We’re all focused on who the next UVA Basketball coach will be. The bigger story is what we may be missing out on.
The Virginia job is maybe the highest-profile open job out there right now. (Indiana would like a word.)
The open job, to me, is an opportunity for UVA Athletics to change the way college basketball is played.
Not on the court, but where it really matters.
No sitting multimillion-dollar coach would assent to giving over half his job to a GM, but that’s where college basketball – and for that matter, college football – is going.
This is our Moneyball moment.
We can be the first to exploit the inefficiencies in the market.
ICYMI
The way college basketball is played now, the head coach is the head coach and GM/president of basketball operations, all in one.
His assistants are coaches, scouts and recruiters.
There is no front office to speak of.
There’s barely support staff.
During the season, the coaches run practices, compile scouting reports, devise game plans, coach games, and when time allows, keep tabs on their targets on the prep recruiting trail.
As soon as the season ends, the focus turns to the transfer portal, which opens in the middle of the NCAA Tournament, so, if you’re in the tournament, you’re automatically getting a late start, and it’s even later if you advance past the first weekend.
As spring turns to summer, it’s the summer prep recruiting circuit.
A couple of weeks off after that, and then it’s time to ramp up for the start of full practices.
If you want to know why Tony Bennett, among others, felt burnt out after three years of 24/7/365 basketball, now you know.
Where UVA can get a leg up: hire an actual GM, and I’m not talking a vanity hire, just giving a job to a basketball alum, to be the face of the program, but somebody with NBA (or MLB or NFL) front-office chops, to set up what would amount to a pro-sports front office.
Our very own Billy Beane, as it were, to build and then oversee a front office that would include a scouting department, which would be responsible for in-season scouting, with the added benefit of putting together reports on potential transfer targets, and a second department that would focus on money and analytics – i.e. setting the budget for the roster, and putting dollar valuations on the in-house talent, for retention purposes, and on potential transfer targets.
Those two departments work hand-in-hand in the days and weeks leading up to the opening of the portal, the way an pro-sports front office works to get ready for their league drafts and the opening day of free agency.
Last year’s wait until early May to get what was left off the portal to flesh out the 2024-2025 roster: would never happen with this kind of operation in place.
An added advantage: the coaches, get this, they get to focus on coaching.
The scouts gathering intel on potential transfer targets also help with upcoming opponents in-season.
And I would think a fully integrated analytics unit would be an asset for scouting reports and game plans.
Out of season, the coaches could, again, focus on being coaches – as the NCAA rules allow, working one-on-one and in small groups with their rosters on skills development.
The time to do this, ideally, is with an incoming new administration.
ICYMI
Which is to say, I can imagine it would be a hard sell to an in-house coach, who was hired under the old way of doing things, and is set on doing things the way he has always done them, because that’s the way they’ve always been done.
But if you bring a new guy in with the understanding, look, we’re going to do it this way, and it’s going to help you win more games, and if you win more games, we’re all going to make more money, I mean, seriously.
Either the guy you thought you wanted signs on, or you find somebody else who wants to be the first guy to win doing things the new way.
Now, just sayin’, we’re not going to do this.
It’s risky being the first to do something that no one has tried before.
It might be hard to find a coach willing to give up half the job, even if you’re paying the guy the same as you were going to anyway.
But you can bank on it: somebody is going to be the first to do things this way, and the rest will follow, eventually.
The first one to do it will have a head start, might steal a year or two of extra success before the rest catch on.
Why not have that be UVA Basketball?
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Chris Graham
