by jlemmen43 » Wed Mar 30, 2022 6:45 pm
In real life, unless a small program is truly moving up the ranks (like Gonzaga did), it's still super risky for your athletic board to spend a ton more money than normal. For smaller schools,your margins are thinner. When a good coach suddenly sucks or suddenly gets crap for recruits, or is dominated by another rival in the conference, or your talent (staff and players) just leave for greener pastures/opportunites, you are left with disappointment to the fans and donors. and that can't just be fixed by endless money at a small school. So it makes sense that very few smaller schools keep their coaches or keep improving. Your best realistic hope is to do like Murray State did. I believe when a head coach left, a mentor stepped up into the head coach role, and on and on. Eventually they were ranked, then had Morant become a NBA star, and although I dont pay attention anymore, I did see at the Gym that Murray State had a high tournament seed for a mid major.
So for all that rambling, I think its pretty realistic to have a consistent program that isn't ready to take the plunge to stardom. Being a big fish in a small pond definitely has it's perks.