No news with the UVA Basketball portal is the news, and, I apologize, because I think that’s my fault.
Nothing gets leaked from over there anymore, not since we had that nice run reporting about Tony Bennett leaning toward retirement months before he pulled the trigger, before we had Scott German hanging out with Ryan Odom after VCU games all winter because we were told that’s where the search for a new coach was going.
I don’t think the insiders mind us writing about how much money they’re spending on the UVA Football roster, because that makes everybody on the inside look good.
Seriously, Virginia is spending north of $35 million on football – that’s the signal to the SEC, go ahead and send us an invite already.
But with basketball, all we can do here is speculate like everybody else.
My inbox is flooded with emails from readers asking me for a scoop, as if I might have some scoop that I wasn’t ready to hit publish on.
As if I come across as the type of guy who holds what I know to myself.
One thing that several people have asked about, re: the budget, specifically, did we already use the bulk of it on retention, I can do some informed speculating here.
The number that I’d heard for Thijs de Ridder to return was $5 million.
Now, when I heard that one, I assumed it was just a starting point in negotiations, and that the number would quickly come back to some sort of reality, given that, TdR, god love him, isn’t worth $5 million to the NBA or the EuroLeague, though, to another college program, I dunno.
Anyway, just speculation, but I’m assuming he ended up getting somewhere in the $3 million range for next season.
The other three rotation returnees – Johann Grunloh, Sam Lewis, Chance Mallory – had to be in the $1 million range each.
That probably puts us about halfway, thereabouts, through the budget, with obvious costly needs to be addressed – a veteran second point guard with size, a backup rim-protecting center, two or three shooters.
I wouldn’t worry about the money part of the equation so much right now; UVA Athletics has a JPJ to fill up, with a this is not a reseating reseating plan that pissed off a decent number of long-time season-ticket holders.
The donors are going to pony up to put another winner out there, just so that we can’t blame the swaths of empties for ACC games in January and February on a lack of success on the court.
Now, another season of declining attendance – home attendance was down 4.4 percent this past season, with a team that finished 30-7, from the year before, when we had a team that finished 15-17 – might make for some different decisions regarding money going forward.
But that’s a can that we’re kicking down the road at the moment.
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Chris Graham
