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Ultimate Nate Oats Thread - Future/Staying/Growth/Articles


Kevin

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Seems this list is more of a Top-25 popularity contest. This suggests that whoever put it together didn't give it a whole lot of thought. I'd like to believe a COTY candidate is someone who vastly exceeded expectations, who did a whole lot without having much to work with. In my opinion, this eliminates Beilein, Bennett, Few, Izzo, Krzyewski, Musselman, Painter, and Williams. I am an unapologetically biased UB homer, but I'll narrow it down to Mack (Louisville) or Sampson (Houston).

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52 minutes ago, sportscliche said:

Seems this list is more of a Top-25 popularity contest. This suggests that whoever put it together didn't give it a whole lot of thought. I'd like to believe a COTY candidate is someone who vastly exceeded expectations, who did a whole lot without having much to work with. In my opinion, this eliminates Beilein, Bennett, Few, Izzo, Krzyewski, Musselman, Painter, and Williams. I am an unapologetically biased UB homer, but I'll narrow it down to Mack (Louisville) or Sampson (Houston).

Hard to ignore what Rick Barnes has done at Tennessee. 

It’s great that Oats is on this list. Great exposure and notoriety.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Alright, so Noah Williams committed tonight and Raymond Hawkins appears to have had a good visit and showing interest in UB and the obvious national comment is, well Noah will leave "when" Nate Oats leaves for a bigger job.  So, my question is, what will it take to keep Oats and what is realistic?  Nate makes $600,000 in base salary with a realistic $100,000 in bonuses for the MAC regular season and tournament titles, plus others for personal accolades and tournament victories.  Lower level Power-5 jobs are typically about $1,000,000 - $1,500,000 (think Oklahoma State, Minnesota, etc.).

My question is what can UB pay?  What are our constraints?  Is it as easy as whatever administration is willing to pay or is there a cap related to the university / SUNY system?  What, realistically, can donors pony up?

Ultimately, I think it comes down to whether Nate values the community and continuity for his family over a much, much higher salary.  For the record, that is not supposed to be a dig.  Jumping from $600K to $1.5M would be very difficult for anyone to turn down.  I know what he says in interviews, and honestly, I believe him.  He's never been about coach speak.  When we are a better team he never says "well you know anyone can beat anyone any night yada yada", he says "we should win.  we have the better players."  He has tones of equity in my book.

Thoughts?

Go Bulls!

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The constraints are obvious. The SUNY system and many of the academics at UB who see absolutely no value to athletics. Of course with UB’s smack down of Arizona and all of the positive PR, and likely Oats too, applications were way up so I’m told. There is an obvious benefit to UB, which includes the academic side of things. It’ll be interesting to see what happens on the money front but I’m confident the AD’s office and movers and shakers are being creative to overcome the handicaps at UB. 

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I think one obstacle that many people don’t bring up is the MAC conference cap in salary. If we pay him say 1.5 mil, the next highest paid coach is what 700k? That would piss off many other ADs because then all the other coaches in the MAC will use that to raise their salaries eventually. 

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18 minutes ago, MKBullsfan said:

I think one obstacle that many people don’t bring up is the MAC conference cap in salary. If we pay him say 1.5 mil, the next highest paid coach is what 700k? That would piss off many other ADs because then all the other coaches in the MAC will use that to raise their salaries eventually. 

So what? That’s their problem to deal with. Why should we constraint ourself to please them? Unless there’s some hard rule to me it’s foolish to not pay our coach bc it will “piss off other ADs.” Results speak and right now Oats is delivering results.

Edited by DooleyBull06
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58 minutes ago, DooleyBull06 said:

So what? That’s their problem to deal with. Why should we constraint ourself to please them? Unless there’s some hard rule to me it’s foolish to not pay our coach bc it will “piss off other ADs.” Results speak and right now Oats is delivering results.

I agree with you. But it won’t sit well with the rest of the league but more importantly, if we are paying P5 money to our staff/program, why not make the move to a better conference? This will push them more to move on from the MAC. Success leads to higher cost to keep it going. Might as well step our conference game up too.

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20 minutes ago, MKBullsfan said:

I agree with you. But it won’t sit well with the rest of the league but more importantly, if we are paying P5 money to our staff/program, why not make the move to a better conference? This will push them more to move on from the MAC. Success leads to higher cost to keep it going. Might as well step our conference game up too.

Agree with you there. But for the short term and time being we shouldn’t let anything hold us back from doing us and owning the Mac conference.

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14 minutes ago, MillenniumBull said:

Does Oats’ agent represent the entire staff?  I know there is some connection/cooperation but I guess I never thought about it.

As you see on the basketball court, Nate is all about team. He recognizes that while he is the head man that the assistant coaches are the rock foundation. And without that foundation the rest crumbles. So in that sense he wants his staff taken care of as part of any deal. I would be the same way.

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1 hour ago, Jeseph said:

GET IT DONE

and this is the joke of the claim that you need to sign a coach to a 4-5 year contract to get recruits - they all know that given a good year, the coach will be looking for more money, and may be gone anyway.  

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2 hours ago, MillenniumBull said:

I think 1mill would be the extent of our abilities.  Especially if we are seeing another +400k spread throughout the rest of the staff.  Hate to say it but are students willing to start paying for tickets?  Could be necessary.

Not after one game of being turned away for capacity issues.  If we have another 2-3 years of that, yeah they'd probably pay.

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3 hours ago, promotherobot said:

Throw in a few school vacation sellouts at Key Bank Center too.

