SportsPulse: Loyola-Chicago captivated the country with its Cinderella run to the Final Four. Despite the run coming to an end, our Scott Gleeson believes the Ramblers should change the way we look at mid-majors. USA TODAY Sports
SAN ANTONIO — There's a ripple effect to Cinderella stories like Loyola-Chicago's magical run to the Final Four, which ended Saturday with a loss to Michigan.
While the program is now on the national map and the Ramblers will likely be considered as a preseason top 25 team in 2018-19, it's still a mid-major program with a mid-major budget at the end of the day.
There will surely be trickle-down money for the school from this unexpectedly epic NCAA tournament run (as well as a motivator for donors to open their pocket books), and the university's first initiative should be giving coach Porter Moser a nice salary spike that will help keep "just a Catholic kid from Chicago" at the program.
MARCH SADNESS: Go inside Loyola's locker room after heartbreaking Final Four loss
Yet history tells us that mid-major coaches who spearhead successful runs are hot commodities to major power conference schools — both right after the run and in many years following.
As much as a coach might love a program and have his heart invested in building it, financial incentives can be very much a family decision and coaches driven to get to the top can find it difficult to turn down the luxuries that blue bloods and rich-tradition programs can offer.
The last two coaches who took No. 11 seed mid-majors to the Final Four, Shaka Smart at Virginia Commonwealth and Jim Larrañaga at George Mason, eventually left for bigger programs — Smart to Texas (In 2010-11, Smart was getting $418,000 from VCU. In 11-12, he got $1,190,000) and Larrañaga to Miami (Fla.). But it wasn't right away (Smart after four more seasons and Larrañaga after five).
It would be extremely surprising for Moser to leave now or in the next few years, given his allegiance to a school that provided him seven seasons — as opposed to just four as Illinois State did before firing him in '07 — to build the culture that led to this remarkable 2018 run.
"Pride is a powerful feeling," Moser said last week. "You're talking about a young kid who grew up going to the Cubs games as a boy, going to the Bulls games, and Hawks games and Bears games. ... I get chills thinking about positively impacting the program and the city in a positive way."
But a real scare, as opposed to the temporary opening at Xavier, would be if a job such as Creighton or Marquette were to open up. They are Catholic schools who could pay Moser more and offer a Big East appeal. Moser played for Creighton, and Marquette is only 90 minutes away from the Chicagoland area.
Perhaps the biggest incentive that could drive Moser to another program is seeing how the NCAA tournament selection committee assesses mid-major programs in the next several years. Did Loyola's run spark interest to change the way smaller programs are treated? Moser said this past week that he was unbelievably frustrated with the committee's blaming demeanor for smaller programs who aren't able to bulk up their non-conference schedule with power conference teams.
"In the last eight years, the Missouri Valley is 9-0 in first-round games," Moser said. "We’ve won 18 games in the last seven games, I think. 18 games. And the trend is going to fewer and fewer bids to conferences like the Valley. I hope (our run) sparks conversation about this process and getting in with at-large bids."
RELATED: Not all Cinderella coaches find the right fit after NCAA tournament success
Smart got VCU to the the NCAA tournament consistently after the 2011 Final Four run, but much of that had to do with the team's transition from the CAA to the Atlantic 10. The Missouri Valley, where Moser played (at Creighton) and helped get Loyola to from the Horizon League, is a good fit for the Ramblers. So there likely won't be a conference realignment factor to intervene. It would have to take either the Ramblers consistently winning near 30 games and crushing Missouri Valley opponents or the committee changing the way it looks at things. Because had Loyola not won the MVC tournament title for the league's auto bid, it is unlikely the team would even have made the NCAA tournament.
"I think we need to continue to find the best way," Moser said, "because it was, according to everybody, we weren't going to get in."
So, how much does athletic director Steve Watson and Loyola need to pay a 49-year-old Moser to keep him?
Wichita State coach Gregg Marshall is a good example of a coach who stayed at a mid-major program before the Shockers transitioned to the American Athletic Conference. Much of that had to do with a salary around $3 million a year, according to USA TODAY Sports' salary database. Moser earns around in base pay $420,000 a year on a contract that runs through 2021-22, and he received various benefits to spike that up to around $471,000 in the 2015 calendar year (yet the school reports him having received $0 in bonus pay).
Creighton's Greg McDermott earned a total of $1,326,553 — which included $1,212,208 in base compensation and $50,000 in bonus pay — in the 2015 school year. Marquette's Steve Wojciechowski was paid $1,866,965 — which included $1,673,682 in base pay and $140,000 in bonus pay — in 2015.
"I used an analogy a couple of years ago about our student center and building this program," Moser said. "If you were around and saw the Damen Student Center being built, it was a hole in the ground for it seemed like two years. It was building the foundation. And then, when everything was set and poured and laid, the structure went up quick. We’ve spent a lot of time building this foundation and it’s a foundation I hope, the plans are to sustain.To sustain and just get better and better. That’s why I’m very proud of a program, not just one team."
MARCH SADNESS: THE AGONY OF DEFEAT IN THE NCAAS
Read Again Brow https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/ncaab/2018/04/01/loyola-chicago-coach-porter-moser-stay-final-four-power-conference-job/476784002/
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "Will Loyola Chicago coach Porter Moser stay or parlay Final Four to power conference job?"
Post a Comment