UA basketball report

Anderson on Slive

Arkansas Coach Mike Anderson attended the memorial service held for Mike Slive — the SEC commissioner in 2002-2015 — in Birmingham, Ala., last week.

“Great man,” Anderson said. “I thought he was a visionary. I thought he was a forward-thinker. He obviously was a brilliant man.”

Anderson was the coach at Alabama-Birmingham, where he got to know Slive, who was Conference USA commissioner at the time.

“He brought that league up,” Anderson said. “When you think about Conference USA basketball back in those days, it was Cincinnati, Louisville. I was at UAB. Memphis was in it. I mean, it was a great league.

“When you think about the resurgence of basketball in the SEC, Mike Slive had a lot to do with it. He put an emphasis on basketball. We met with him every September. All the coaches convened [at the SEC office in Birmingham] even after our meetings in Destin during May.

“We would go back in and sit down with the commissioner and talk about the things that we could do to help elevate SEC basketball.”

Anderson said Slive’s commitment to improving basketball contributed to the SEC having eight teams in the NCAA Tournament this season. Slive also helped create the SEC Network, which has financially benefitted all of the conference schools.

“One of the points brought up at the memorial service, we talked about how much the revenue stream went up with Mike Slive in place as the commissioner,” Anderson said. “He made a lot of guys happy. He made a lot of athletic directors happy and a lot of universities happy. But more than that, he was a down-to-earth kind of guy.”