(01-02-2019 09:53 AM)RamDawg Wrote:  

(01-01-2019 02:17 PM)jmufan2008 Wrote:  Yes and yes, Hyper and Hazed. Time to stop cheaping out. Sure, maybe $400k would get us someone who could keep us between #100-150 in the country and top 3-4 in the CAA, but is that our goal? If we find a great coach that wants to come here, but it takes $600k+ then we need to do that. Let's aim for top 50-75 in the country. Again, $88 million arena on the way. We're averaging a little over 2k in attendance right now, but the new arena will hold 8,500...that's a 6k swing in attendance and $1.3 million in lost ticket sales if we were to fill the house.

Agree 100%! We need to stop thinking "$ XXX,000 will be top pay in the CAA." Except for one or two programs, CAA Basketball in it's current state isn't even mid-major, more like low major. (IMHO) JMU has/will have everything in place to be a top destination basketball job/program. How many quality coaching prospects will show interest when we say we're paying around $400K? A top 50-75 coach with the tools to build a successful program is at least $600K.

To expand on this more. Larranaga was making $700k at Mason (after incentives), but left for 1.3 million at Miami. Mason fans are still pissed that Mason didn't come up on salary to keep him there (you can see what him leaving did to their team). We need to drop high dollars ($600k+) and then be willing to extend and up the contract immediately if the success is there. This isn't FCS football. We may not be able to compete with the true blue bloods in MBB, but if we're packing the new arena, we can be in the #65-75 region and not lose out to other mid-majors. Above that and it takes tourney dollars and large donor pockets. We've gone medium. We've gone cheap. It's time to shoot for the moon.

I mean come on people...Deez has stopped attending JMU MBB games. This is the guy that played in the pep band for 17 years because he loved it so much!