Fact is Joni hasn't been too exciting of a coach. We had some moments of solid play this year, but we were never dominant. I'm not surprised by this. Really curious to see how Taylor recruits. Don't really see who on the bench has the ability to step up and compete. We need at least 2-3 immediate impact players. Interesting offseason coming up. I think this is a make or break year for Taylor given a new AD.

Has TREV Albert even been here long enough to not get along with Buzz???????

Much like the people who whine about Buzz on the men's thread, I think people are going to realize how poorly basketball is supported at this school

I hate NIL and what it has done to college athletics, but it is what it is and except for football/baseball we aren't doing it well

I don't agree that basketball is poorly supported. Do you mean financially? Winning does take care of empty seats.

Do not contact might mean she knows where she's going or it could be a negotiation

He's talking about NIL and donor contributions. Season ticket holders are a terrible way to gage financial support levels of a program in this current day and age. $250/seat/season is a drop in the bucket and doesn't translate if there are no additional donations to NIL.

Gap said:

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AggieCrew44 said:

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Much like the people who whine about Buzz on the men's thread, I think people are going to realize how poorly basketball is supported at this school

I hate NIL and what it has done to college athletics, but it is what it is and except for football/baseball we aren't doing it well

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Are you a donor to WBB NIL? The bar is not high to become part of the effort.

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I don't pay 18 year old kids. What a horrendous investment that would be

It's also why I rarely ever complain about performance

Was shocked to see the news about Barker. Makes me sick. I thought she was the one we were building our program around. I do have to say I noticed that something seemed off about her relationship with Joni in the latter half of conference play. It looked like she and Joni weren't speaking at a couple of games. Like the assistants were communicating with Janiah but not Joni. The people we sit with noticed it too. No idea what that was about. Did anyone else notice? Janiah has all the physical tools but can be immature at times. I was looking forward to seeing her growth and was looking for her to be a real leader of our team next season. Really disappointed that she won't be in an Aggie uniform next year. She's one of my favorites.

NIL data that the school collected for the 2023-24 athletic year is considered confidential and not available via open record request.

aggiedrjdub said:

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Yes! I noticed this also! The reality is though, Janiah wasn't performing like she needed to and I think AC was carrying the team on her back. I'm not sure why you walk away from and Olympic coach, but something was definitely off.

Y'all - I firmly believe some of these players are just too comfortable with their coaches. Why are 17-18 girls calling their coaches by their first names? Different times for sure. When that coaching line gets blurred, it's hard to come back from a sour relationship

Also - I don't understand the NIL thing, clearly. We have one of the most well funded NIL initiatives in the country. Our football and baseball players are paid like rockstars. Is there not enough for the WBB team? Someone explain to me.

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Collectives are not required to divest funds equally, so just because football and baseball are getting paid like the minor leagues, that doesn't mean the other sports get the same access.

Most schools with great NIL funds (for both men's and women's basketball) have select donors who request or demand that any $$$ they donate will be used for basketball only. A&M doesn't have a single donor like Houston with Fertitta, so there has got to be a group of donors that says "enough" and puts together some kind of ball-focused collective.

Because as it stands now, we aren't playing on an even playing field. And it's only getting worse.

The school cannot be actively involved in any capacity, so they can't control cash flow no.

And while you may think the men's players are making money, compared to our SEC and in-state competition, they're making peanuts. Let me give you an example, Arkansas' basketball NIL budget was about 4-5x larger than ours BEFORE Calipari was announced.

Houston, TCU, Texas, Baylor, not to even mention the SEC teams, are all MUCH stronger and more well-supported than ours.

Give us the numbers to further the conversation here since you have them for each school. How does it all line up?

Both, the base monthly stuff that each program has that includes all team members even the non-contributors and also the high dollar stuff for difference makers and talents able to negotiate.

Gap said:

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Give us the numbers to further the conversation here since you have them for each school. How does it all line up?

Both, the base monthly stuff that each program has that includes all team members even the non-contributors and also the high dollar stuff for difference makers and talents able to negotiate.

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First, no collective is going to give you exact breakdowns of what each player is making on the roster, what incentives each player gets, etc.

However, I'll share some ballpark estimates from what I've read online, as well as heard first hand from donors at a few of the schools I've mentioned.

• Arkansas: I grew up with several Arkansas grads, who are now very active within EDGE, which is their version of United. Yearly budget estimated at $1.2-$1.5 million last year. Tramon Mark alone was locked down for $350k, plus incentives (leased car, housing, etc). That alone would be a huge amount of our entire budget. And as much as I hate to use something unnamed like Hawgsports is doing, the early estimates for Coach Cal's first roster is in the ball park of $5-6 MILLION.
https://arkansas.rivals.com/news/reports-calipari-to-receive-5-million-plus-in-nil-funds-at-arkansas

• Houston: LinkingCoogs is their big collective. In the last year alone, they put together an NIL deal with a tech group called Loot8, which is valued at $1MM, another team-wide deal with Mattress Mack estimated at $1MM, and a $350,000 deal with one of the local Law Groups that is teamwide. That doesn't even take into account individual deals with each player. LJ Cryer just announced he will be back next year, despite being part of arguably the weakest draft class in 20 years. Do you think he's coming back because he loves UH? The man is getting paid. You'll hear different budget ranges from UH but the consensus is anywhere from $2-3 Million.

• Texas- TexasOne Fund is extremely guarded with budget totals and estimated amounts on a per player basis, but if you look online, you'll find approximations of anywhere between $1.5-3MM, which is a really large range. If you look to last year, Alex Abmas was one of the biggest names in the portal, coming from ORU. Rumors from alumni were pretty consistently in the range of $500k for him alone.

Overall, the average power five budget is between $1-3 million. That's not conjecture, that's actual information published by national sports media:

https://www.on3.com/nil/news/want-to-win-big-nil-collectives-must-be-ready-to-break-bank-in-basketball-transfer-portal/

https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/sports/one-year-of-nil-how-much-have-athletes-made/3765040/

https://www.cbssports.com/college-basketball/news/candid-coaches-what-nil-price-is-a-projected-high-major-starter-in-the-transfer-looking-portal-looking-for/


And as it relates to A&M Basketball in the NIL space? You're not going to get any concrete numbers from me or anyone in the know, but understand that it is significantly less than any of the teams mentioned above.

Meanwhile, Pat Henry has track and field back at the number 1 rankings for outdoor despite other schools with the NIL advantages.