Does Marshall stay at WSU?

[DoubleJayAlum]

An ACC team offering $1.9 mill a year didn't meet Gregg's definition of an "unbelievable offer".

Is there a link somewhere indicating he got a $1.9million a year offer?

[iSASO]

An ACC team offering $1.9 mill a year didn't meet Gregg's definition of an "unbelievable offer".

Is there a link somewhere indicating he got a $1.9million a year offer?

I won't take the time to dig one up. Maybe someone else will. My information comes directly from a face-to-face conversation with someone in the inner circle and they won't post their comments on the internet somewhere so I can copy/paste it here for you to dismiss out of hand.

[MoValley John]

There has been talk from several Valley schools about not being able to keep coaches from bolting because Valley schools are "midmajor" and stepping stones. To a degree, that is correct. But the fact of the matter is that almost all schools are stepping stones and unable to keep good coaches. Missouri just lost a coach to Arkansas for God's sake! This is a big part of the salary explosion in college basketball, coaches have successfully transcended from "coaches" and mentors, good role models that shape boys into fine men, into commodities. Coaches, almost every one of them, and that includes Ben Jacobson and Gregg Marshall, are commodities looking for a better opportunity to be more successful and make more money. They are narcissistic and believing they are the best, want to compete with the best and make as much as the best. The Kansas job is as much a destination as anywhere, except when North Carolina calls.

All of that said, the Valley has several places that are currently pretty good destinations. And Gregg Marshall spoke the truth when he said he was staying unless he received an "unbelievable offer." Wichita State kept Gregg marshall for another year. Dana Altman was at Creighton for 16 years despite literally dozens of actual offers from BCS schools, many of them "name" schools. I believe Altman left Creighton because his teams had trended downward the last few years, he did the double take at Arkansas, he was getting a little old, and if he didn't move then, he might never again have the opportunity to coach in a BCS league. And as WSU kept Marshall another year, so did all of the "hot" mids. VCU, Butler, Gonzaga, they all kept their coaches. They also kept their programs intact. For these schools it wasn't finding a good young coach, allowing him the opportunity to succeed and rebuilding in four years, it is continued success.

All of this should be a roadmap to success for schools in the Valley. It should make it clear as to the path to success. If you want to be successful in D-1 College Basketball, you have to emulate what the big successful schools do. You need to have a pay scale high enough to where you can cherry pick good coaches from the OVC, Summitt and WAC. When they prove themselves after a year or two, you need to up the ante so the coach knows that he is being taken care of. Investments need to made not only in the coach, but in the program. Assistants need to be paid well, recruiting budgets need to be funded, training tables established, travel must be comfortable and top notch equipment must be used. This all costs money. But it also protects a program.

This isn't easy, it isn't cheap, but it is how you build a program. Some coaches may still be duds, but the program also needs to have the financial ability to buyout any bad contract and find the right guy. When you pay a coach a competitive salary and when you fully fund his program, you can also expect results and firing a bad coach is reasonable when the university has done everything possible to make that coach successful.

Yes it is possible for UNI to keep Jacobson a long time, Missouri State should be able to keep their coaches longer than three years and Indiana State can possibly keep Lansing longer than people think. And when teams lose coaches, a well funded program will have a huge pool of candidates in which to chose. When your good coach that finally moves on leaves, the odds of replacing your coach with another good coach are much greater. But in order to do so, fans need to step up to the plate and support the program with money, HARD earned money. If you as a fan aren't willing to do so, you get what you get, a hope to find lightning in a bottle and the reality of knowing when you find the winner, you just might need to replace him with somebody else.

Congratulations to Wichita State for keeping Marshall for another year. I'm sure if Wichita State has another good year, the bidding for Marshall will start all over. But Wichita State fans will also step up to the plate and make it a very difficult decision for Marshall. And when you already have top notch facilities, a great fan base, a competitive salary and job security, leaving is a tough decision.

[WSUbballer]

Nice post MVJ.

Apparently the non-WSU fans know more about the inner circles of WSU than the WSU fans know.

I guess if it's not tweeted that Marshall turned down a $1.9 million offer, then it ain't true.

[DoubleJayAlum]

An ACC team offering $1.9 mill a year didn't meet Gregg's definition of an "unbelievable offer".

Is there a link somewhere indicating he got a $1.9million a year offer?

I won't take the time to dig one up. Maybe someone else will. My information comes directly from a face-to-face conversation with someone in the inner circle and they won't post their comments on the internet somewhere so I can copy/paste it here for you to dismiss out of hand.

So, that would be a "no" then?

[Shox21]

FROM THE WICHITA EAGLE THIS MORNING:

Marshall finds grass isn't always greener

Marshall will stay at WSU There were a few reasons I thought Gregg Marshall could be headed to North Carolina State. And at the top of the list was the number of wins he's piled up at Wichita State the past two seasons without an NCAA Tournament appearance to show for it.

Getting to the NIT is nice. Winning the NIT is special. But the NCAA Tournament is a wishful destination for any coach with a whistle.

Marshall most assuredly has a whistle and when he got the Shockers job four years ago one of the selling points was the strength of the conference — the Missouri Valley — he was coming into.

In 2006, the Valley sent four teams to the NCAA Tournament, including Wichita State, which made it to the Sweet 16 along with Bradley. In 2007, two more Valley teams got in, extending a nice streak of nine years with multiple NCAA bids for the conference.

Marshall, who announced Monday that he was returning to WSU for a fifth season, thought he was coming into a beast of a conference.

Uh, not so much.

