KBA a Candidate for Baylor Job
According to Zach Shaw, and the 247 Baylor insider board, KBA is in the top 4 of candidates to replace Kim Mulkey, who left for LSU. The other supposed candidates are Baylor assistant Sytia Messer, Georgia HC Joni Taylor, and former Michigan and Baylor assistant and current SMU HC Toyelle Wilson.
Mulkey made $3million as HC at Baylor, so they have lots of money available to pay a decent buyout and give a good salary to a HC. KBA made ~$800k after bonuses this past season.
I'm well aware of that (and have been for almost 20 years). That doesn't make it right.
I hear when it gets cold down there, the gas lines freeze, you don't have heat, and your water pipes burst.
This is 100% pure Colombian speculation, but given that two of the other three candidates may not have that much head coaching experience I would expect that Baylor is going to offer a fraction of what Mulkey was making. Exactly what that fraction is might influence heavily whether KBA (or any of the others) take the job. If it's $1.2M (ignoring any buyout costs the coach has to pay) that's a significant bump but one that Michigan could easily match. If it's $2M, that might be harder to justify.
Either way, KBA should get a well-earned raise.
$3 million per year for a women's coach can only be justified if you win the National Championship. Even then I'm sure it's hard for the school to recoup that salary. Have you ever been to Waco?
On the other hand, $3MM is Waco is like $10MM in Connecticut. All of a sudden, I think Geno is underpaid.
In 2019 (prior to the pandemic), Connecticut Women's Basketball had revenue of $4.5 million and expenses of $8 million. Geno Auriemma with bonuses for making the Final Four makes over $2.5 million annually in a sport that runs a $3+ million deficit. The Connecticut Athletic Department as a whole runs a deficit of about $40+ million annually.
https://www.insider.com/final-four-coaches-bonuses-salaries-2021-4
Total speculation here, but I’m guessing she stays at Michigan and currently Has no desire to leave
I'm sort of confused that people cite the cash crunch in Michigan's AD, but don't seem to assume that Baylor would be under similar constraints. I'd be extremely surprised if they were offering anywhere near what Mulkey was making to her successor.
Baylor could pay KBA half of what they did Mulkey. And it'd more then double her base salary at Michigan.
Booooooo!!
i obviously have no idea if this is actually a possibility: i'm not an insider, but wolverine insider said that baylor's 247 listed KBA as one of four that baylor "could" look at, which is definitely not the same as listing her as one of four that they "are" looking at. the presence of toyelle wilson is slightly strange, as well, since she's been the head coach at smu for about eleven seconds.
with all that said, she appears to be awfully left-leaning, and baylor is, again - not the most liberal campus on earth. i'm not sure how she'd square going from ann arbor to...waco. plus michigan looks to have her best team ever this winter. and i think her daughters are both playing at detroit country day, too.
none of which is to say it would never happen - if you get a chance to coach a death star program, you have to at least consider it - but i'm not sure this is the one she'd leap for, right this moment. maybe be the coach that replaces the coach that replaces the legend?
Honest question: do death star programs exist in WBB? It seems more coach-driven than perhaps any sport I can think of. Even Tennessee has just been "pretty good" since Pat Summit retired and they had a lot of culture to draw from that Baylor perhaps does not.
it's hard to tell, honestly, since the women's game is so much 'younger' than the men's...men's death star programs (kentucky, north carolina, indiana, kansas) often have 60 or 70 years of dominance, or at the least have continued to succeed after the retirement of legendary coaches.
(an aside - yes, i know, indiana. also ucla).
the women's game hasn't been around long enough for that to really even be a possibility. tennessee is the correct counter-example, but there aren't really very many cases where a truly great coach retired or moved on. the list of all-time winningest D1 coaches is mostly still-active coaches like auriemma and tara vanderveer and vivian stringer...once they're gone we'll be able to answer the question a bit more easily.
mulkey moving on will tell us a lot, though. baylor has always struck me as an odd place for a powerhouse. it's easy to imagine them hiring the wrong coach and being a basketball desert for a decade or three.
"... appears to be awfully left-leaning ..."
Based on ... what, exactly? It's a serious question. I haven't heard her say anything outrageous but I haven't been paying close attention either.
She's been fairly vocal in person and on twitter about listening and supporting Black athletes, especially regarding the Civil Rights fight that's going on in this country.
This NYT article also talks about part of the relationship between her and Naz Hillmon, and how KBA has taken a proactive approach with everything, rather than just "sticking to sports"
That 3 mil is a bit dependent on her success, not necessarily Baylor, in my opinion. I don't think Baylor has the prestige on its own without Mulkey. Michigan SHOULD be able to maybe double KBA's salary easily.
Hell, if AD donors can buy out coach's 20million dollar contracts to get them fired, I think the AD or friends of the AD can invest in MWBB for a factor of ten less.
Who's staring the M-Gofundme to keep her in A2?
Not sure this would be the best move for KBA, unless the salary is just too big to ignore. I mean, Baylor can no longer be considered light years beyond UM as a program.
