Program Expectations

[rammad90]

We are in crunch time and fighting for our Big Dance Live's. The tournaments (A10 & Dance) are on all of our collective minds. With that in mind, I was thinking this morning about what my expectations of this program are at the moment. I know we may have done this in the past but thought it was timely now with some of the changes such as Seat Equity, the fact that Mike's been here a while, and our present profile on the college basketball landscape.

Here goes:

Given the support we give and the resources expended our Men's Basketball program my expectations as a donor and fan are as follows:

Always about .500 OOC & In Conference
In Conference Top 4- 8-10 years
In ConferenceTop 6-9-10 years
Confere Tourney Finals 3-10 years
Conference Tourney Champs 2-10 years
NCAA Tourney 8 of 10 years. 80%
Win in NCAA Tourney 7 of ten years. 70%
Second weekend 3 of 10 years. 30%
No expectations past the 2nd weekend of the NCAA Tournament.

I dont think the above is too much to expect given the money we pay our staff, the facilities, the donations, the non-monetary support of fans and city, the fact that Men's Basketball is our Marquee sport, and we are all in.

Thoughts?

 

[Bluey]

We are in crunch time and fighting for our Big Dance Live's. The tournaments (A10 & Dance) are on all of our collective minds. With that in mind, I was thinking this morning about what my expectations of this program are at the moment. I know we may have done this in the past but thought it was timely now with some of the changes such as Seat Equity, the fact that Mike's been here a while, and our present profile on the college basketball landscape.

Here goes:

Given the support we give and the resources expended our Men's Basketball program my expectations as a donor and fan are as follows:

Always about .500 OOC & In Conference
In Conference Top 4- 8-10 years
In ConferenceTop 6-9-10 years
Confere Tourney Finals 3-10 years
Conference Tourney Champs 2-10 years
NCAA Tourney 8 of 10 years. 80%
Win in NCAA Tourney 7 of ten years. 70%
Second weekend 3 of 10 years. 30%
No expectations past the 2nd weekend of the NCAA Tournament.

I dont think the above is too much to expect given the money we pay our staff, the facilities, the donations, the non-monetary support of fans and city, the fact that Men's Basketball is our Marquee sport, and we are all in.

Thoughts?

All seems reasonable as ambitions. VCU is in the mid 80’s among D1 schools for overall basketball budget expenditure, so there is an argument that our current rolling 10 year performance is about where it should be or perhaps a little better than should be expected. The most notable headwind is that our alumni giving rate is very, very poor for a university of our size. That means there isn’t a whole lot of opportunity to jump the level of investment into the top 50, which is where we would ideally be in order to align to the expectations you’ve laid out.

For comparison sake Gonzaga spends $4.5MM more per year than us as a peer mid-major (27th overall) Heck, Dayton, SLU & Joes outspend us in our own conference, though not by much, so the conference expectations are spot on. In my view, unless we can get substantial improvements in the levels of donor support, we are going to remain an interesting mid-major almost always in the conversation for the tourney, but anything beyond that is going to be tough sledding short of the occasional magical run.

Fun with Finances: Basketball Budgets — Three-Man-Weave

In the doldrums of the offseason, we pivoted off the basketball court to open up the accounting ledger. Using the most recent Department of Higher Education numbers, here’s a quick look at each team’s spending situation.

www.three-man-weave.com

 

[RamDanFan]

My expectation for the program is to put itself on a trajectory to be in the Big East within 10 years. To do that, we need to become undeniable. Nothing less than the Gonzaga of the East should be our goal.

 

[bighornn]

My expectation for the program is to put itself on a trajectory to be in the Big East within 10 years. To do that, we need to become undeniable. Nothing less than the Gonzaga of the East should be our goal.

Always be careful what you wish for .... VCU is virtually assured perennial success with its current schedule/conference .... when you "get called up to the big leagues," your batting average usually tumbles.

 

[RamDanFan]

Always be careful what you wish for .... VCU is virtually assured perennial success with its current schedule/conference .... when you "get called up to the big leagues," your batting average usually tumbles.

