The coach at Western Kentucky.

[dawgphd]

I'm too lazy to look up his name.

I recall a post elsewhere saying he only made $500,000.

 

[olblue.sixpack]

I'm too lazy to look up his name.

I recall a post elsewhere saying he only made $500,000.

Ray Harper. Everybody has their price, but I know him pretty well and if anybody would turn down better offers to stay at WKU, it would be him. It wouldn't be the first time.

He's won over 80% of his games (including something like 13-4 against Bruce Pearl) and 5 NCs (9 championship games). He's a great coach. If something were to happen with Kennedy, Bjork might call Ray before White.

But as I alluded to, he's pretty comfortable coaching a decent program 60 miles from where he grew up.

 

[dawgphd]

Ray Harper. Everybody has their price, but I know him pretty well and if anybody would turn down better offers to stay at WKU, it would be him. It wouldn't be the first time.

He's won over 80% of his games (including something like 13-4 against Bruce Pearl) and 5 NCs (9 championship games). He's a great coach. If something were to happen with Kennedy, Bjork might call Ray before White.

But as I alluded to, he's pretty comfortable coaching a decent program 60 miles from where he grew up.

I agree with you 100%.

I don't know Beeyork but we have a very close mutual friend. He says Harper would be Beeyork's first call without question.

Here's hoping $750,000-$1,000,000 extra a year will by enough trips back home if Stricklin calls Harper.

 

[olblue.sixpack]

I agree with you 100%.

I don't know Beeyork but we have a very close mutual friend. He says Harper would be Beeyork's first call without question.

Here's hoping $750,000-$1,000,000 extra a year will by enough trips back home if Stricklin calls Harper.

Ray is different than most coaches I know. He and his wife are both very comfortable in BG. He's not great with the media commitments, not a schmoozer or a self-promoter, but he is a dang good basketball coach. When he was at KWC, he went to the D2 NC game six straight years and turned the roster over 4 times.

When Bjork picked him to finish the season after McDonald was fired, he took a dumpster fire and made the NCAAT. He left Western with no choice but to hire him permanently.

Bjork would get pressure to pursue White, but he knows Ray would win there.

 

[Bulldogg31]

Why would we only pay $750K-$1M? Do that and we're gonna get what we've got.

Top hoops coaches are $1.5M plus these days, and $2M likely to get someone to move to Starkvilke and clean up this shiptile.

 

[dawgphd]

Why would we only pay $750K-$1M? Do that and we're gonna get what we've got.

My point was to make Harper turn down 750k-1mm MORE than he is making now. That would put us 1.25-1.5 range considering his current 500k salary.

 

[Bulldogg31]

Ah gotcha. We're on the same page then because it's gonna take $1.5-$2M per year to fix this last mistake.