Cowboy basketball under Tom Burman

[rocket city poke]

After the 5-15 campaign this season, in conference games, UW men's basketball's record since Burman became athletic director is 121-214. That is a 36% winning percentage. This has been a steady decline with a couple of aberrations mixed in. Frankly, the program never has recovered from the Heath Schroyer hire, contract extension and subsequent buyout. I honestly blame some of it on the total emphasis on the football program which has never been spared any expense or media coverage and the basketball program has never been a focal point.

 

[TheRealUW]

Burman has hired five basketball coaches in his tenure at Wyoming. He missed badly on the Schroyer and Allen Edwards hires. Shyatt was a good hire. Jeff Linder, despite how things played out, was also a good hire. The Wicks hire is obviously still up in the air.

I think we are at the point now where it doesn't really matter who the coach is if they don't have the funds to buy the players they need to win. I honestly don't believe even a Bill Self or Rick Pitino would be successful at Wyoming at the current level of NIL funding we have.

 

[307bball]

Burman has hired five basketball coaches in his tenure at Wyoming. He missed badly on the Schroyer and Allen Edwards hires. Shyatt was a good hire. Jeff Linder, despite how things played out, was also a good hire. The Wicks hire is obviously still up in the air.

I think we are at the point now where it doesn't really matter who the coach is if they don't have the funds to buy the players they need to win. I honestly don't believe even a Bill Self or Rick Pitino would be successful at Wyoming at the current level of NIL funding we have.

Unfortunately .... probably true.

The days of being able to build a program are in the rear-view mirror. Now...programs are "purchased". There is a ladder of college athletics....being anywhere except at the top is a bad place to be because the effort and expense to get to the next rung is insanely high .... and being the best on some intermediate rung just makes you want to get to the next one where you are going to get your teeth kicked in.

 

[TheRealUW]

Unfortunately .... probably true.

The days of being able to build a program are in the rear-view mirror. Now...programs are "purchased". There is a ladder of college athletics....being anywhere except at the top is a bad place to be because the effort and expense to get to the next rung is insanely high .... and being the best on some intermediate rung just makes you want to get to the next one where you are going to get your teeth kicked in.

I wish Wyoming, and other programs like it, would just make the choice to cut the ladder. That would make the top of the ladder a lot closer.

 

[LawPoke]

Burman has hired five basketball coaches in his tenure at Wyoming. He missed badly on the Schroyer and Allen Edwards hires. Shyatt was a good hire. Jeff Linder, despite how things played out, was also a good hire. The Wicks hire is obviously still up in the air.

I think we are at the point now where it doesn't really matter who the coach is if they don't have the funds to buy the players they need to win. I honestly don't believe even a Bill Self or Rick Pitino would be successful at Wyoming at the current level of NIL funding we have.

Schroyer and Edwards absolutely gutted our program and we have never recovered. I disagree with you on JL. Linder gutted us in a different way - by alienating fans and donors, pouting about the destruction he presided over/caused, and leaving the cupboard completely empty. Linder's arrogance and ego were on full display before he was hired and we should have all paid closer attention - but TB especially. All three of these hires are TB specials and all follow a similar path - hire someone you know, don't complete a true search (despite what TB might say), go cheap, and keep them too long when it is clear they are not up to the task.

I would argue that we might actually have inertia and the funds to secure players today had TB not missed so badly on Schroyer, Edwards and Linder. I would even argue that Shyatt was not the best hire at the time - fan malaise was high and we brought in a retread that didn't ignite the fanbase. Sure, he won the MoWest tourney and got to the Dance, but there were quite a few fans and donors that stayed on the sideline and were not excited owing to how Shyatt left us the first go-round, burning us badly. Memories are long. Any inertia that was gained through the run to the Dance in 2015, was squandered in front of a pretty full house (7,677 in attendance) in an exhibition loss to Fort Lewis College - which is so on brand for Wyoming that they should have a term for the Pokes losing games in front of a lot of Wyoming fans.

I hope Wicks can win here. I think he knows how. Can the long shadow and haunting of the Coaching Ghosts of TB's past be exorcised from the AA to rekindle excitement again and bring the fan support and $ to help him win? I doubt it. The AA is dead. Student support for BB is dead. Statewide interest in the program is dead. Hell, regional interest is dead. I check scores, but haven't been to a game in the AA since the miracle win against UNM during the Linder era. I just don't care. I used to.

