Found this article today that listed the operating budgets for B10 schools in regards to their WBB programs. Purdue is listed at #10 at 3.58 million, only above Illinois, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. This coming from the last BIG school to win a NC as a member of the conference. The top 5 teams who spend the most on their programs are Rutgers, Maryland, Michigan State, Iowa and IU, a team with absolutely ZERO, ZILTCH WBB history before a couple years ago. The school down south is spending roughly 600K more a year on their WBB program compared to Purdue.
I understand that Purdue has always been super financially conservative - especially with their athletic dept - considering that it is 100% self funded. But it really makes you understand perhaps why Purdue has fallen from grace and IU has emerged. Is Purdue, as an athletic department, fully and completely committed to making Purdue WBB a power again? I would say that there are signs where they are obviously not. Yes, KG came at them CHEAP, that's not a question. And obviously they are hoping at striking lightning in the bottle twice with a former alum (Painter), who came in as a young up and coming coach who will lead a program back to national prominence and be a coaching "lifer" and I hope they do. But that's not going to be enough as we are still going to need money to spend on our assistant coaches and recruiting budgets (especially now with recruiting becoming a 365 day ordeal thanks to the transfer portal) and I really don't think that money is there right now to put together an elite coaching staff.
The one thing I respected under Burke is that, while maybe he was a little too loyal to his coaches he hired, but he really made a point to support ALL the programs in the department. Bobinski sure seems to just want to pour everything in Football and then MBB and then let the other sports just kind of figure it out. It's worked so far for volleyball, thanks mostly to Shondell, but I just don't see it working with WBB. VB is going to be in trouble once Dave retires - which isn't too far off. There are schools out there pouring SO many more resources into their programs than Purdue is - and I think this fan base has to wake up a little from that national title day dream we've been in the last 20 years and look around at the reality - we are not playing the same game as many of the other schools.
This is just the B10, mind you, I can't imagine what the SEC schools are pouring into their WBB programs with all that football money they have.
I understand that Purdue has always been super financially conservative - especially with their athletic dept - considering that it is 100% self funded. But it really makes you understand perhaps why Purdue has fallen from grace and IU has emerged. Is Purdue, as an athletic department, fully and completely committed to making Purdue WBB a power again? I would say that there are signs where they are obviously not. Yes, KG came at them CHEAP, that's not a question. And obviously they are hoping at striking lightning in the bottle twice with a former alum (Painter), who came in as a young up and coming coach who will lead a program back to national prominence and be a coaching "lifer" and I hope they do. But that's not going to be enough as we are still going to need money to spend on our assistant coaches and recruiting budgets (especially now with recruiting becoming a 365 day ordeal thanks to the transfer portal) and I really don't think that money is there right now to put together an elite coaching staff.
The one thing I respected under Burke is that, while maybe he was a little too loyal to his coaches he hired, but he really made a point to support ALL the programs in the department. Bobinski sure seems to just want to pour everything in Football and then MBB and then let the other sports just kind of figure it out. It's worked so far for volleyball, thanks mostly to Shondell, but I just don't see it working with WBB. VB is going to be in trouble once Dave retires - which isn't too far off. There are schools out there pouring SO many more resources into their programs than Purdue is - and I think this fan base has to wake up a little from that national title day dream we've been in the last 20 years and look around at the reality - we are not playing the same game as many of the other schools.
This is just the B10, mind you, I can't imagine what the SEC schools are pouring into their WBB programs with all that football money they have.
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