I’d go (from most likely to leave to less likely).
- Byers
- Elmer
- Skaljac
- Kirby
- Perry
- Atlason
- Robbins/Waltz/Stowers
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What do you think Byers and Elmer are likely to command from a P4 offer?
I hate this thread.
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I am not too enamored of it either.
Sweet 16 NIL payments:
Duke $12.0mm
Arkansas $11.5mm
Michigan $10.5mm
St. John’s $10.5mm
Arizona $9.75mm
Alabama $9.5mm
Tennessee $9.5mm
UConn $9.5mm
Illinois $9.0mm
Purdue $8.75mm
Michigan State $8.5mm
Houston $8.5mm
Iowa State $8.25mm
Texas $7.5mm
Nebraska $6.75mm
Iowa $6.25mm
I am choosing to believe this team will rally around ‘the grass is not greener’ and ‘the job is not finished’ mentality. Life is better this way
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=>Coaches have a reputation of having a forked tongue.
TS signing the proposed extension ASAP would be extremely important to signal current and prospective players that he is going to be here.
He has publicly and privately that he is staying. So he needs to sign now so Miami can announce it formally. I fear the longer he waits to sign it, the more it creates doubt that his words may not be bond.
He promised he was not going anywhere. He said he would wait until the season’s over the sign the extension. Well, season’s over Travis!
“I’m very happy here. And I think some people will read into things differently, right? They’re gonna say, ‘Oh, well, he hasn’t signed. Why don’t you sign it already?’ We’ve been pretty busy. We’re trying to keep this thing going. And I made that promise to our guys that I wasn’t gonna get distracted. I was gonna keep the main thing, the main thing.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Steele said of the possibility of him leaving. “That’s not — listen, that’s the furthest thing from the truth. I love it here. My family loves it here. Our players love our staff. Like I said, the people make the place, and I think that’s what makes Miami (OH) such a special place.”
******
“My goal is to get this thing to the second weekend of the NCAA Tournament. We fell short of that goal this year, but we will be back. I’m very, very confident of that.”
Particularly since we could have UNC and even potentially Kansas (if Self retires) open this week… he’s not getting either of those jobs but he may well be considered a candidate for the downstream openings that result. He really needs to button this up asap….
He is probably looking at offers now.
Think he’s waiting on the UNC ripple effect?
Hopefully the conversation between Sayler and Steele went like this:
Sayler: “You sign the extended contract, tell me what the program needs and I get it for you but you don’t leave me high and dry”
Steele: “I sign the contract and you let me do what I want to do and give me the elbow room to do it my way.”
“Deal.”
“Deal’.”
That’s a tough deal to say no to for either party … and extremely rare in D1.
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I believe that Travis Steele is an honorable person…which means he is committed to Miami for the foreseeable future…as long as…the finances are there to insure player continuity, assistant coaches’ salaries and a respectable (not anything too skimpy) bump in his salary to place him at or very near the top of the MAC pay scale…somehow $750,000-$800,000 (plus an annual escalator and retention bonuses and a substantial buyout) along with a boatload of incentives enabling him to exceed $1 MM next year and beyond
I further believe that any “personal services contract,” needs to be studied carefully by both the coach, his agent and his attorney…that may still take a while.
Furthermore, he may very well have told his players to enjoy their Spring Break, collect their collective breaths, reflect upon their accomplishments and agree to meet both collectively and individually with coach after their breaks are over…and, in the meantime, agree not to jump to any hasty conclusions/ decisions until they all return. NIL money will be found and paid.
Finally, perhaps one of the incoming seniors, like Elmer, might have told his teammates that, before being lured away by money and promises, they take a hard look at what has happened to Cam Craft this year. Staying at Miami is a far better deal in the long run than going for a short-term deal that will hurt their long-term future.
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I don’t know what Steele and Sayler’s working relationship is really like, but from the outside it seems quite strong (especially for the industry). Putting trust in each other five years ago and progressing from mediocrity to greatness (because of each other and the whole program’s work) has to help.
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One potential holdup is that some of our guys are already receiving feelers (w expected $$??) and Steele wants assurances that we can keep most of these guys before agreeing to the contract extension. If he feels he is losing much of his recruited talent, he may decide to see what offers come his way (if any) before signing up w Miami.
Being an honorable person has absolutely zero to do with this. Steele is simply a basketball coach doing his personal calculus of staying or going. And why wouldn’t he? This is a profession where Miami might fire him in two years. He could be gone in a week…stay and be fired in two or three years or stay for 10 and be a legend.
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Your comment about Cam Kraft is a great example. At Wright State, they’ve pointed to other players leaving after the 2022 season and only one of them making an impact, but nothing gigantic. One player left, went to Ohio State, and played at the start of the season then vanished into the bench around Christmas. He transferred back to Wright State for his senior season.
The money and grass looking greener is one thing. But if playing time is equally as important, then it’s a fine line to walk.
However I can’t say how I’d react if I was 20 years old and someone threw me $1,000,000 at me. Money like that for your remaining time in college can give you a nice start on life, provided you’re investing it the right way.
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Thanks for sending this reply. Some of the emotional appeals on here drive me nuts.
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$750k+ for Elmer and Byers.
Well clearly we are past the ASAP stage. Hopefully and preferably an announcement comes Monday or Tuesday as students return from spring break. But at this point common sense is to trust the process that got us to where we as fans are worried about losing our very successful coach.
It’s Saturday night the week of spring break and there’s no clear school that he’d leave to…. Heck, he’s probably on vacation. Everybody breathe!
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