In the Cofield interview Harper scoffed at the concept of a $ 5 Million NIL. He twice mentioned not overpaying players. I would say the same if our NIL was 1/5 of the $ 5 Mil number or less.
Do some AI searches on " How Many NCAA Teams will pay $ 5 Million or more NIL.?" ( I tried Grok and Perplexity ) The answer comes up between 25-30. I understand there are people who feel you can get the players you need without "overpaying" them. Well, you don't need to overpay but you do need to pay what is needed. There are also people who point to diamonds in the rough as proof a coach can find players nobody else has found and ride them to glory. Yes, this does happen OCCASIONALLY, but not often at all. An almost never over and over again by the same coach.
It's clear to me the town is not going to support what will be needed to do better than what Boise is now. Every 5th year win the conference and go to the NCAA's every third year with a bad seed. ( then one and done) In the new MWC light we may often be in the top two in conference and go every other year to the NCAA's, but still bad seeds with one and done.
People who dream of 12,000 to 15,000 in the MACK need to realize we just don't have the financial support to make it happen.
Harper may have a knee jerk reaction to the 23-24 season. I am pretty sure we had the biggest NIL in the league by far, and still didn't get over the hump.
In better hands we probably would have gone further, but he has seen at least a relatively high NIL for this level not working.
He is right that we need to be able to do more with less, because we simply cannot compete financially with the Power schools. Every other MW team that goes to the tournament ( which is a large percentage) and we don't can do more with less.
Which is funny that we went with Pastner who is known to do less with more, but he is a good face for the program, he will be able to fundraise himself which is needed.
I think Harper just wants the bball program to be good enough for a P4 invite. Sure fans help in that equation, but being a bubble team quality is more than enough for say the B12.