High-level guard recruits coming to UM next season, and she has an excellent core to build around, plus her ties are more NY area and whatever she's built over time in the midwest.
Baylor also might want to promote from within (Messer) to prevent their top players from leaving, those two forwards could be amazing next season.
Hope it doesn't happen!
She's from NY and was at St. John's before Michigan. Waco is a world away from all that. If she's really interested in a move she could wait for Geno to retire and go for the UConn job, for which she'd probably be the top candidate.
I hope she doesn't leave, but if she were offered the job, I wouldn't blame her for taking the opportunity.
We all love KBA. She has turned a program that has historically been mediocre (in a good season) and made it good. Last season very good. But she has not built a championship level program and so I doubt she will get a seven figure offer. Not yet, anyway. Baylor will likely stay in family. It'll be Messer or Wilson.
Doesn’t like Trump and his gang. Makes her far from left leaning. Just sensible.
sorry, but non-revenue sports' coaches should not get paid millions of dollars per year. just my opinion, man. i'm guessing Uconn is a different beast, in that, their WBB program likely makes some $$.
You’re worth what the market says you’re worth. If the market says KBA is worth millions of dollars, then that is what she’s owed. Whether or not Michigan wants to pay it is up to them. But if they don’t someone else will.
Well yes, in a free market economy you're worth what the market says your worth. That's just stating the definition. But a pet peeve of mine is that frequently people derive value from a single offer in a vacuum, which I would argue is an incorrect approach. If everyone in the market offers you $1M, except for one crazy person who offers you $2M, you're not suddenly worth $2M. The market clearly says you're only worth $1M, irrespective of someone who decided to overpay. You just got lucky that someone overpaid.
You can think of it like a house for sale. Again, if everyone is offering $1M, the market says it's worth $1M. Just because one person offered (and bought it for) $2M doesn't change that fact. Think about what happens when that purchaser goes to resell. Assuming nothing's changed with the house, neighborhood, property values, etc., the value isn't suddenly $2M just because that's what he paid. Those people that offered $1M the first time are going to offer $1M again, and if he demands $2M they're going to walk away. Maybe he can get lucky and find someone to overpay him, but that doesn't affect the value set by the market.
So bringing this back to KBA, simply put, she's not worth $1.5M. She's not even worth $1.3M. Per an earlier response, Maryland's much more accomplished coach was only making $1.3M (down to $1.18M as a COVID pay cut), the 4th highest salary in women's basketball. For as impressive a job as KBA has done, she hasn't gotten the results yet to merit that kind of salary. She's a good coach, probably a very good one, but that's elite coach money. Maybe she'll get there, but she hasn't yet. So if Baylor somehow offers her $1.5M, good for her, she should take it. But Michigan shouldn't feel compelled to try to match that simply because Baylor is overpaying. And put another way, given what she has (and hasn't yet) accomplished, I don't see any way Baylor offers anywhere near that much. Maybe $1M, which is a more reasonable number for Michigan to possibly match. But we'll see.
April 28th, 2021 at 11:51 AM ^
Good points and agree but the issue is about hedging on KBA's future. Can she continue to build and surge year on year? She's in her prime and has more upside potential.
Like you, I think she needs at least one more good year to prove her true worth.
I can think of John Beilien's upward progression while at Michigan but as we know, he peaked too late in his coaching career to really cash in as he was well in his 60s.
I agree, and get what you're saying about hedging. Paying $1.5M for KBA would be clearly overpaying, but one option would be to do it hedging that she'll continue to grow into an elite coach. Not only has she taken to program to the highest it's ever been, but she also has it on an upward trajectory, so it's definitely possible that she'll become an elite coach that merits that kind of salary.
The flipside of that is whether it's better to hedge on KBA, or take that $1.5M and try to lure a more accomplished coach. And don't think I'm saying we need to get rid of KBA or anything, I'm very pleased with how she's done and have high hopes for her future. Just playing a little devil's advocate here. Because $1.5M would be the fourth highest salary in the country. It would be a decent sized raise for, e.g., Maryland's coach, who's won a national championship and multiple conference titles, and has top 10 teams almost every year. So is it better to hedge on KBA eventually getting there, or invest in a coach that's already done it?
Like I said though, the good news is that I can't see it happening. Baylor, even more so than Michigan given the program they've built, can lure a much more proven coach for $1.5M. So if they do make an offer to KBA, it's way more likely to be, say, around $1M, which would accordingly be more palatable for Michigan to try and match to hedge on KBA's future.
Syracuse may have an opening soon, too. 11 players are in the portal.
Well I wouldn’t blame her if she took it. Three national titles in the last fifteen years. The job is a step up from Michigan as far as prestige and program ceiling goes. That’s not an insult to Michigan. Just is what it is.
I hope Warde is ready to ante up.
Waco.... home of the Branch Davidians.....
April 28th, 2021 at 11:44 AM ^
Can KBA do a Bo back in the day when Texas A&M offered him, what was a boatload money back then? No doubt that Warde Manual will need to give her a big bump in $$ in the extension negotiations and throw in more bonus incentives. Good luck to KBA on that.