 

[TheRealUW]

Schroyer and Edwards absolutely gutted our program and we have never recovered. I disagree with you on JL. Linder gutted us in a different way - by alienating fans and donors, pouting about the destruction he presided over/caused, and leaving the cupboard completely empty. Linder's arrogance and ego were on full display before he was hired and we should have all paid closer attention - but TB especially. All three of these hires are TB specials and all follow a similar path - hire someone you know, don't complete a true search (despite what TB might say), go cheap, and keep them too long when it is clear they are not up to the task.

I would argue that we might actually have inertia and the funds to secure players today had TB not missed so badly on Schroyer, Edwards and Linder. I would even argue that Shyatt was not the best hire at the time - fan malaise was high and we brought in a retread that didn't ignite the fanbase. Sure, he won the MoWest tourney and got to the Dance, but there were quite a few fans and donors that stayed on the sideline and were not excited owing to how Shyatt left us the first go-round, burning us badly. Memories are long. Any inertia that was gained through the run to the Dance in 2015, was squandered in front of a pretty full house (7,677 in attendance) in an exhibition loss to Fort Lewis College - which is so on brand for Wyoming that they should have a term for the Pokes losing games in front of a lot of Wyoming fans.

I hope Wicks can win here. I think he knows how. Can the long shadow and haunting of the Coaching Ghosts of TB's past be exorcised from the AA to rekindle excitement again and bring the fan support and $ to help him win? I doubt it. The AA is dead. Student support for BB is dead. Statewide interest in the program is dead. Hell, regional interest is dead. I check scores, but haven't been to a game in the AA since the miracle win against UNM during the Linder era. I just don't care. I used to.

Linder was a terrible coach for the NIL era. But he was a good (arguably great) coach in the pre-NIL era. There are plenty of egotistical/arrogant coaches in the upper level of sports. Fans look past that, and even find some weird charm to it, as long as the wins keep coming.

Obviously there is no way to know for sure, but I suspect Linder would have had a level of success at Wyoming that we haven't seen since Brandenburg if the NIL era had not blown in while he was at the helm. At the time Linder was hired, he was a home run for the program. Now if you want to blame Tom Burman for not foreseeing the NIL changes on the horizon and how poorly Linder would be able to deal with that, then I think you have an argument.

 

[doreno5]

Linder was a terrible coach for the NIL era. But he was a good (arguably great) coach in the pre-NIL era. There are plenty of egotistical/arrogant coaches in the upper level of sports. Fans look past that, and even find some weird charm to it, as long as the wins keep coming.

Obviously there is no way to know for sure, but I suspect Linder would have had a level of success at Wyoming that we haven't seen since Brandenburg if the NIL era had not blown in while he was at the helm. At the time Linder was hired, he was a home run for the program. Now if you want to blame Tom Burman for not foreseeing the NIL changes on the horizon and how poorly Linder would be able to deal with that, then I think you have an argument.

I cannot help but wonder if Wyoming did not miss the boat entirely by not focusing on building a nationally recognized basketball program when we had the chance during Brandenburg's tenure. Losing him to SDSU was a major step back. Benny Dees wasted an extremely talented roster by not being a very good coach.

 

[bladerunnr]

It's interesting to read the posts of those who have met the coaches and interacted with them. It appears that every poster who met Linder thinks he was a bad hire. Linder took a horrible program at UNC and turned them into a 20 win team repeatedly. Allen Edwards didn't exactly leave the program with tons of talent in the program. Linder's first year, Ike is hurt but Marcus Williams is freshman of the year and then leaves. Linder didn't do everything right but NIL and the portal really affected his opinion of the program and why he left. The very fact we can't afford to keep the one good player we have shows just how much the college basketball landscape has changed. Do you think we would have kept Larry Nance or Josh Adams under the new rules? Not a chance. And we probably never would have gotten a player like Derek Cooke either. Someone in the know can inform me, but I think I read our entire NIL is about a million. San Diego State's NIL is a million just for basketball. And they want to raise it to 2 million.
The Roaring Repeater guys talked a good bit about fund raising on their last podcast. What we needed was an alumni like Jerry Buss to give the school a ton of dough. But he never did. He gave millions to USC. I'm guessing that without some huge donors, Wyoming doesn't stand a chance of competing in this new money driven era of college athletics.

