Nebraska AD Troy Dannen backs Fred Hoiberg after disappointing finish
As Nebraska basketball stumbled to a 17-14 finish that ended its NCAA Tournament hopes, many wondered what Troy Dannen was thinking.
Nebraska’s second-year athletic director was as disappointed as anyone that the Huskers couldn’t secure a second-straight trip to the Big Dance. That’s not even to mention missing out on the Big Ten Tournament in the process.
But as emotions roared on social media over the finish of head coach Fred Hoiberg’s sixth season in Lincoln, Dannen made sure to keep a level head.
“It’s funny, you get on social media and everyone’s like, ‘Oh, fire everybody!'” Dannen said during his monthly appearance on the Huskers Radio Network on Thursday night. “The reality is that when things don’t go well, you have to be introspective and ask yourself why. My response to Fred is, ‘Tell me what you need me to do. How can I help you? Here are the things I see, but tell me how I can help you.’
“We all get emotional, but when you’re working here – when you’re Fred Hoiberg or in my chair – you can’t act emotionally,” Dannen added. “You’ve got to be rational and you’ve got to figure out what we need to do to get to the place we want to get.
“Fred’s been great at that with me… It’s not just how much revenue share money there is. It’s are we putting the coaches in a position to succeed or not?”
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Dannen: NU will ’embrace’ the new revenue share landscape
One of the most significant ways athletic departments can help their respective programs is money.
With the new revenue-sharing era of college sports set to begin this summer, schools can directly pay their student-athletes for the first time. However, the question then becomes, what happens with NIL?
Assuming the NCAA anti-trust settlement is approved in April, Dannen assumes there would be a “finite cap on how much revenue is shared, (and) how much revenue is available in the sport of basketball.”
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In theory, Dannen thought the settlement would govern third-party NIL spending by returning it to a true “market value” per player. Until that takes effect, though, Dannen said many schools were operating in a “window in which we can do almost anything.”
Some schools and programs have donors willing to cut seven or even eight-figure checks. As a result, the current average market value for players out of the transfer portal has nearly doubled over the past year.
That’s led to coaches and athletic departments not just trying to “build the airplane while you’re flying it,” but now “trying to write the manual to build the airplane while you’re flying it.”
However, Dannen said Nebraska would continue to do all it could to remain at the forefront of college athletics’ rapidly changing landscape.
“If you embrace this, you have a chance to make inroads and steps forward against the people that aren’t embracing it,” Dannen said. “I’ve been really proud of our coaches who have embraced the chaos and tried to find ways to best succeed within it.”
