You are absolutely right about the athletics budget needing to increase. I am a vocal proponent of that. But bureaucratic incompetence would be spending down a penny of the endowment to pay for athletics. Loyola's endowment is large (thanks to the comeback engineered by Father Garanzini), but not nearly on the level with other schools in the region. Northwestern has 13x our endowment, Notre Dame has 11.3x, and U of Chicago has 10x. We're not even near the top among Jesuit schools-- Boston College has 3x what we have, Georgetown has 2.1x, Saint Louis has 1.5x, Santa Clara has 1.1x. Per student, we're even further down the list.

So don't even mention the endowment. Loyola should be able to really get some generous donations for the athletic department in the wake of this year's success, and I am reasonably sure season tickets and attendance will go up substantially next season. I hope that along with Coach Moser's large increase, there will be a similar increase in marketing, promotions, and growing the fanbase to sustain larger revenues. If you can't fundraise for athletics off what we all just saw over the past month, you can't call yourself a fundraiser.

I think the concern is next year if the success continues compared to this year. Do we really think he's going to take advantage of all this success to go to Rhode Island? Because that's the best opportunity left on the carousel. He'd be better served waiting until next year if he thinks he's got a great shot at the tourney (he does).

One other thing to take into consideration is, as much as I love Porter and appreciate what he’s done, you have to keep in mind that Porter isn’t a coach that has proven he can QUICKLY turn a program around to success; rather, he’s proven that if you give him 6-7 years, he can institute his system and get the guys he wants. Power 5 schools may not want that or be willing to afford him that opportunity.
As much as Porter doesn’t want to go backwards, I have a feeling some of the schools that would be willing to offer big money don’t want to wait 4 years for their return. I’m not knocking him for this. I’m glad we stuck with him and let his plan come to fruition.... but I also haven’t forgotten that the first few years we had him, he ran a ton of players out of the program and we got slaughtered the first three seasons. Schools might be willing to pay him big, but it’s not going to be on a seven-year contract.

Judging by the few interviews he’s given post-tournament, I think it’s fairly obvious what Porter wants: he wants to stay, but he wants commitment from Loyola to decide to be a “basketball school” just as Marquette and Xavier have done. It sounds like he’s not asking just for a better contract for HIM ONLY - he’s asking the school to buy all in on being a major player in college basketball. I say, good for him and as a fan, I hope he can convince the powers-that-be that it’s worth it.

And even if they gave him a seven-year contract, there's nothing to say they'll let him last that long (See also, ISU)

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Cigarboy sucks!

I just have to ask --- do you guys ever think that maybe just maybe -- he actually is a good coach and won't get fired from his next stop or from Loyola? I have not seen many people fade a final four coach to this degree.

Woah. Why are you being so defensive?

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Cigarboy sucks!

I can't see him ever being fired from Loyola, but it's certainly a risk if you go to a high level school. You don't get a 7 year leash everywhere.

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MBB Scholarship Chart

I am not sure with who you are trying to argue here....? You wont find anyone on this board that does not think Porter is a good coach (or that he will be fired from Loyola). No one is "fading" him.

I don't think it's necessarily anyone knocking him as a coach. It's more about the time it takes to build a program the right way. Moser's shown he's not going to cut corners and it takes time to really build and sell that culture. It's more of a knock on the impatience of many high major fans than anything else. Dude has proved he can coach.