".....Without being in the top half of NIL money this year in the SEC..."NIL budget is important, but means nothing without coaching. We can be successful in the MWC at $1-2M budget. Win conference a few years, make the tournament a few times and win a game or two and the NIL money will grow as needed to compete at higher levels.
Harper is right though in the sense throwing money at players does not guarantee success and is not sustainable without the foundation. You might get donors to pony up $5 or even $10M one year but if you flop that well is going to dry up fast. Starting slow, proving success is the way to build the NIL with less risk.
Florida built its team with transfers from Iona, Belmont, FAU and Washington State. Without being in the top half of NIL money this year in the SEC, now they have more donors providing and are expected to be third behind Arkansas and Kentucky next year. Coaching, moneyball evaluation (underpriced players to performance) is how teams need to build unless they can get a 10 year 100M commitment from donors and that doesn’t happen outside of Calipari at Arkansas.
Where is this published? My research shows they around 6th out of 16.