 

[rocket city poke]

UW has plenty of money though. There is $140 million being spent for stadium upgrades and a new swimming pool. People who knew what was going on could see college athletics was in a state of flux when UW put these expenditures through two years ago. Now they came back this session and finally realized that they were going to have to pay the players and tried to get money to pay them. Burman and the administration would have looked so much better to have to put $140 million off and waited to see how this shakes out. Think at least part of the $140 million wouldn't have attracted some talented players. Fortunately, Burman is so far removed from the real world that he is still going to keep making his $551k a year in spite of driving the basketball program to complete irrelevancy, but building a really nice pool and some nice seats at the football stadium.

 

[TheRealUW]

UW has plenty of money though. There is $140 million being spent for stadium upgrades and a new swimming pool. People who knew what was going on could see college athletics was in a state of flux when UW put these expenditures through two years ago. Now they came back this session and finally realized that they were going to have to pay the players and tried to get money to pay them. Burman and the administration would have looked so much better to have to put $140 million off and waited to see how this shakes out. Think at least part of the $140 million wouldn't have attracted some talented players. Fortunately, Burman is so far removed from the real world that he is still going to keep making his $551k a year in spite of driving the basketball program to complete irrelevancy, but building a really nice pool and some nice seats at the football stadium.

The school can't pay players through NIL. They can only directly pay players through a profit sharing model. NIL funds have to come from private individuals and/or corporations.

 

[rocket city poke]

The school can't pay players through NIL. They can only directly pay players through a profit sharing model. NIL funds have to come from private individuals and/or corporations.

The school can't pay players through NIL. They can only directly pay players through a profit sharing model. NIL funds have to come from private individuals and/or corporations.

Not true: https://www.espn.com/college-sports/story/_/id/39967961/virginia-law-allows-schools-pay-athletes-nil

Wyoming could have been ahead of the curve and done something similar. But UW is never a leader in anything. Just kind of goes on with the good old boys getting their big paychecks.

 

[TheRealUW]

Not true: https://www.espn.com/college-sports/story/_/id/39967961/virginia-law-allows-schools-pay-athletes-nil

Wyoming could have been ahead of the curve and done something similar. But UW is never a leader in anything. Just kind of goes on with the good old boys getting their big paychecks.

To be fair, even if UW asked, there is no chance the Wyoming legislature would ever consider passing a law similar to this. It’s more likely that the Wyoming legislature would pass a law banning UW from participating in the school-athlete profit sharing model.

The politics in Virginia and Wyoming are quite different.

 

[Bosler]

Not sure what this small debate is about.

No, UW can't directly pay athletes, not until everything is settled when it can if it wishes use profit-sharing under the House settlement to spread amongst athletes.

No, the Wyoming legislature isn't going to pass Virginia-type legislation so the legislature can send state money to UW to pay athletes.

What UW is going to need to compete at a higher level is significant NIL money. Just a little NIL money will keep us where we are: perhaps coaxing good, overlooked players to come here for a year and then leave for more money elsewhere.

 

[Lost Poke]

UW has plenty of money though. There is $140 million being spent for stadium upgrades and a new swimming pool. People who knew what was going on could see college athletics was in a state of flux when UW put these expenditures through two years ago.

The facilities upgrades are the end of a long-term plan put together over a decade ago, and started with the RAC / NEZAC. That plan was meant to ensure that Wyoming would be able to remain a Division I athletics program. Fundraising started for them long before the final phases were sent to the legislature. Big donors want their names on something tangible, anyway. NIL was not a thing when it all started, and the University couldn't raise funds for NIL once it became a thing.

Virginia passed their NIL law this year, after the House case entered final settlement and other lawsuits basically turned NIL into profit sharing.

 

[Lost Poke]

Back to the subject of this thread: Yes, Burman has been bad at hiring basketball coaches. Historically bad. That might have been different if he hadn't doubled down on Schroyer and had conducted an actual search instead of defaulting to Edwards. Either one of those going differently might have our program at .500 over his tenure as AD. I think the Linder conversation is interesting, and the 'wrong coach for the new era' argument has some merit. Maybe one day he'll get hired as an HC again and we'll find out.

This year we'll see if his "hire a favorite assistant" plan that failed with Edwards is the same situation with Sawvell in football.