Glad to hear that we’re giving Roussell the financial salary and financial resources that he deserves. Like Roussell referenced in the latest JOC article, all evidence points to us being fully committed to women’s basketball, as we should.
Roussell is getting recruits who are top 100 in the country, playing for team USA, likely going to WNBA. He is personally coaching team USA level and winning coach of year awards for conference and nationally (mid major coach of year). We are going to be nationally ranked, play top competition, win conference championships, and advance in the NCAA tournament. All of that can and is being done here and we haven’t reached our peak yet either.
I don’t doubt that Roussell will be offered a lot of money to coach at other schools. He is a phenomenal coach. What I’ll be disappointed in is if we don’t choose to match that salary. We can do it. It’s a matter of whether we choose to or not. Basketball is our flagship sport and when you have a generational talent coach like Roussell and achieve the success in women’s basketball that we all aspired to have, you do whatever it takes to maintain that. This is the one sport that we have to have the investment of a P5 school when we get a coach at this caliber or can be in a position to be nationally ranked every year. Any other sport (with the exception of men’s lacrosse) I get having our limits of paying a coach. But not when it comes to basketball. Give him the money he deserves. The recognition for our school and other ROI will be well worth it.