The Courier-Journal (Louisville)
U of L job brings best tradition
But NIL will be key for candidates
Louisville finds itself looking for a new basketball coach in what has become a crowded field of major conference openings.
Michigan. Oklahoma State. Washington. Stanford. Vanderbilt. West Virginia. (And for a brief period, Ohio State and DePaul were on the list.)
U of L is clearly the best job available for purely basketball reasons. None of the other schools potentially vying for the same candidates can offer the mix of facilities, support and resources that Louisville can.
None have as deep and as rich of a history as the Cardinals.
But tradition alone isn’t going to be the difference maker. This hire just might come down to how Louisville differentiates itself in the name, image and likeness (NIL) space.
U of L will weed out some candidates itself based on the level of scrutiny that comes with the job.
“That will be a very, very direct question with whoever I’m looking at as far as filling this head coaching role,” Louisville athletics director Josh Heird said. “Can you manage the enormity of this position? Because it’s big, it’s really big and there’s a lot of complexities to it. It’s a lot more than coaching basketball.”
Not everyone, even in the ego-filled and competitively-driven pool of head coaches, desires that kind of spotlight.
A lot of programs have tradition.
Oklahoma State has two national titles from 1945 and 1946. The Cowboys made the 2004 Final Four, which is recent enough to remind parents of recruits that they have potential. And if that’s not enough, the players themselves know Cade Cunningham, the No. 1 overall NBA draft pick in 2021, played for the Cowboys.
Michigan won it all in 1989 and has made three Final Fours since, including 1992 and ’93 with the Fab Five — one of the most iconic group of players in college basketball history. And in 2013,
when the Wolverines lost to Louisville in the national championship game.
Conference realignment may have opened up programs like Washington and Stanford to drawing players that otherwise would not have been interested in playing in the Pac-12. The Huskies are sitting on a recruiting hotbed in Seattle. And imagine the Bay Area talent the right coach at Stanford could pull, even with its high academic standards, by now being able to tout playing in the ACC.
Candidates will weigh all of those quaint notions about what makes a program successful because they matter to an extent. Just not in the way that they used to matter.
For the immediate future of college basketball, really college football too, the best coaches are going to follow the NIL monies that a school’s collective has at its disposal.
Recruits don’t need the bells and whistles that the wave of new facilities and ridiculous amenities within said buildings once brought. Who needs a barbershop or recording studio — definitely not a slide instead of stairs — when they can earn tens of thousands of dollars by attending a different school?
NIL opportunities were an area former U of L coach Kenny Payne quietly complained about. He didn’t feel Louisville’s offerings were competitive enough in the ACC.
Jerry Stackhouse had the same thoughts as he departed Vanderbilt after five seasons. After its season-ending loss to Arkansas in the SEC Tournament, he said getting talented recruits is no longer about getting on the phone and building relationships.
“Now you got to reach out to their agents. You know what I’m saying,” Stackhouse said. “That’s where it is in order to really get in the door. NIL, that’s a big part of it. You have to be a player in that.”
Louisville sorely wants to be a player again. Before it hires a coach who can get it there, the NIL money has to be right.
Reach sports columnist C.L. Brown at clbrown1@gannett.com , follow him on X at @CLBrownHoops and subscribe to his newsletter at profile.courier-journal.com/newsletters/clbrowns-latest to make sure you never miss one of his columns.