Our family were talking about this very thing before the Bowling Green game. We were wondering how many fans would but tickets for a game at Key Bank Center. Just the idea that more seats would be available I think a possibility of 10,000 + could be achieved. This town has been waiting for a winning team and we all know this town supports a winner and an exciting team like UB. Enjoying this ride and Go Bulls!!!!

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You mention a capacity crowd.  What I don't understand is the ticket office having a sign up that says "sold out" and UB still running ads on the radio saying "come to the game".  There were a lot of pissed off people Friday night.  People with tickets that couldn't get seats.  Families at their first UB Basketball (and very likely their last) game that couldn't sit anywhere near each other, if they could sit at all.  I know for a fact that people were requesting their money back.  It's a good problem to have, but we most likely lost some future fans because of it.  What the  radio spots should have been saying the last few days was, if you have GA tickets, get there early.  It fills up fast.

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9 minutes ago, ChubbyHubby said:

You mention a capacity crowd.  What I don't understand is the ticket office having a sign up that says "sold out" and UB still running ads on the radio saying "come to the game".  There were a lot of pissed off people Friday night.  People with tickets that couldn't get seats.  Families at their first UB Basketball (and very likely their last) game that couldn't sit anywhere near each other, if they could sit at all.  I know for a fact that people were requesting their money back.  It's a good problem to have, but we most likely lost some future fans because of it.  What the  radio spots should have been saying the last few days was, if you have GA tickets, get there early.  It fills up fast.

It’s a bad look no doubt. But it’s all growing pains. This levels of success and everything that comes with it is new to everyone. Including staff at alumni and the athletics department. One can only hope going forward that our advertising is current and that we do a better job in all facets of the game day and pregame experience. These are all the little things we need to be better at that separate us from other schools.

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7 hours ago, MillenniumBull said:

I think 1mill would be the extent of our abilities.  Especially if we are seeing another +400k spread throughout the rest of the staff.  Hate to say it but are students willing to start paying for tickets?  Could be necessary.

SO: 

https://www.businessinsider.com/college-basketball-highest-paid-coaches-2018-3

#25 starts at 2.6 million. 

This list while incomplete puts him a #70 highest paid at 600k a year. 

http://sports.usatoday.com/ncaa/salaries/mens-basketball/coach/

The list is very incomplete, however, it looks like $1 million a year will buy us a lot of in terms of competing with the P5 lower half.  I think a bump to 1 million with bonuses will be enough. 

We also need to commit to a basketball facility. Something needs to be figures out both in the short term and long term. Maybe the feildhouse can be retrofitted for a basketball court as well?

 

 

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Amazing to think we could have a Mark Few on our hands and actually able to keep him. Also love that he is happy building this program.

But as far as the dollars go, huge raise means ticket price bump.

Tickets are still reasonable. But even if you think they've gotten high, it costs to have success. No two ways about it. 

At worst you can keep some of the minnow program games fairly priced but anyone fairly decent that comes in you gotta take advantage. And like others have said, I love the idea of some Keybank center games. If this program continues to grow into a legit Butler, Gonzaga, VCU type mid major, i believe you'll be able to sell those games. Not sure how much a crowd of say 10,000-12,000 at Keybank would do the Bulls financially but I imagine quite well.

Long term the conference jump talk comes into play. Which I love and always dreamed of but never thought as a reality. But certainly not yet. Id prefer we keep running through the MAC for a while.

What would people consider the most realistic/positive jump? I always think the AAC would be that. Good quality bump in both sports, not too unrealistic as the Big 10 or ACC. 

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The AAC would be an obvious step up in basketball.  But what if we join and a year or two UCONN, Memphis, Houston, or some combination leave?  Then your playing ECU, Tulane and Tulsa and wishing you were just back in the MAC?  And would the MAC keep our wrestling?  Would we have to start backup baseball?  Grass isn’t always greener...

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1 hour ago, MillenniumBull said:

The AAC would be an obvious step up in basketball.  But what if we join and a year or two UCONN, Memphis, Houston, or some combination leave?  Then your playing ECU, Tulane and Tulsa and wishing you were just back in the MAC?  And would the MAC keep our wrestling?  Would we have to start backup baseball?  Grass isn’t always greener...

First, I doubt that many schools will jump from the AAC to a P5 conference. Second, I can't even imagine a scenario where I would miss the MAC.

Houston and/or UCF are likely moving up to the Big 12. That opens the door for UB. You forgot to mention Temple. They make a natural rival.

As for wrestling, we can stay. It's obvious MAC has plenty of schools just there for that.

8 hours ago, ChubbyHubby said:

You mention a capacity crowd.  What I don't understand is the ticket office having a sign up that says "sold out" and UB still running ads on the radio saying "come to the game".  There were a lot of pissed off people Friday night.  People with tickets that couldn't get seats.  Families at their first UB Basketball (and very likely their last) game that couldn't sit anywhere near each other, if they could sit at all.  I know for a fact that people were requesting their money back.  It's a good problem to have, but we most likely lost some future fans because of it.  What the  radio spots should have been saying the last few days was, if you have GA tickets, get there early.  It fills up fast.

Hey, life sucks sometimes. Especially if you think you're just going to walk up to a game like Senior Night with a nationally ranked team. I think it was sarcasm but Nate Geary of WGR tweeted his frustration about not being to get tickets to that game about a week out. You'd think he'd know better.

Assuming we have some tournament success, ADMA should be talking to some big programs about a game at Key Bank Center just to see if the general public will fill it up.  We need to be looking for new revenue every chance we can.

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