JMM28

I get the feeling that Bruce may not be at The Skill Factory currently…

They prefer to be called Reanimated.

Bruce has a chance to be really good. This could be a great get. Not sure if they'd go down this road, but there is also a chance that he would be eligible at semester break. I doubt he is a guy that is going to do 4 years anyways, so maybe you bring him in at semester and let him get some conference games under his belt.

Being damn near 30 in a league of teenagers will help his cause. Hopefully he can keep the arthritis in check.

This is suboptimal. But a win by 1 or a win by 31 counts the same.

Bruce Zheng is sitting right behind the bench.

Javonte and Yuri weren't exactly high level recruits when they came here. I don't know if Javonte had any sort of other offers yet and Yuri was in the "garnering interest" category from higher level programs. When you get those type of guys, you're increasing their $$ every year based on their improvement. Any collective should plan to take some L's along the way. There is risk involved. Someone like Carteare may have received a sizable contract from a collective upon coming to SLU. He flames out before the new year and you can't put any clawback based on play or roster status. You could put something about appearances so if a guy is transferring out of the area or goes home, you might be able to hold some money back.

Collectives at a SLU level should be focused on retention efforts. Someone like Yuri - if he's making $75k here, is he really looking around that much if he's happy with his role and his money? Someone like Javonte - could $75k plus his room and board keep him around for his extra year? Collectives can help reduce the farm system effect.

Georgia Tech is Georgia Institute of Technology. Confusing to me the first time I saw it that way too. The collectives listed as charities have most likely not received official 501c3 certification from the IRS yet. They are operating in that way, but it will be interesting to see how that shakes out. Most of them are set up in the way that the collective pays the players to then make appearances or do charitable work. If you set it up that way and get your 501c3 rejected, it could lead to some of these bigger schools multiple collectives imploding. The IRS takes 6+ months to approve these things if they are of any relevant size. Of the 120 - the vast majority of them are football focused. There are very few basketball specific - Bradley, Dayton, Butler, Marquette are the only regional ones. Zaga, Arizona Assist, and a couple others throughout the rest of the country. Some of these bigger schools have already seen competing football collectives fold because 3 or 4 groups did their own thing instead of combining to make things easier and better.

I think you're correct on all points. Sliding scale is absolutely accurate. The 13th man on the roster isn't getting the same as the 1st. College players are pretty self aware of their rank on the team. Collectives can also make extra payments at the end of the year if a dude blew up throughout the year. Their name, image, and likeness is worth more when they're a starter on the team than when they were 13th man. $130k isn't going to cut it long term for a top 25 expectation but it would have been top 40 for this year. Getting out ahead of this is the most important part right now. Every day there isn't something setup is another day that a recruit and their dad are coming on campus asking the coaches what their son can expect in the NIL world. When a coach can say "Hey we have the Billiken Collective that is set up and they are paying every guy on the roster a base level amount" it can make a huge difference. $500k seems like a correct, but possibly high, number to me. That would give you a budget of 75k for 2 guys, 50k for 3 guys, 35k for your 6th/7th sots, and 30-10k for each of the remaining guys going down. You could also get a decent walk on like Hughes and give him some money as well. I don't think any coach wants a ton of playable guys on the roster, but will be interesting to see if they start trying to get an extra dude or two via walk-on/NIL collective type deals.

99.9% of guys aren’t getting 6 figure deals. A lot of schools will increasingly start diverting dollars to collectives. They will see that suggesting x% go to a collective will provide a good retention for donors and a “rising tide lifts all ships” return on the University side.

I already did.

It isn't rocket science to set this up. It is also the #1, 2, and 3 thing that recruits ask about nowadays. I know there have been some deals with players already but don't know if it has necessarily been through an official collective or just a few boosters doing what you said.

I'd trade Davidson's basketball results for SLU's over the last 20 years in a heartbeat.