This season, for the fourth season in a row, the Valley sent only its automatic qualifier to the NCAA Tournament. And that automatic qualifier, Indiana State, was not as good as either MVC regular-season champion Missouri State or the Shockers.

But because the Valley's Ratings Power Index (RPI) has slipped so dramatically since Marshall's arrival, MSU and WSU were left out for the NIT.

It's a nice consolation prize, especially when you make a run like the Shockers did that culminated with a championship celebration at Madison Square Garden. But the eyes of the country aren't on the NIT, they're on the Big Dance which concluded Monday night in Houston.

Make no mistake about it, Marshall is not happy with the plight of the Valley. He's upset that conference members aren't doing everything they can to rectify the Valley's one-bid status.

"I don't like it,'' he said. "And it's probably the biggest thing that I'm not satisfied with right now. But I don't control that solely. I can do my part. But there are nine other institutions and I'm not throwing them under the bus, either. I probably hurt the second- or third-place team in our conference in my first year here with the way we finished, so I've done my part, too.''

The key, of course, is to schedule tougher non-conference teams. Sounds easy, but it's one of the most difficult things about coaching at the non-BCS level. The big boys don't want to play smaller schools, especially at a time when the smaller schools are competing so well.

But even though Marshall isn't happy with the number of NCAA bids going to the Valley lately, it wasn't enough of an issue to cause him to leave. He won't say whether or not North Carolina State made an offer, which is a classy move on his part. So I'll say it — the Wolfpack most assuredly did, sources said.
Marshall also isn't saying why he didn't bite, especially since it's likely NC State would have at least doubled his Wichita State salary.

"I think today should answer that question,'' Marshall said Monday night when asked about his comfort level at Wichita State. "It's pretty strong. But today was an interesting day. It was a hard day and I had to think about some things really hard. It turned out to be easy in the end, though, once we said this is what we want to do. As a family unit, this is where we need to be, where we want to be.''

Marshall is a proven winner and Wichita State fans are relieved and happy he's staying. Had Marshall decided to leave, it would have been interesting to see how athletic director Eric Sexton, who hasn't had to fire or hire a high-profile coach since taking over for Jim Schaus in 2008, would have gone about finding Marshall's replacement.

I suspect WSU fans are content not to have to find out for a while longer. And give Sexton and WSU president Don Beggs credit for working out a contract extension with Marshall, details of which have not been disclosed but one that has been agreed to in principle.

Marshall has said he'd have to be blown away by a job offer to leave Wichita State and I take from that the courting from NC State didn't rise to that level.

Someday, a school will make Marshall an offer he can't refuse, but for now he's a Shocker. And a coach who is excited about the team he'll have next season, one that will include many new faces. He doesn't expect, however, a step back from this season's NIT championship team.

Marshall is a confident coach, confidence derived from a lot of success in his nine seasons at Winthrop and four at Wichita State.

The past few days have been an experience, from winning a national title to spending some fun times with his players and staff to fielding inquiries about what he might want to do in the future.

It was easy to sense his relief Monday during a hastily-planned radio show on which he announced his decision several hours after it had been determined he was staying at Wichita State.

The reasons for why he might have left couldn't stack up to the reasons why he stayed.

I even thought he might consider that his oldest child, Kellen, was getting ready to start high school at Andover in the fall. Would that be cause for him to leave now rather than later?

"Yeah, we talked about that,'' Marshall said. "But that kid's going to be so smart and so handsome that he could change schools during his senior year and still get a date to the prom. Now some of us are not always that lucky, but I think he's going to be.''



Read more: http://www.kansas.com/2011/04/05/179376 ... z1IfzJOm00

[Shox21]

NC State FINALLY got their guy

From ESPN Insiders:

RALEIGH, N.C. -- North Carolina State will name Mark Gottfried as its next men's basketball coach, a person familiar with the situation said.

The person spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the school has yet to make a formal announcement. A news conference is scheduled for Tuesday afternoon.

Gottfried was in his 11th season as coach at Alabama when he resigned in January 2009. He also spent three seasons as head coach at Murray State.

Gottfried, who was an ESPN college basketball analyst this past season, replaces Sidney Lowe, who resigned last month after five seasons.

[WSUbballer]

Sorry Shox21.

The Wichita Eagle is not a viable source.

[Aargh]

Sorry Shox21.

The Wichita Eagle is not a viable source.

Then how about the radio station in Michigan that reported that Marshall turned down a 7-year, $20 mill deal? Since that was in a tweet and can be linked, can we use that as a source?

And, by the way, when I was referring to running with the big boys, I was thinking in terms of athletic department budgets and the ability to pay a coach $1 mill+ a year, if that's what's needed.

The disparity in what Valley schools can spend on basketball will eventually bring this league to its demise. SIU used to be the school getting great bang for their bucks, but they couldn't maintain it. UNI is the current flavor of the month for getting the best results with the least amount of expense, but that's not likely to last.

The schools with the larger budgets for staff, travel, and recruiting, etc. will have qualified coaches lined up at the door when they change coaches. The ones trying to pay Southland Conference wages will have that type of candidates wanting to coach their teams. The long-term results are predictable.

[valleychamp]

The schools with the larger budgets for staff, travel, and recruiting, etc. will have qualified coaches lined up at the door when they change coaches. The ones trying to pay Southland Conference wages will have that type of candidates wanting to coach their teams. The long-term results are predictable.

Interesting take considering wsu hired their coach from the Big South.

Or is that a much more prestigious conference than the southland?......