Does seem a little high

New rules. I think you can now have 5 on-court coaches (but only 3 can recruit off-campus, I believe).

[rjl]

Oh no we might have missed out on the great 15-19 season!. It didn't make sense at the time to move off Brown that year unless you had a for sure home run hire. Not that Brown was the right choice to be clear but Mills was a stretch anyways. So either he made the jump without having something lined up or he swung and missed on the one he thought he did (which is possible). Waiting a year was likely the best choice.

Either way, Mills has until the end of next year, then all bets are off. A lot of money frees up then. So he has a chance to turn this year back around and hopefully ride it to a good Portal class next year.

I have been saying the same thing since last season. The 23-24 team was complete dogshit. A very unpopular opinion I've shared on here is that the second half of the 22-23 team showed improvement. Still not a good team, but I thought it was enough improvement to keep Isaac Brown unless Saal had a sure thing lined up (clearly he did not). This, especially in light of the fact that keeping Brown one more year would have freed up a lot more money to hire a new coach.

[Aargh]

I have been saying the same thing since last season. The 23-24 team was complete dogshit. A very unpopular opinion I've shared on here is that the second half of the 22-23 team showed improvement. Still not a good team, but I thought it was enough improvement to keep Isaac Brown unless Saal had a sure thing lined up (clearly he did not). This, especially in light of the fact that keeping Brown one more year would have freed up a lot more money to hire a new coach.

The problem with keeping Brown one more years was that his contract expired at the end of May (as I recall). June 1 was when his buyout would have dropped. Hiring a coach in June is pretty tough. Recruiting in June is even tougher. There isn't much left to recruit from.

The solution to that problem was to have a coach lined up early in April and let him start recruiting then, even though he won't be hired until June. Saal might be too ethical to go that route because it is a bit unorthodox. It would have given him an entire year to do a coaching search. There's even a problem with that approach. When interviewing candidate coaches one of their first questions is going to be "What have you got lined up for NIL?" The answer to that question would have eliminated any coach worth having.

[jcdshocker]

One of the concerns I have with Kevin, is he is currently saying the athletic department is going to need us fans to donate $7,000,000 a year to meet financial commitments etc. Currently we are donating about $3.5MM a year thru SASO. I am sure Kevin’s figures are accurate. I have a big problem with HCPM and staff totaling 12 full time employees. I have to believe we could eliminate maybe 4 full time positions and save $1MM a year. That seems crazy that we have almost as many coaches and staff as we do players on the roster. I really think Kevin should look at staff size and challenge Mills that we really need that many guys on staff. Just my thoughts…

Do you really think there are 4 positions averaging $250k per year that could be eliminated? No possible way. The three top assistant coaches probably don’t average more that $250,000. I think most of the staff behind the bench are either grad assistants or even student managers.

[pogo]

Lets just go NAIA and eliminate most of the support staff . . Probably be able to eliminate all but one person in the ticket office and no need for SASO for that matter.. This model worked well for the university when we eliminated the football program. Transportation costs will be reduced because we can play local teams like Friends, Neuman Emporia Washburn and Bethany with maybe a long distance trip to Hays. Those teams will really get my juices flowing. With the money I save by NOT being a SASO member and no need for season tickets I will be able to bask in the knowledge that my savings are earning dividends in my savings account. WOW I just realized more incidental savings like not needing some of the streaming costs to watch on TV and the savings in fuel and wear and tear on the car and eating out before the game. Since I really don't have a local team to support I will be free to pick a substitute team or teams to root for much like I do for football now. And if my substitute team doesn't do well I can just pick a new favorite substitute. I am so glad that so many people are reluctant to support the Athletic Department financially but have a multitude of ways to cut costs not to mention living in the past and knowing what should have been done in years past that would solve all of our present day problems. I have been convinced by many here to start viewing my glass as being perpetually mostly empty with no hope to ever see it refill. Go Shocks NAIA here we come.

[shox7]

JCD, look at Go Shockers Basketball Coaching Staff, we have 12 full time staff for Men’s Basketball. I will say when I said we might be able to save $1MM a year by eliminating 4 positions I was including salary, benefits, travel, meals and entertainment etc. Guess I should have been more clear. I can’t answer if they are sitting behind the bench or not. I don’t sit close enough to the bench to see if they are full time staff or managers.

Pogo, I understand your concern, if was just trying to point out Kevin needs us fans to donate double what the current SASO donations are now and maybe by reducing basketball staff by a third or at least trying to get HCPM to justify this staff size might be a first step in offsetting the $3.5MM deficit. I have been a season ticket holder for 40 out of the last 43 years NO way I want to be less than a DI basketball school, but raising another $3.5MM is a big uphill battle without trying to reduce some expenses at the same time.

[1972Shocker]

Pogo, I understand your concern, if was just trying to point out Kevin needs us fans to donate double what the current SASO donations are now and maybe by reducing basketball staff by a third or at least trying to get HCPM to justify this staff size might be a first step in offsetting the $3.5MM deficit. I have been a season ticket holder for 40 out of the last 43 years NO way I want to be less than a DI basketball school, but raising another $3.5MM is a big uphill battle without trying to reduce some expenses at the same time.

$3.5 MM only gets us halfway home. ADKS says we need and additional $7 million per year. That includes $650k per year over the next 10 years to replace the revenue the NCAA will be withholding to fund a legal settlement for Retroactive NIL Payments, $2.6 million per year in revenue sharing for athletes, and additional $2.5 million to fund cost of attendance for significantly expanded roster limits. The other $1.25 million would presumably be used to cover current operating deficits (not including severance payments to coaches).

Even if we can find this funding my understanding is that this is what we need to maintain our current level of competitiveness with no guarantee that we will move up the ladder much if any. And it does not included ongoing NIL funding athletes will be demanding.

I understand the consternation many have over these developments and I share those concerns and frustrations. However, I can also understand why many booters may have reached the following conclusion:

[ShockTalk]

Mills many years at Baylor always had a big staff. Don't know what Mills had at ORU.