Except for when VCU moved from the CAA to the A-10. “You seek your level” Buck Showalter

 

[Ramdog]

Butler would beg to differ

 

[bighornn]

Except for when VCU moved from the CAA to the A-10. “You seek your level” Buck Showalter

That's true, to an extent; but is the A10 what VCU imagined before joining? From what I can tell, the A10 is only stronger than many other "lesser" conferences because of a more aggressive non-conference scheduling attitude. Also, the A10 schools have the revenue for more "buy games" that helps pad the overall resumes.

 

[Bluey]

My expectation for the program is to put itself on a trajectory to be in the Big East within 10 years. To do that, we need to become undeniable. Nothing less than the Gonzaga of the East should be our goal.

I love this, where do you propose the money to come from?

It seems that the current levels of support comes from the same small group of donors who have rightly become frustrated with the constant efforts to extract more. Either the current donor base spends more, which appears to be unsustainable and unfair, or the University needs to get serious about increasing overall giving rates across the vast alumni base.

I don’t believe increasing institutional support is going to be feasible given the larger ambitions of the University and the current mood of the state with respect to higher ed accountability.

 

[Mr. X]

This is an easy one.

 

[RamDanFan]

That's true, to an extent; but is the A10 what VCU imagined before joining? From what I can tell, the A10 is only stronger than many other "lesser" conferences because of a more aggressive non-conference scheduling attitude. Also, the A10 schools have the revenue for more "buy games" that helps pad the overall resumes.

I think so. I think the expectation going in was you would no longer have to win the conference tournament championship in order to make the dance.

 

[Bluey]

That's true, to an extent; but is the A10 what VCU imagined before joining? From what I can tell, the A10 is only stronger than many other "lesser" conferences because of a more aggressive non-conference scheduling attitude. Also, the A10 schools have the revenue for more "buy games" that helps pad the overall resumes.

The A10 is decidedly worse than the conference we joined. The inability to regularly put 3-4 programs in the NCAA hurts share allocation (additional revenue), profile (revenue for media rights) and recruiting. We joined a conference with Butler, Xavier and Temple and now they are gone and we have Davidson and Mason as replacements. While Davidson routinely has a nice team, they do nothing for the conference other than play games and Mason grossly underperforms despite a lot of intangible advantages.

Sure, a move to a conference like the Big East would likely have an impact on Ws and Ls, but the additional revenues from tourney and media should help us elevate the overall quality of the program. It would definitely be a gamble, but the odds for continued success are not insurmountable.

 

[RamDanFan]

I love this, where do you propose the money to come from?

It seems that the current levels of support comes from the same small group of donors who have rightly become frustrated with the constant efforts to extract more. Either the current donor base spends more, which appears to be unsustainable and unfair, or the University needs to get serious about increasing overall giving rates across the vast alumni base.

I don’t believe increasing institutional support is going to be feasible given the larger ambitions of the University and the current mood of the state with respect to higher ed accountability.

Im hopeful part of that money will be a byproduct of coaching stability. It certainly has seemed like it has been one of the remaining puzzle pieces needed. Success begets success. But overall, I can’t say for sure where the money will come from or even how much it would take.

 

[Mr. X]

The A10 is decidedly worse than the conference we joined. The inability to regularly put 3-4 programs in the NCAA hurts share allocation (additional revenue), profile (revenue for media rights) and recruiting. We joined a conference with Butler, Xavier and Temple and now they are gone and we have Davidson and Mason as replacements. While Davidson routinely has a nice team, they do nothing for the conference other than play games and Mason grossly underperforms despite a lot of intangible advantages.

Sure, a move to a conference like the Big East would likely have an impact on Ws and Ls, but the additional revenues from tourney and media should help us elevate the overall quality of the program. It would definitely be a gamble, but the odds for continued success are not insurmountable.

Being in the top 5 or 6 every year in the Big East will keep you in the conversation and more than likely get you in.

 

[bighornn]

People forget (or never knew) both Mason and VCU made the Final Four as at-large entries out of the CAA ... neither won the tournament title those years.

 

[RamStrut]

Always be careful what you wish for .... VCU is virtually assured perennial success with its current schedule/conference .... when you "get called up to the big leagues," your batting average usually tumbles.

To be the best you gotta beat the best. Never shy away from tougher competition.