From one MSU to another MSU
- Thread starter DAWG61
- Start date
I think we tried to hire Steve Prohm before Howland but he would leave Murray St for us.
He's not leaving Murray State for Mississippi State. Not unless we bring a big ole buttload of money and the student section back to the Hump.
Asking everyone for honesty. If you were him would you come to State now to coach basketball with a resume like his right now ?
With currently achieved incentives, he will make $525k this season.
Howland is making 4x that at $2.2million.
Howland is near the bottom of conference pay, I believe.
The SEC has 7 coaches in the top25 for salary- Martin at Mizzou is at almost $3million. White at Florida is almost at $3million. Crean at Georgia is actually at $3.2million, crazy enough. Williams at A&M is at $3.9million. Pearl is $4million. Barnes at Tennessee is $4.7million. And Calipari is at $8million.
So if we pay a new coach $3million, that will be only middle of the pack for our conference. But it would also put the coach in the top25 of all salaries. Applying that to McMahon, that would increase his current salary 6x. I dont know if that is the boatload you say we need to pay, but it seems pretty significant while still only being in the middle of the SEC.
It would get him a 4x-6x raise, allow him to coach in one of the 3 best conferences in the sport, and give him access to all the level of players he has coached as well as even more talented players. It will also give him access to a multi-bid league where he doesnt have to win the conference tournament to make the NCAAT.
I get that the popular thing to do here is **** on MSU and claim we are terrible, but the program isnt Oregon State for godsake. It is very close to being a top4 team in the conference. Seriously, does anyone bother to look at the standings and then more indepth to see how much parity there was in the conference?
If McMahon turns down Mississippi State, it won’t be because we can’t pay him enough. He’ll either have better options or think he’ll have better options in the future.
Well said. I can understand if someone surveys the landscape and thinks they can land a better fit elsewhere. That better fit may be a different conference, different part of the country, different administration, or whatever else.
Prohm was target #1 when we let go of Stansbury. Ironically he ended up being a disaster at Iowa State.
I also remember hearing that we were interested in hiring Frank Martin from Kansas State that same year, but he picked South Carolina instead.
We finished 10th in the league, 5 games out of a tie for 4th place in the league. That’s with a veteran team that included several upperclassmen portal guys who were plug and play for winning in the here and now. That’s not exactly what I would call “close to being a Top 4 team”, especially from a forward looking perspective where it looks like we will once again be in rebuild mode in 2022-23
Of course, that doesn’t mean he wouldn’t take the job. It would all depend on what other schools show interest. But ultimately we are a school limited by outdated facilities, minimal fan support, a very small recruiting pool for elite talent, and not many avenues of keeping up with the Joneses in the NIL environment. The payday might outweigh all that if no one better comes calling….it might not. But you won’t ever know if you don’t make an offer.
I too think it’s time Howland move on into retirement but as far as I know we’re speculating that he is going to retire or that Cohen is going to make a move and bring someone else in?
Has this been confirmed that he is retiring?
I’m not sold on JC pulling the trigger and firing him.
Has this been confirmed that he is retiring?
I’m not sold on JC pulling the trigger and firing him.
We had 8 conference games where we were winning or within a basket in the last 5 minutes and all ended up being losses. Heck, many were where we had the lead, were tied, or within a basket with around 1 minute left. Win just 2 of those games and we are in 5th place alone.
Being in 5th place alone is close to being a top4 team.
Lets say we beat UF where we were winning most of the game until 5:00 left, Bama rematch where we were winning until 5min left and only down 1 with 2:30 left, and beat Arkansas rematch where we were down 2 with 1:02 left. That is reasonable- win 3 of the close games and still lose 5 of them.
That would have put us at 11-7 and put Arkansas at 12-6. We would have been 1 game out of 4th place. My hypothetical is hardly some aggressive 'if only 50 things lined up' sort of scenario- we still lose 5 of the 8 close games, yet we are 1 game out of 4th place...which is 'very close to being a top4 team'.
Even after explaining, you may disagree. Thats cool, its a forum for discussion.
Currently, we are not a good option. And don't imagine, we are paying 3 million for a basketball coach in the next few years.
Assistant's salaries and NIL funds are going to be very much a part of the next coach's success or failure...duh. I'm just very dubious about our ability and commitment to provide the basketball program what they're going to need to keep up.
This is more likely to happen. We'll end up losing out to some program with more "prestige".
Then again playing in the SEC sandbox plus Texas and Okie will be prestige enough.
Absolutely if it were the best offer I get this year. I think there is a pretty decent chance he will have a better offer, but if we are the only team willing to pull the trigger this year, I would not coach another year for $<$600k if I could more than quadruple my pay. Even if we "only" paid him $2.5M, that's virtually a $10M guarantee because we're not likely to fire him before he coaches a full four years. And he'll probably get extended out to four years after the first two years even if things are going badly, so he'd have at least another 2 years of buyout to be paid even if we fired him after 4 years. So let's say that's another $2.5M assuming a 50% buyout, he'd be looking at what is realistically a $12.5M payday over the next 5 years if things went badly but he managed to avoid getting fired for cause (which in the NIL era, means he just has to keep his pants zipped and avoid felonies).
If I were so confident that I could get a better offer by staying at Murray St., I'd probably be confident enough that I could leverage MSU into a better offer but make $2.5M a year while I do it at MSU instead of $<$600k at Murray St..
Oh lord, not the "what if" game again. Well, if you're going to play that game, what about the Richmond, Furman, Alabama and Vandy games? We could have just as easily lost any or all of those and then where would we be. We are who our record says we are.
Latest posts
Get unlimited access today.